On This Day in Aviation History

On This Day in Aviation History

1879 – Birth of Claude Grahame White, English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight; he founded Grahame-White Aviation Co.

1918 – First flight of the Nieuport-Delage NiD 29, a French single-seat biplane fighter.

1942 – U.S. Marine Corps Major John Lucian Smith (shown) scores the first aerial victory by a Henderson Field-based aircraft (Cactus Air Force), shooting down a Mitsubishi A6M Zero over Guadalcanal.

1972 – Death of Albert Achard, French World War I flying ace.

1998 – A Lumbini Airways de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 crashes in a mountainous region of Nepal, killing all 18.

2012 – Afghan insurgents fire rockets at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, damaging the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III of U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey while he is elsewhere on base. The damage forces Dempsey to use a different aircraft when he departs Afghanistan later that day.

Updated: August 21, 2014 — 4:38 PM
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