On This Day in Aviation History

On This Day in Aviation History

1888 – Birth of John Leacroft, British World War I fighter ace who also served in World War II.

1909 – As a joke to prove pigs could fly, British aviator John Moore-Brabazon put a small pig in a wastepaper basket tied to a wing strut of his Short Biplane No. 2; the flight may have been the first to haul live cargo.

1927 – Flying a Macchi M.52, Mario de Bernardi sets a new world airspeed record of 298 mph.

1932 – First flight of the Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing (shown above), an American bi-plane with an atypical negative stagger.

1988 – Death of Hermann Graf, German World War II fighter ace and the first pilot in aviation history to claim 200 aerial victories.

2008 – A Learjet 45, operated by the Mexican Interior Ministry, crashes in central Mexico City during rush-hour traffic; all eight aboard, including Mexican Secretary of the Interior Juan Camilo Mouriño, as well as seven people on the ground are killed. The Learjet apparently suffers violent wake turbulence caused by a larger jet; the smaller plane goes inverted into a nose-down attitude before impact.

Updated: November 4, 2013 — 2:01 PM
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