January 1

1978: 213 people died when an Air India Boeing 747 crashed and exploded into the sea near Bombay India. The crash was caused by instrument failure.

1991: 34 people were killed when a USAir Boeing 737 crashed on the runway of the Los Angeles, California airport.

1997: A Piper Cherokee clipped a tree and flipped over into a house while trying to land at the Florence, South Carolina airport. Two people on board were able to climb out with few injuries; the other two were seriously injured and hospitalized in critical condition.1999: In 1998, no passenger died in an accident involving a scheduled U.S. commercial airplane anywhere in the world. The 1998 numbers do not include the September 2nd crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia, which killed 229. While that flight departed from New York bound for Geneva, it did not involve a U.S. carrier. 598 people were killed in general aviation accidents in 1998, including crashes of private and corporate planes. 17 people were also killed in crashes of air taxis.

2000: The millennium computer bug could pose a problem from computers controlling airline guidance and navigation systems. As attorney Cathleen Judge warned, “I, for one, am not going to be in an airplane on New Year's Eve in 1999.”

January 2

1920: Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was born on this date. Although he wrote about flying in space and other technological marvels, Asimov himself refused to travel by airplane. Did he know something we don't?

1997: Reno, Nevada, experienced its worst flooding in 40 years, forcing the closing of its casinos, wedding chapels, government offices, the Mustang brothel, and the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

1997: The pilot and four passengers of a Cessna 210 died when their plane got caught in a snowstorm and crashed into Cuddy Mountain near Council, Idaho. The four passengers were vacationers who had been stranded in McCall, Idaho, because of flooding.

1997: A twin-engine Piper Aerostar crashed into the Great Dismal Swamp shortly after taking off from the Chesapeake, Virginia airport. All four people aboard the plane were killed.

1999: A single-engine Beechcraft Sierra propeller plane crash landed in a cemetary near Republic Airport outside of East Farmingdale, New York. The pilot and passenger were unhurt but a few gravestones were knocked over.

January 3

1994: When its engine caught fire, a Baikal Air Tupolev-154 plane crashed near Mamony, Siberia. All 124 people aboard were killed. In addition, a farmer on the ground was killed.

1996: A USAir jet bound for Greensboro, North Carolina, had to make an unscheduled landing in Imperial, Pennsylvania, after the pilot noticed that one of the landing wheels was missing. No one was injured in the landing.

1997: A US Air Boeing 757 reported a loss in power in its two engines shortly after leaving Charlotte, North Carolina. The plane returned to the airport without incident.

2004: An Egyptian Boeing 737 carrying 148 French tourists on family holidays crashed into the Red Sea shortly after taking off from the Sharm el-Sheikh airport. The plane, operated by the Flash Airlines charter company, crashed into deep waters. All people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

January 4

1989: U.S. jet fighters shot down two Libyan planes over the Mediterranean Sea.

1996: Because of a mix-up in flight numbers (two aircraft with the same flight numbers), a Delta jet crossed a runway as it got ready to take off from JFK Airport in New York. The Delta jet crossed in front of an American airliner that was just landing. The two jets came within 1,500 feet of each other. No injuries resulted.

1997: Fifty years after he was shot down over Nazi Germany, the body of American airman Roger True Lane was returned home to be buried (after his bones were discovered by two young Germans looking for metal in a field). He was shot down on December 24, 1944.

January 5

1989: Two French TV journalists were arrested while trying to plant fake bombs on three different airlines at JFK Airport during a security test.

1995: A British Airways Boeing 737 had a close encounter with a brightly lit wedge-shaped craft as it was approaching the airport at Manchester, England. The mysterious craft came within yards of the 737 then veered toward the right side of the plane and disappeared. Air traffic control at the airport reported seeing only one plane in the air at the time -- the Boeing 737.

1996: Six people were indicted on federal charges of trafficking in used and unsafe parts for commercial aircraft. Some of those parts may have made their way into aircraft that was still flying.

1997: The pilot and two passengers were injured when a sightseeing tour plane lost power and crash landed near a Bullhead City, Arizona highway.

1998: American millionaire Steve Fossett abandoned his third attempt to become the first man to fly round the world non-stop in a balloon and landed safely in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar.

1998: Northwest Airlines had to cancel about 100 flights out of the Detroit, Michigan airport when its crews had trouble getting to the airport after a foot of snow fell within 24 hours.

January 6

1960: A National Airlines DC-6B airplane disintegrated at 18,000 feet (above Wilmington, North Carolina) while on a flight from New York to Miami. All 34 people aboard the plane were killed. The explosion was caused by a dynamite bomb, probably brought on board by a passenger who had purchased a large amount of life insurance (and was, thus, suspected of using the bomb to commit suicide).

1996: Because of a power outage from 6:55 a.m. to 7:20 a.m., the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Auburn, Washington, lost contact with planes in its air space, causing delays in takeoffs and landings throughout the Pacific Northwest.

1996: As many as 1,000 people were killed when a Russian-built Antonov crashed into a crowded market at the end of the runway near Knishasa airport.

1998: An American Airlines employee fractured his ribs when the luggage cart he was driving ran into the undercarriage and landing gear of a Boeing 727 that was taxiing toward the runway before takeoff. The driver fell out of his car and was hit by the wheels of the plane.

1998: D.K. Ulrich, a Winston Cup driver, escaped injury when his Cessna Citation 500 jet overshot a runway and crashed into a mobile home park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had been attempting to land in heavy fog at the Allegheny County Airport when he lost control of the jet as it landed on the wet runway. One mobile home went up in flames, forcing its occupants to flee for their lives. One of the passengers in the jet experienced broken bones, while the other escaped uninjured.

1999: A Beechcraft Baron BE-58 twin-engine plane crashed near Yamhill, Oregon after narrowly missing a farmhouse. All four people aboard the plane were killed.

January 7

1911: The first bombing experiments from an airplane were carried out near San Francisco, California.

1972: 104 people die when an Iberian Airlines jet crashed into a mountain on the island of Ibiza.

1989: A British Midland Boeing 737 crashed on the Motorway outside London.

1996: A ValuJet DC-9 bounced on landing at the Nashville airport but landed safely on its second attempt. None of the 88 passengers were injured in the incident. The accident occurred because the crew restored circuit breakers before landing that caused the plane's ground spoilers to be deployed which, in turn, caused the plane to suddenly lose altitude.

1997: Robert Martin, an American pilot who sprayed herbicides on Amazon jungle coca fields in Colombia, died in the crash of his T-65 Turbo Thrush airplane.

1997: A Minnesota Air National Guard F-16 jet fighter disappeared from radar and was missing while training with three other jets. The other jets couldn't find the one jet because it was too dark that night.

1997: An American Airlines A-300 Airbus jetliner ran into turbulence as it was flying from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia. As a result, they were forced to make an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport near New York. Four flight attendants and two passengers were hurt in the turbulence. Several flight attendants hit the ceiling as the plane was thrown up and down by the turbulence.

1997: A Bosnian pulled a knife and hijacked an Austrian Airlines MD-87 jet and forced the plane to land in Berlin. The hijacker was successfully subdued after the plane landed. No passenger or crew were injured in the attempt.

1998: Two Air Force pilots escaped serious injury when their F-16s collided during a six-plane intercept training mission at the Hill Air Force Base. One pilot was able to land his plane at Michaels Army Air Field, but the other pilot had to eject before his plane crashed.

1998: Two jets, an American Airlines Boeing 767 and a Delta MD-80 nearly collided over Kennedy Airport during heavy fog as a result of a mistake made by an air traffic controller. The planes were within 100 feet vertically and a half mile laterally at their nearest point.

1999: Shortly after taking off from Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona, an F-16 jet fighter crashed. Both pilots ejected safely, but a truck driver on the ground suffered minor injuries when one of the jettisoned fuel tanks hit his pickup. The pilots had ejected two fuel tanks in an attempt to keep the jet airborne.

January 8

1996: A cargo plane crashed into a crowded market in the center of Kinshasa, Zaire. 350 people were killed (mostly women and children), although four Russian crew members did survive the crash as well as a lynch mob that tried to attack them later.

1996: A USAir F-28 jet bound for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, lost cabin pressure and had to make an unscheduled landing at the Charleston, West Virginia airport. No one was hurt.

1997: Richard Bransen and two others had to give up their attempt to fly around the world in a balloon when their balloon crashed in the Sahara Desert on the first day of their flight.

1998: A low-flying Russian military Mi-8 helicopter struck a petrol tanker not far from the Dzhida Airfield near the border with Mongolia but there were no serious injuries.

1998: A pilot ejected safely from his F-16C shortly before it crashed at the Utah Test and Training Range during a simulated bombing run. His jet experienced "some type of catastrophic failure."

1998: The Federal Aviation Administration ordered commercial airlines to check as many as 200 boeing 737s to see if they have been flying with bolts missing from their tails. The concern was prompted by the inspection of a Boeing 737 that had crashed.

2003: A Turkish Airlines British Aerospace RJ 100 passenger jet crashed on approach to the Diyarbakir Airport in Turkey during heavy fog. It landed 40 yards short of the runway. 75 people were killed in the crash. Amazingly, five people escaped without serious injury.

2003: A US Airways Express Beech 1900D turboprop commuter plane crashed and exploded shortly after taking off from Charlotte Douglas Airport in North Carolina. All 21 people aboard were killed. The plane may have lost an engine as it took off, causing it to flip over, and dive to the ground where it clipped a hangar and burst into flames. The crash was the first to involve deaths aboard a passenger or cargo airliner in the U.S. in more than a year. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it was the third time in a decade that a year went by without a fatality on a commercial plane.

January 9

1995: Newark International Airport was crippled for several hours after construction workers drove two 60-foot steel beams through the main power conduit.

1996: An Aeromed Cessna 401 air ambulance crashed after striking a wooden power pole about a mile southeast of the Spokane, Washington airport. Two crew members and a patient were killed in the crash; one crew member survived.

1997: An American Airlines DC-10 dropped about 300 feet after hitting turbulence over the Pacific Ocean. Ten people were injured, including six who required hospitalization. The pilot made an emergency landing in San Francisco to take care of the injured.

1997: A Comair USA twin engine Embraer EMB-120 turboprop airplane crashed as it approached the Detroit, Michigan airport (probably as the result of icing on the wings and/or propellers). 29 people were killed in the crash. Maureen DeMarco, one of the passengers, was going to attend the funeral of her brother, Brian Scully, who had been killed in a cargo plane crash on December 22nd. Two other passengers were a woman and her 9-month-old son who had been sent tickets by her airman husband to come and visit him up in Alaska.

1998: Richard Graff, co-founder of the American Food and Wine Institute, died when his Cessna crashed into a power pole and greenhouse as he was attempting to land at the Salinas Airport. The plane burst into flames upon crashing.

1998: A Southwest Boeing 737 and two smaller commuter planes almost collided when their radar blips merged into one on radar screens when a proximity locator on one of the planes malfunctioned.

January 10

1997: A small twin-engine commuter plane got up to several hundred feet on taking off from the Bangor, Maine airport before stalling and bumping down on the icy runway. Two out of the eleven people aboard the plane were injured.

1998: A Costa Rican Lacsa jetliner veered off the runway at San Francisco International Airport as it was taking off at full speed. It blew an engine and a tire before coming to rest in a field of mud. No one was hurt in the late night incident. The runway had to be closed for a time, which caused delays of several other international flights.

1998: The nose wheel tire of an Indian Airlines jet burst as the plane landed in Bangalore. No one was hurt in the incident, but the runway had to be closed for some time, thus delaying many in-coming and out-going flights.

1999: A Malaysia Airlines captain aborted a flight to Perth, Australia, and returned to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur after a rat was spotted on board.

January 11

1945: Four Soviet pilots, who were aboard an American PBY Catalina airplane when it crashed near Nixonton, North Carolina, may have survived the crash and chosen to defect. There are no records of their burial.

1995: A Columbian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near Cartagena, Columbia. 52 people died in the crash but a 9-year-old girl survived the crash. Her mother had thrown her out of the plane and she had landed on a thick cushion of water lilies.

1996: A single engine plane disappeared on a flight from Longmont, Colorado, to Page, Arizona.

January 12

1953: 14 American servicemen were captured when their B-29 was shot down over China's border with North Korea. Washington was eventually able to negotiate their release.

1996: A Valujet DC-9 slid on ice into a snowbank after landing at the Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC. Nobody aboard was hurt.

1996: While searching for a missing plane, rescuers discovered another single-engine plane, operated by Kempton Air Service, which had landed on top of the 11,000 foot Grand Mesa near Rifle, Colorado. One passenger received minor cuts when the Piper Cherokee was forced to land atop the mesa.

January 13

1969: An SAS DC-8 crashed when the pilots got distracted while approaching the Los Angeles, California airport. 14 people were killed.

1982: An Air Florida Boeing 737 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington DC, as it tried to take off from National Airport during a snowstorm. After crashing into the bridge, the plane fell into the Potomac River. 78 people were killed in the accident.

1995: Two F-14 jets from the Miramar Naval Air Station crashed into the Pacific Ocean 60 miles southwest of San Diego. All four crew people were rescued.

1997: Two people were killed when their small plane crashed during a snowstorm in the Black Mountain area of Riverside, California, 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

1998: An Afghan transport plane crashed in southwestern Pakistan. 51 people died in the crash.

January 14

1969: Twenty-five crew members of the U.S. aircraft carrier "Enterprise" died during maneuvers.

1997: A Delta Airlines jet slid off a snow-covered tarmac at the Salt Lake City, Utah airport. No one was injured in the incident.

January 15

1996: A Navy Hornet crashed near El Centro, California when its landing gear failed to operate properly. No one was injured in the crash.

1996: A corporate Mitsubishi MU-2B jet carrying four Coca-Cola bottling executives crashed and burned in a canyon near Malad City, Idaho. All eight people aboard were killed in the crash.

1997: A Sierra Pacific airplane carrying the Purdue basketball team was caught in a winter storm at the Purdue University Airport in West Lafayette, Indiana. While taxiing from the airport terminal in heavy blowing snow, the pilot lost sight of the runway and the plane slid off the tarmac onto the grass and into a snowbank. No one was injured in the incident. The Purdue team deboarded and went to practice while the plane was dug out and readied again for departure.

January 16

1942: Actress Carole Lombard and 21 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, Nevada, as they were returning from a war-bond promotion tour. Carole's death was the first war-related female casualty that the U.S. suffered during World War II. Carole, 33, was best known for such comedies as Nothing Sacred.

1996: While landing off the west coast of Jamaica, musician Jimmy Buffett's seaplane was shot at by police who mistook the plane for one owned by drug traffickers.

1996: The tail stairwell door on a TWA Boeing 727 passenger jet dropped open during flight. Tied to a rope, a crew member reached down and pulled the door close. No one was hurt during the incident.

January 17

1966: A U.S. Air Force B-52 crashed on the Spanish coast after a refueling accident in the air. Four hydrogen bombs fell from the plane, and two of them spilled plutonium over the Palomares area of Spain.

1991: During the Gulf War, Jeffrey Zahn became the first U.S. pilot to be shot down over Iraq.

1996: Two Navy FA-18 jet fighters collided over the desert near Fallon, Nevada. One pilot was killed; the other successfully ejected and survived with minor injuries. Pilot error caused the crash.

1996: Ibrahim Abacha, the eldest son of Nigeria's military ruler, and 14 others were killed when their HS-125 jet crashed in Nigeria.

1997: A small Piper Cherokee crashed into the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee after the pilot and his 71-year-old mother both passed out from carbon monoxide due to a leaky engine. Both died.

January 18

1969: When an engine fire caused the loss of electricals, a United Airlines Boeing 727 crashed on approaching the Los Angeles Airport. 38 people died.

1991: Because of financial problems, Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years of business.

1995: An ABC Prime Time live segment reported on the dangers of tourist helicopter excursions and raised disturbing questions about the federal government's supervision of sightseeing helicopter companies.

1995: ValuJet maintenance procedure continued to be very weak. According to FAA inspectors, "emergency floor lighting was coming up from the floor with exposed wires in aisle."

1997: A chartered ATL Antilles Airlines flight to Bonaire, an island off Venezuela, was forced to turn back when the cabin filled with smoke shortly after taking off from the Atlanta, Georgia airport. The pilot aborted a second takeoff attempt later due to more smoke. No one was hurt in the incident.

January 19

1995: An X-31 experimental aircraft went out of control and crashed. Apparently an accumulation of ice in or on the unheated pitot-static system of the aircraft provided false airspeed information to the flight control computers thus causing the aircraft to go out of control.

1997: An Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jet crashed in South Israel. The pilot and navigator ejected safely.

January 20

1996: An Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet crashed near Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. No one was hurt in the crash.

1997: After hitting a flock of storkcs, an Israeli Air Force F-15 crashed into a cow shed at Kibbutz Revivim. The crew were able to bail out before the jet crashed.

1998: A Beachcraft Baron carrying former Governor Lamar Alexander and three other people was forced to make an emergency landing at Richmond International Airport in Virginia when the crew heard a banging sound in the landing gear which would not deploy.

1999: A Continental Airlines jetliner flying from Tokyo to Honolulu hit severe turbulence, injuring 18 passengers and four flight attendants.

1999: A single-engine Cessna 210 lost a wing and crashed on Sandia Peak outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Three people were killed in the crash.

1999: An Air Force A-10 jet fighter crashed in a gigantic fireball after screaming over the rooftops of homes near Kasoag Lake, 30 miles north of Syracuse, New York. The pilot was able to eject before the jet hit the ground.

January 21

1969: A B-52 crashed shortly after taking off from the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The crew had take the plane aloft to check on mechanical difficulties that had been reported on that plane. All six crew men died in the crash, including Major Byron D. Edmonds, the pilot. The crew had recently returned from the Vietnam War only to die in a domestic accident.

January 22

1952: Former Secretary of War Robert Patterson as well 29 others were killed when an airliner hit apartments at Elizabeth, New Jersey. Seven people died on the ground.

1973: A chartered Boeing 707 burst into flames while landing at the Kano Airport in Nigeria. 176 people died, including 5 crew members and 171 Nigerian Moslems returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca.

1997: A jazz club owner was kicked off a plane to Israel after complaining to TWA personnel about a smoking ban on the 11-hour flight. As a result, he arrived three days late to Tel Aviv to visit his dying father, who had by that time lapsed into a coma. He later sued the airline for delaying his arrival.

1997: A Nihon Transocean Air Boeing 737 jet aborted its takeoff at Naha airport in Japan when it experienced engine trouble (unusual vibrations, engine fire, and parts of the engine falling on the runway). No one was injured in the incident.

January 23

1973: A Jordan Air passenger jet crashed at Kano, Nigeria, killing 176 Moslem pilgrims.

1982: A World Airways DC-10 skidded at Boston's Logan Airport when landing in icy weather. Two passengers died in the accident.

1996: Two helicopters pilots from Norfolk, Virginia, were arrested in downtown Naples after accosting a woman and stealing her purse. They claimed to have been entrapped by the woman and her male companion.

1997: A helicopter hit the top of a 300-foot radio tower and crashed into the everglades. All four aboard the copter were killed in the crash.

January 24

1966: 117 people died when an Air India Boeing 707 jet crashed on Mont Blanc near the border between France and Italy.

1997: When a passenger discovered a bomb threat note on the plane, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flight from New Orleans to Orlando had to make an unscheduled stop at the Pensacola Regional Airport. No bomb was found. No one was injured.

January 25

1985: An open engine compartment door caused a Galaxy Electra to crash on taking off from the Reno, Nevada airport. 70 people died in the crash.

1990: When an Avianca Boeing 707 ran out of fuel as it approached New York City, it crashed at Cove Neck, New York. 73 of the 159 people aboard were killed.

January 26

1972: Stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell out of an airplane after it exploded in mid-air and survived a 10,160 meter fall without a parachute. See The Free Fall Research page for more details: http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html.

1996: A USAir airplane was powering up to leave the airport when its right engine caught fire. No one was hurt.

January 27

1996: While landing in the rain, two commuter jets skidded off a runway at the Hartsfield Atlanta Airport and got stuck in the mud. A ValuJet DC-9 ended up mired in the mud about 50 feet beyond the end of the runway, while an Atlantic Southwest jet skidded off the side of the runway. No passengers were hurt.

January 28

1986: Astronauts Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael Smith, Gregory Jarvis, and Francis Scobee were killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded within seconds after its launch. Also killed was Christa McAuliffe (38), a teacher who was going aboard as a civilian. The explosion was caused by a defective O ring which allowed fuel to leak and ignite.

1994: The Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. was closed for several hours after a ValuJet airliner slid off an icy runway and skidded into the grassy area. No passengers were hurt.

1998: Air Force One got stuck in the mud while preparing to taxi up a runway in Illinois.

January 29

1953: Five Americans were shot down in their B-29 bomber during the Korean War. None of them were ever seen again, although there had been news that they were alive but captured by the North Koreans.

1997: The nose gear of an Air China jumbo jet broke as the plane was taxiing to the terminal at Kennedy International Airport just moments after landing. When the nose gear broke, the plane skidded off the runway and into the muddy strip between the landing runways. No one was injured in the incident.

1998: One soldier was killed while taking part in the Big Drop training exercise near Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During the exercise, 2,900 paratroopers jumped at the same time, thus making the exercise one of the biggest parachute drops since World War II.

2000: One of the engines shut down as a Concorde jet approached Heathrow airport near London, England. The plane landed safely.

2002: 92 people were killed when a Boeing 727 operated by Ecuadorean TAME airline crashed in mountains in Columbia.

January 30

1911: The destroyer "Terry" made the first water recovery of a downed pilot when James McCurdy was forced to land his plane in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.

1974: A Pan Am Boeing 707 crashed on Pago Pago due to windshear. 94 people died.

1996: An F-14 Tomcat fighter crashed just after taking off from the Nashville Airport. The pilot and his partner were killed as well as three people who lived in the house that the plane crashed into. It was the 30th crash of an F-14 since 1991.

2000: For the second time in two days, a supersonic Concorde airliner had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport outside London, England. A cockpit alarm had warned of a fire in the rear cargo hold, but after the plane landed engineers were unable to find any problems.

2000: A Kenyan Airways Airbus 310 crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from the airport at Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ten of the 179 people on board the plane were fished out alive from the Atlantic Ocean. The rest died.

January 31

1957: During the final test flight of the new Douglas DC-7B airliner over the San Fernando Valley, the plane ran almost head-on into a U.S. Air Force F-89J Scorpion jet fighter which was on a similar test flight. The pilot of the Air Force jet died as the aircraft plummeted into La Tuna Canyon in the Verdugo Mountains. Having lost its left wing, the DC-7B went into a high speed dive, began breaking up about 700 feet about the ground, and crashed into a Pacoima, California churchyard, killing all four crew members. The plane exploded into hundreds of flaming pieces that flew across the adjacent junior high school playground where three students were killed and 74 more injured.

1996: A power loss at Pittsburgh International Airport caused radar screens at the control tower to go blank and for lights, telephones, and radios to fail for six minutes.

2000: An Alaska Airlines MD-80 jet carrying 88 people crashed on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to San Francisco, California. It went down near Anacapa Island 20 miles off shore of Los Angeles. No one survived the crash. Pilots reported problems with the stabilizer trim and asked to be diverted to Los Angeles shortly before the plane plummeted into the ocean.

February 1

1966: Nicholas Piantanida died during his descent after setting a new balloon flight record.

1991: A USAir Boeing 737 jet landed on top of a mis-placed Skywest Farchild Metroliner commuter plane on a runway at the Los Angeles International Airport. 34 people died in the incident; 24 others were injured.

1996: As it landed at the Nashville Airport, a ValuJet DC-9 jet blew the two right main-gear tires. The jet's right wing came to rest on the runway, but all 75 passengers were safely evacuated.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration began a new FAA policy to make public enforcement actions in the safety and security area that seek civil penalties of $50,000 or more as well as major regulatory actions such as the revocation of flying certificates.

1997: A father, mother, and 1-year-old daughter died when their small plane crashed on a glacier south of Mount Mckinley, Alaska. They ran out of fuel after getting lost.

1998: An Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the mountains of Colorado during a routine training mission. All six soldiers aboard were rescued, two with serious injuries.

February 2

1962: Sixteen people died when a C-130 military transport crashed on the north side of Evansville, Indiana. Five crew members of the Kentucky Air National Guard airplane plus eleven people on the ground were killed.

1997: A Northwest Airlines DC-9 jetliner skidded off the runway and into a snowbank at Grand Forks International Airport as it landed. No one was injured in the incident, but two passengers were hurt when they slid on the tarmac as they walked to the terminal.

1998: A Philippines Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 jetliner crashed into a mountain while on a flight from Manila to the southern Mindanao Island. 104 people were aboard the plane when it crashed. Everyone died.

February 3

1959: The Day The Music Died. Rock Hall of Famers Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), and Ritchie Valens as well as the pilot died when their plane crashed just outside Clear Lake, Iowa, during a stormy winter night. Holly, 22, was famous for many hits including "Peggy Sue." The Big Bopper, 29, had one big hit, "Chantilly Lace." And Valens, 18, was best known for his hit, "La Bamba."

1998: A TVA helicopter stringing an electric power line struck and killed a worker on a 100-foot-tall utility pole. The helicopter then fell to the ground and crashed, thus killing two others, a pilot and a utility worker. Two others in the helicopter survived the crash, one in critical condition.

1998: Three mortar shells fired from a Holiday Inn parking lot struck a car park in front of the cargo area of Narita International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. One airport worker was wounded in the attack. As a result, security for the Winter Olympics in Nagano was tightened. Note that most foreign athletes arriving for the games came through the airport.

1998: Twenty skiers were killed when a U.S. military plane on a training mission hit cable car lines at the Cermis ski resort in northeast Italy. The skiers had been traveling up the mountain in a cable car which plunged 650 feet when the cable line was severed by the plane. It was the second worst cable car accident on record. No one on the ground or in the plane were hurt in the incident.

2005: Kam Air Boeing 737 flight crashes during heavy snowstorms on a high mountainside near the Afghan capital of Kabul. All 104 people on board are killed.

February 4

1966: When the All-Nippon Airways 727 crashed near the Haneda Airport in Japan, 133 people were killed.

1996: 22 people were killed when a Colombian cargo plane caught fire shortly after taking off from the Asuncion Airport in Paraguay and crashed into a suburban neighborhood. Among the people killed were seven children playing volleyball. Seven houses were destroyed in the crash.

1996: When, in November 1991, a passenger began having a heart attack over the Atlantic Ocean, Lufthansa airlines continued on to Frankfurt, Germany, rather than returning to the states to allow the passenger, Leonard Krys, to get proper medical attention. Krys was healthy when the flight took off from Miami, Florida, but began having severe chest pains as the airplane was passing over the coast of Georgia. On February 4, 1996, a judge ruled that Lufthansa pay $2.7 million in damages to Krys, who had suffered permanent damage to his heart as a result of the attack.

1997: Two airmen were injured after ejecting from an Air Force F-16D jet fighter when their attempt to make an emergency landing at a small airstrip failed.

1997: 73 Israeli soldiers were killed when two CH-53 military helicopters collided as they flew into the south Lebanon buffer zone.

February 5

1918: Stephen Thompson became the first American pilot to down an enemy airplane.

1982: Laker Airways went bankrupt, owing $351 million.

1996: A Delta Air Lines 757 passenger jet slid off an icy taxiway at the Portland Airport. While the runway was closed for several hours, thus delaying many flights, no people were hurt during the incident.

1997: Two National Guard F-16 jets flew so close to a Nations Air jetliner that they set off its proximity alarm, thus causing the pilot to take evasive action twice, once diving 4,000 feet, then rising 4,000 feet. Two days later there was another incident involving four Guard jets coming close to another commercial airliner.

February 6

1958: Seven members of the Manchester United soccer team died in an airplane crash.

1992: A Lockhead C-130 military transport on training maneuvers crashed into the rear of a restaurant and hotel in Evansville, Indiana. Sixteen people were killed, including five crew members and eleven people on the ground. It was the second time in 4 1/2 years that a military plane crashed into an Indiana hotel.

1994: Army Sgt. First Class Dana Bowman lost his legs as he hit his partner Jose Aguillon while they were practicing a skydiving trick known as the Diamond Track. Aguillon died of massive internal injuries as a result of the mid-air collision above Yuma, Arizona.

1996: Two Picassos and a Pissarro worth $15 million were stolen from a storage area at Kennedy Airport while being stored overnight before being released by customs.

1996: After failing to gain enough altitude, a Cessna 500 Citation smashed into a mountain near Ensenada, Mexico. Six Baja California state officials and two pilots were killed in the crash.

1996: An American Trans Air Boeing 727 carrying 180 people had to be evacuated after an auxiliary power unit began smoking as the plane left the boarding gate at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport. No one was injured.

1996: A chartered 757 jetliner carrying German tourists crashed into shark-infested waters off the Dominican Republic. 189 people died in the crash.

1997: Quick thinking, used coffee, soda, and urine helped to save a small plane after its hydraulic fluid leaked out. Three golfers on their way from Ogden, Utah, to Mesquite, Nevada, discovered that their landing gear wouldn't work and so returned to the Ogden airport. A controller at the airport suggested that they find the hydraulic fuel reservoir and dump in any liquid they could find. After pouring in some coffee and soda, the hydraulics still wouldn't work. But, after passing a cup around, the men gathered enough pee to complete filling the reservoir. After landing safely, the men jumped out of the plane and kissed the ground.

1998: Two U.S. Marine F-18 jet fighters collided in mid-air and crashed into the Persian Gulf as they were returning to the aircraft carrier George Washington. One of the two pilots was killed.

February 7

1997: Four National Guard fighter jets flew past an American Eagle civilian aircraft flying near Maryland, the second narrow incident between National Guard jets and civilian aircraft in several days.

1997: Two Air Force F-16 jets, flying out of a military training area without authorization, came too close to an American Airlines passenger jet over the skies of Clovis, New Mexico.

1997: An Air Force F-16 jet flew too close to a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger jet near Palacios, Texas. This fourth incident in three days caused the Air Force to suspend all training flights over the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.

1997: A small twin-engine plane crashed on a long, par 5 hole at a golf course near the 20th Century Fox studios where O.J. Simpson was playing golf. The two people aboard the plane were injured in the crash which crumpled the nose and right wing of the plane.

February 8

1965: When an Eastern DC-7B crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Jones Beach, New Jersey, 84 people were killed.

1989: 144 people were killed when a chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists crashed in the Azores.

1993: An Iran Air Tours chartered Tupolev aircraft crashed after colliding with a Sukhoi military plane over Tehran, Iran. All 132 passengers and crew on the charter were killed; so, too, were the pilot and co-pilot of the military plane.

1996: Navy fighter pilot Richard Ryon was killed when his F-5E jet crashed in the Nevada dessert.

1996: The 1996 Aviation Safety Plan was announced. This plan was designed to prevent air accidents by having federal regulators and the aviation industry cooperate in gathering information and improve training.

1997: Two people died when an Air Sunshine commuter plane crashed in the Virgin Islands.

February 9

1992: A Gambian Convair 640 chartered by Club Mediterranean crashed minutes before landing at Cap Skirring in Senegal. 30 people were killed and 26 wounded in the accident.

1997: A Marine F/A-18 Delta Hornet jet crashed into the Yellow Sea near Osan, Korea. The two crew members were lost at sea.

1998: The pilot of a United Airlines jetliner avoided hitting a Southwest Airlines plane by hitting the brakes at 160 mph and swerving to a taxiway at Ontario International Airport in California. No one was hurt in the incident, but the United flight was cancelled. The Southwest flight took off as scheduled.

February 10

1998: A man was arrested after a 10-year-old boy sought help from another passenger when the man began fondling him. About 30 minutes into an America West flight from Phoenix to Atlanta, the man approached the boy, sat down next to him (the boy's parents were seated elsewhere in the plane), and began to fondle the boy. The man was arrested shortly after the plane landed and was charged with a federal crime since the incident occurred on a plane.

February 11

1993: An Ethiopian student hijacked a Lufthansa airliner and forced it to fly to New York City. He surrendered peacefully once in the United States.

1996: An Aerocommander AC-50 twin-engine airplane crashed into a marsh near Manati, Puerto Rico. Three people died in the crash.

1998: The pilot of a Beechcraft Bonanza was killed when it collided with a National Guard helicopter that was returning to Stockton after aiding flood victims in Monterey. The accident occurred in a rugged area southeast of San Jose, California.

1998: A Continental Boeing 727 jet nearly collided with a Northwest DC-9 as it was about to take off from the Newark Airport in New Jersey. The Northwest plane had stopped with its tail still hanging over the runway when the Continental jet had been cleared for takeoff. Only an alert Continental pilot who aborted the takeoff saved the two planes from colliding.

1999: A Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 was preparing to take off from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when it knocked over a de-icing truck, injuring one worker. The truck driver was not hurt.

February 12

1963: A Northwest 720 was thrown off by windshear as it climbed out from the Miami, Florida airport. 43 people died in the crash.

1994: The captain of a ValuJet allowed his aircraft to descend through the assigned altitude of 12,000 feet. Later, he did the same thing at 7,000 feet. An FAA inspector on board at the time had to remind the pilots that they were not following procedure.

1996: A Haiti Air Express airplane crashed as it took off from the Port-au-Prince airport. At least 9 of the 14 people aboard were killed in the crash.

1998: When fire broke out in an engine on a Delta Airlines jet at Ronald Reagon Washington National Airport, all passengers were evacuated down the plane's emergency chute. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: A man rented a small airplane in Chicago and flew it to Tampico, Mexico where he abandoned the plane before proceeding on the ground into Honduras. Later, on March 21st, the man was captured in Honduras and turned over to U.S. authorities.

2002: An Iran Air Tupolev 154 crashed in the mountains of west Iran, killing all 117 people aboard the plane.

February 13

February 14

1975: Congressman Jerry Pettis died in a plane crash.

1997: Five people died in a small airplane crash near Farmington, New Mexico.

1998: Minor Judson "Buddy" Ward, former president of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, died when his single-engine Piper struck power lines and crashed in a grapefruit grove west of St. Lucie, Florida.

February 15

1961: The entire U.S. figure skating team of 18 died when a Belgian Sabena 707 crashed near Brussels. 72 passengers were killed as well as a farmer on the ground.

1970: When a Dominican DC-9 crashed into the sea after taking off from the Santo Domingo airport, 102 people died.

1996: When a Turkish military helicopter crashed into the Aegean Sea, at least nine men were injured.

February 16

1914: The first airplane flight took off between Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.

1995: A Marine Corps captain was killed in a training accident when his AB-8B Harrier jump-jet crashed in eastern North Carolina near the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. It was the third crash of a Cherry Point-based Harrier in six months.

1998: A Taiwanese China Airlines Airbus A-300 crashed in fog at Taipei's airport. All 196 people aboard the plane were killed, plus seven people on the ground. The crash set homes afire, injuring a number of people.

February 17

1953: During the Korean War, baseball great Ted Williams was shot down over Korea. While his plane crashed, he escaped without injury.

1997: Just after a Continental Airlines jet landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, its nose gear collapsed. None of the 146 people aboard the plane were hurt in the incident. The airport closed for about 11 minutes to remove the plane and passengers before resuming landings.

1998: Two flight attendants were injured when a Delta jetliner hit rough air shortly before landing at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania. None of the passengers were hurt.

1998: Members of the British rock band Oasis smoked, swore, and threw objects at passengers during a Cathay Pacific flight Hong Kong, China to Perth, Australia. The drunken band members refused to stop smoking when requested by flight attendants, and their bad behavior continued throughout the seven-and-a-half hour flight.

1998: Stuart Matthews, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, announced that unless major improvements are made in aviation safety within the next fifteen years, a major air disaster could occur every week. As he said, "The often quoted 'one major accident a week somewhere in the world' is certainly a very real possibility."

February 18

1994: A China Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was hijacked to Taiwan by businessman Lin Wenqiang. Lin, who brought along his foster mother, his wife and two sons, was sentenced to nine years in jail in Taiwan.

1996: An F-14D Tomcat jet fighter crashed into the Pacific Ocean during routine flight exercises off the southern California coast. Two crew members were killed in the crash.

1998: For the first time ever, an onboard defibrillator was used aboard a domestic U.S. flight to save a passenger's life. Although the American Airlines jet was still at the gate, the man could easily have died if a defibrillator had not been immediately available. Robert Giggey, the passenger, had dashed to make his flight, then collapsed onboard the plane before it took off.

1998: An Air Force B-1B bomber crashed in rural western Kentucky during a routine training mission. All four crew members aboard the plane survived by bailing out just before the plane crashed in a ball of fire. The resulting debris scattered as far as Mattoon, a small town five miles from the crash site.

1998: A six-seat Beechcraft plane ran off the runway of the Buffalo, New York airport as it attempted to take off in a rain shower. No one was hurt in the incident. New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross was one of the three passengers aboard the plane. She made the return trip to Rochester via a car.

1998: A Navy UH-1N helicopter crashed into a rugged canyon in Sequoia National Forest during a routine search and rescue training mission. Five crew members died in the crash.

February 19

1985: Two people were seriously injured when a China Airlines Boeing 747 crashed at the San Francisco airport due to engine failure.

1985: 148 people were killed when a Spanish jetliner crashed into Mount Oiz while approaching the airport at Bilbao, Spain.

1996: Sabateurs slashed the inflatable pads used to prevent ice buildup on a private Cessna. As a result, ten people died when the plane went down near the town of Freilassing, Germany.

1996: A Continental Airlines jet skidded on its belly after its landing gear collapsed during a landing at Houston's Intercontinental Airport. No passengers or crew were seriously injured although one man was hospitalized with back pain. The pilot and co-pilot were fired a few days later because they had failed to turn on a hydraulic pump that controls flaps and landing gear.

1996: A helicopter hovering over a power line tower near DeWeese, Nebraska, suddenly dipped, hit the tower, and crashed. The pilot and the worker he had just dropped off at the top of the tower both died in the crash.

1996: A British Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashed shortly before landing near Lincolnshire. The pilot ejected safely. It was the sixth warplane lost in five weeks by the British.

2003: An Iranian military Antonov airliner crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing all 302 members of the Revolutionary Guards aboard the plane. It was Iran's worst plane crash ever.

February 20

1942: Lieutenant E.H. O'Hare single-handedly shot down five Japanese bombers.

1996: When a fire broke out in the equipment bay as an American Airlines jet was about to leave the departure gate at Kennedy Airport, passengers and crew evacuated the plane by sliding down escape chutes. About 30 people were injured as they collided on the escape chutes. A similar incident occurred on the same day at the Portland, Oregon, airport.

1996: For the second day in a row, a Continental Airlines jet had a landing mishap. In this case, Continental Flight 1156 overshot the runway at Washington's National Airport and became mired in the mud about 300 feet from the Potomac River.

1997: Two airlines had trouble with their planes at the Des Moines, Iowa airport. Details unavailable.

1998: An Alaska Airlines Boeing MD-80 returned to the gate of the Palm Springs, California airport after the crew detected an hydraulic leak. Seven passengers were taken to hospitals after getting sick from breathing the fumes of the hydraulic fluid.

2003: A terrorist bomb at a Philippines airport near the city of Cotabato in central Mindanao killed one soldier and wounded six civilians. That attack was blamed on the MILF, a Moslem terrorist group.

February 21

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines Boeing 727 jet over the Sinai Desert. More than 100 people were killed in the crash. Five people survived the crash.

1995: A lightning bolt struck an MD-80 airliner as it departed the gate at the Phoenix airport. While no passengers were hurt and the plane made its scheduled trip to Chicago, three airline

workers outside the aircraft were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized.

1997: Two Continental Airlines Boeing 737 jetliners had to make emergency landings at the Cleveland, Ohio airport after developing problems with their hydraulic systems.

1997: The FAA announced today that 1,070 people died in aircraft accidents in 1996. 631 were killed in private planes, the rest in commercial flights.

1997: NASA announced today that 9,157 cases were recorded since 1988 where two aircraft came closer to each other than the legal separation zone. About 1,000 such incidents are reported every year.

February 22

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan commercial airliner with 106 people aboard. All aboard the commercial airliner died in the incident.

1994: Two aviators bailed out of their F-14D Tomcat jet fighter about 900 miles southwest of San Diego. The jet crashed into the ocean; the two crew members survived with minor injuries.

1996: A Navy F-14A Tomcat jet fighter crashed in the Persian Gulf but the pilot and radar intercept officer were able to eject safely. It was the third F-14 crash in less than a month.

1998: Two people died when their private plane crashed in the snow-covered San Gorgonio Mountains in California.

February 23

1995: A British Midland Boing 737 had to make an emergency landing shortly after taking off from the Nottingham, England airport. It's engines lost nearly all their oil. The plane was able to land safely at Luton airport 25 miles north of London.

1998: A small private jet went off the runway at Van Nuys Airport in California and end up in the mud by the side of the runway.

February 24

1959: While flying an American Airlines jetliner from Newark, New Jersey, to Detroit, Michigan, pilot Peter Killian reported seeing three flying saucers cruising alongside his plane. Two other pilots in nearby planes reported similar sightings, but the government dismissed his claims.

1989: Nine passengers were sucked out of the back of a plane and fell to their deaths in the Pacific Ocean when a 40 foot hole blew open in the fuselage of a United Airlines Boeing 747 flying 100 miles south of Hawaii. 27 other passengers were injured in the accident resulting from a cargo door separation. Months after the incident, passengers, crew and the Capt. started talking about a strange occurence. Apparently they all felt the presence of angels who helped to hold the plane in the air. Some describe looking out the window and seeing a hand holding up the wing.

1996: A Navy EA-6-B Prowler jet crashed into the ocean during a carrier exercise. Two members of the crew were killed and two others injured when the pilot apparently blacked out during a routine maneuver.

1996: Cuban government fighter planes shot down two small aircraft belonging to an exile group flying off the coast of Havana, Cuba.

1999: After a mid-air explosion, a China Southwest Airlines TU-154 jet crashed in a field south of Shanghai in China's Zhejiang province. All 61 people aboard died in the crash.

February 25

1964: An Eastern Airlines DC-8 crashed upon taking off from the New Orleans, Louisiana airport. 58 people died in the crash.

1996: A bomb threat forced a Viasa DC-10 jet bound for Rome to return to the Simon Bolivar International Airport at Caracus, Venezuela. No bomb was found, so the flight continued on to Rome the next day.

1998: A woman returning from Mexico was bitten by a scorpion while passing through customs at JFK International Airport in New York. The scorpion had apparently hitched a ride in her coat as she was leaving Mexico. It was the first scorpion bit case ever treated by New York City's poison control center.

1998: A police officer and gardener were killed when a police helicopter crash-landed on the grounds of a Mexico City police academy. The two helicopter crew members were seriously injured in the crash.

1998: Salt Lake City International Airport had to close down after El Nino dumped 26 inches of snow on the foothills of Salt Lake City, Utah. The airport was closed for more than six hours, the longest stretch since 1970.

1998: Claiming to have a bomb stuffed in a teddy bear, a hijacker on a mission from God seized a Turkish Airlines jetliner and demanded to be flown to Iran. Passengers eventually tackled the man and subdued him. No one was hurt in the incident.

February 26

1996: When a Sudanese military plane crashed just minutes before reaching the Khartoum airport, all 91 people aboard were killed.

1998: A US Airways Fokker 100 jetliner was struck by lightning twice as it approached Birmingham International Airport in Alabama. The lightning caused it to lose hydraulic power so the plane was forced to land without using its nose gear. Nonetheless, it landed safely with no passengers injured, althought it did skid into the mud.

February 27

1998: A Mission Aviation Cessna 185 crashed in a mountainous region of Indonesia when its engine failed. The pilot, missionary Daniel Smith, was rescued three days later when cloud cover dissipated long enough for a helicopter to get close enough to pick him up.

1998: A 13-year-old girl died a week after a single-engine Piper Arrow piloted by her father crashed on this date. The plane hit some power lines and crashed as the father was attempting an emergency landing at Metcalf Field in Walbridge, Ohio, after the plane lost power.

February 28

1966: Two astronauts, Charles Bassett II and Elliot See, Jr., died when their T-38 jet crashed near St. Louis, Missouri.

1994: In the first NATO military action in the Bosnia War, American fighter planes shot down four of six Bosnian jets operating in a no-fly zone.

1995: Denver's new airport finally opened -- after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns.

1996: A ValuJet DC-9 rolled off a runway after landing at the Savannah, Georgia airport. All passengers were evacuated safely.

1997: An American West Express commuter plane made an emergency landing at the Farmington, New Mexico airport after smoke billowed into the cockpit and a windshield cracked.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration opened a dedicated web site for airline safety data, including material such as accident and incident data.

February 29

1996: A Fawcett Boeing 737 crashed into a hillside outside Arequipa, Peru, after a faulty turbine on its left wing burst into flame. 117 passengers and 6 crew members were killed in the crash. It was the worst air disaster in Peruvian history. The Boeing 737 was one of 186 Boeing 737 planes (out of 2,500 in existence) that have crashed.

1996: A Marine Corps pilot parachuted safely from his AV-8B Harrier jet after it exploded in mid-air as the jet was on its way to the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range in California. It was the second crash in five months that involved a Marine jet from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.

March 1

1962: An American Airlines Boeing 707 plunged into Jamaica Bay as it was taking off from Idlewild Airport (now known as Kennedy Airport). 95 people were killed in the crash caused by a broken rudder.

1997: Baggage handlers at the San Jose, California Airport spotted the image of a handgun as luggage passed by an x-ray scanner. Unfortunately, they lost track of the bag and had to close down the entire departure concourse until they found the bag. It contained a toy pistol.

1997: One person died and three were injured when a small twin-engine plane crashed into an empty field as it was approaching the Salt Lake International Airport in Utah.

1998: An Israeli Air Force F-15D jet hit an antenna on Mount Eval during a routine training flight. The two crew members died when the plane crashed into a nearby mountain.

March 2

1981: Three Pakistanis hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines plane and forced it to land in Afghanistan and then later in Syria. After Pakistan agreed to free 54 political prisoners, the hijackers left the plane on March 14th.

1994: A Continental airliner crashed at Laguardia Airport in New York City.

1998: A Cessna 303 plane with a two adults and four children crashed in the high desert area of Washington County while on a sightseeing tour. All six people were killed in the crash.

March 3

1953: The first fatal crash of a commercial jet plane occurred when a Canadian Pacific Comet crashed near Karachi, Pakistan. Eleven people died.

1974: When a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed after taking off from Orly Airport in Paris, France, 346 people died. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history.

1991: A United Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, due to freak winds. 25 people were killed in the crash.

March 4

1998: Eleven people were injured, seven hospitalized, when an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 hit severe turbulence just outside Reno, Nevada. The plane diverted to the Reno Airport for an emergency landing to take care of the injured. The plane had been on a flight from Seattle, Washington, to Las Vegas, Nevada.

1998: A twin-engine Piper Apache 23 crashed into the Brookside Lane apartment complex in Hillsborough, New Jersey. The pilot and passenger were killed. Fortunately, no one in the apartment complex was killed or injured.

2003: A powerful bomb ripped through a packed shelter outside an airport in the southern Philippines, killing 19 people (including one American missionary) and spraying 144 others with shards of metal and glass. MILF terrorists were blamed for the incident.

March 5

1963: Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and the pilot were all killed when their plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee. Cline, 31, was famous for her country hit, "Crazy." Copas and Hawkins were Grand Ole Opry stars.

1966: 124 people were killed when a BOAC Boeing 707 crashed on Mount Fiji in Japan.

1980: On March 5, 1980, in Airplane, the movie, Ted Striker brought Flight 209 into Chicago after the plane lost all its crew.

1997: An American Airlines MD-Super 80 jetliner skidded off the runway as it landed at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No serious injuries were reported among the 103 passengers and six crew members.

1998: The pilot of an Airpac Airlines Piper Chieftain PA-31 died when her light cargo plane crashed into the slopes of Mount Burdell in Marin County, California.

1999: The movie, Pushing Tin, premiered. The movie charts the dangerous antics of two air traffic controllers. Watch it as an in-flight movie.

March 6

1997: Two jetliners, a U.S. Airways Boeing 737 and a Delta Boeing 757, came too close too each other as the one was landing and the other was taking off from La Guardia Airport in New York City. An air traffic controller had allowed them to come within one mile of each other, thus causing the automated collision avoidance alarm to sound in both aircraft. The U.S. Airways pilot adjusted his course slightly to correct the problem.

1998: Radiologist Ralph Boyd died when his single-engine kit plane crashed off State Road 54 in Pasco County, Florida, shortly after taking off from the Tampa Bay Executive Airport.

1998: A U.S. Navy UH-60B Seahawk anti-submarine helicopter crashed near Lake Silverwood in the San Bernardino moutnains northeast of Los Angeles, California. All five crew members were killed.

1998: Six people were injured when a Delta Boeing 757 ran into turbulence in the midst of severe thunderstorms over Louisiana. The plane was on a flight from Los Angeles to Tampa.

1999: A Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 was forced to make an emergency landing at the Greenville, South Carolina airport after smoke filled the cabin and the pilot reported oil pressure problems.

1999: Also a Continental Express airplane returned to Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport when smoke appeared in the cockpit. The smoke was caused by de-icing fluid which got into the air conditioning system.

2003: Air Algerie experienced its first airplane crash when a Boeing 737 passenger jet crashed on taking off from the Tamanrasset, Algeria airport. After one of its engines caught fire, the plane crashed at the end of the runway, slid into the airport's perimeter fence and burst into flames. More than 100 people were killed. One person, a young Algerian soldier, survived.

March 7

1996: Five people died when two small planes collided over Flagler Beach, Florida.

1997: One person had to be taken to the hospital after smoke came through the ventilation system and filled a Continental Airlines MD-80 jet that was about to take off from the Newark, New Jersey airport. The oil in the ventilation system overheated and caused the smoke.

1998: The Dublin, Ireland airport shut down when fire fighteres backed the Ryanair baggage handlers in a labor dispute. The airport was scheduled to repone the next day.

March 8

1996: A Viasa Boeing 727 was approaching Simon Bolivar Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, when its collision warning system told the pilot to climb immediately. The pilot did -- just in time. He watched as an Air France Airbus just taking off dived to avoid a collision. No one was hurt in the incident. Commercial jet crashes occur nine times more often in Latin America than the United States.

1997: Jeff Lyons, while flying a small recreational plane, ran over his dog as he landed at the Whitesburg, Georgia airport. Jazz, the four-year-old golden retriever, suffered a broken leg and a gash on his back but was expected to recover.

1998: The co-pilot of an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Ontario, California, died of a heart attack shortly after taking off. The plane made an emergency landing at Lubbock Airport to de-plane his body.

1998: A DC-10 headed for Newark, New Jersey, had to be evacuated just before taking off from the Manchester, England airport after a small fire broke out in the rear engine and fuel began to leak from that engine. Two passengers had to be taken to the hospital, one with a neck injury, the other with a back problem.

March 9

1967: A TWA DC-9 collided in mid-air over Ohio with a private plane due to air traffic control problems. 25 people were killed in the collision.

1996: A helicopter intended for the White House fleet crashed at a private Connecticut airport during one of its test flights. The crash was caused by a faulty part made by a subcontractor.

1998: When an Ansett Airbus A320 jetliner lost cabin pressure, the crew put the plane into a 22,000-foot dive to restore pressure. Passengers had to pull on their emergency oxygen masks but the plane was able to land safely at the Melbourne, Australia airport. No passengers were injured.

March 10

1996: Six Hells Angels killed a member of a rival gang at the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1998: Actor Lloyd Bridges, who started in the movie, Airplane!, died of natural causes.

1998: Air Force One disappeared from radar screens for 24 seconds as the plane passed near Kennedy International Airport. President Cliinton was on the way to Connecticut at the time. Controllers never lost radio contact with the plane.

1998: An Egyptian cargo aircraft crashed near Mombasa Airport in Kenya after hitting an airport light tower as it was taking off. All six crew members were killed. Two people on the ground were injured by flying debris.

March 11

1997: One of the engines on the plane carrying Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe caught fire just as the plane took off from Shannon Airport in Dublin, Ireland. The fire was brought under control when that engine was shut off, and the plane was able to land safely a few minutes later.

1998: A Delta Air Lines from Atlanta slid off the runway into the mud at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: A fuel truck ran into the wing of a U.S. Airways Fokker 100 jetliner as it was backing out of the gate at Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania. The driver of the truck was seriously injured as well as one passenger. Passengers had to switch planes because of the major damage to the plane.

March 12

1948: A DC-4 crashed on Mount Sanford in Alaska, killing all 30 people aboard the plane, which had been on its way from Shanghai to New York City. The plane wasn't discovered until July, 1999.

1998: Shortly after a Chicago Express Jetstream 31 took off from Midway Airport, a loose cabin door sheared off the plane and dropped into Lake Michigan. The plane returned to Midway Airport after the incident. No passengers were aboard the plane at the time.

1998: While landing, a United Express commuter jet slid off the end of the runway at the Aspen, Colorado airport. The airport was shut down to incoming traffic for 24 hours while the runways were checked out.

March 13

1996: An MI-8 helicopter carrying oil industry workers crashed into the Caspian Sea near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, while trying to make an emergency landing during a storm. Thirteen people were killed in the crash.

1996: A Cessna plane belonging to Aruban Avia-Air crashed on a sandy peninsula on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. All eight people aboard including the pilot were killed in the crash.

1997: An Iranian military C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed in a mountainous region of northeast Iran after the engine failed. 86 people died, including members of the Revolutionary Guard and other army personnel.

1997: A Navy Seahawk helicopter crashed near Cape Hateras, North Carolina, during training exercises. The four crew members could not be found due to eleven-foot seas and 60 mph winds.

1998: One person was killed when his Swearingen 300 SX single-engine plane crashed in a wooded area west of Augusta, Georgia.

March 14

1980: 87 people, including 22 members of an American amateur boxing team, were killed when a Polish airline crashed as it made an emergency landing at the Warsaw, Poland airport.

1995: FAA inspectors took a ValuJet aircraft out of service after discovering a hydraulic leak in the landing gear area, a split in the left flap, another split in the right flap, and a brake hose rubbing a wheel.

1998: After two inches of snow had fallen in Maine, Delta Air Lines MD-88 skidded off the end of the runway at Portland International Airport. No one was injured.

1998: Researchers at Cornell University reported that children living near airports (and, thus, suffering from chronic jet noise) were more likely to suffer from higher blood pressure and boosted levels of stress hormones. In previous studies, researchers had reported that children living near an international airport tended to be poorer listeners and not as good readers as children who lived in quiet areas.

March 15

1996: A Delta jetliner carrying 231 passengers and six crew members heading for Florida returned to La Guardia Airport an hour after receiving a bomb threat. The plane landed safely and all passengers were evacuated without incident.

1996: A Navy S-3 Viking plane crashed shortly after taking off from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

1997: A single-engine vintage plane caught fire and crashed into a backyard shed as it was trying to return to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, California. The pilot suffered severe burns over 90% of his body while his female passenger was killed. The house burned down.

1997: A reconditioned DC-3 collided with a small single-engine plane about 700 feet above the ground near Newton, Wisconsin. Both planes crashed to the ground. All four people aboard the planes were killed in the crash.

1998: The pilot of a small twin-engine plane got disoriented after taking off in dense fog from the Mendocino, California airport. As a result, the engines stalled out, the plane began to spin, and then crashed. All three people aboard the plane died in the crash.

1998: A hot air balloon had to make an emergency landing on a mountainside near Copper Mountain in Colorado, thus stranding the pilot and four sightseers for several hours. Rescue workers had to use caution in approaching the stranded passengers because they feared the rescue helicopter might set off an avalanche on the mountain.

1998: An Israeli Air Force Cobra attack helicopter snapped in two and fell into the sea off the Israeli coast. The two people in the helicopter, one a Brigadier General, were killed in the crash.

1998: An 18-year-old boy was killed while practicing take-offs and landings at the Allegheny County Airport in Pennsylvania. He radioed in that he was having engine trouble moments before the Cessna 152 hit the ground and cartwheeled to a stop within feet of a house.

March 16

1962: A Flying TIger Super-Constellation disappeared in the western Pacific. 107 people vanished with the plane.

1969: 155 people were killed when a Viasa DC-9 crashed at Maracaibo's Grano de Oro Airport. 84 were killed on the plane and another 71 on the ground.

1991: Seven members of the Reba McEntire band were among ten people killed in a plane crash near San Diego, California.

March 17

1957: Ramon Magsaysay, president of the Philippines, died in an airplane crash.

1960: 63 people died when a Northwest Electra crashed in Indiana due to structural damage.

1996: Four members of a South Carolina family plus the pilot were killed when a sightseeing seaplane owned by the Key West Seaplane Service crashed just off shore of Key West, Florida.

1998: Five people were killed and four others injured when a U.N. helicopter crashed in the mountains of Guatemala. The helicopter had been carrying human rights workers at the time of the crash.

March 18

1996: A Mexico City police helicopter that had been chasing suspected bank robbers crashed into a kindergarten, killing two police officers and a reporter. The children in the kindergarten building escaped without injury. The pilot also survived the crash.

1997: The last episode of Wings, the TV show about a one-plane commuter service operating on Nantucket Island, was taped at Hollywood's Paramount Studios.

1997: After clipping another fighter jet, an Air Force F-16 jet fighter crashed into the Florida Bay near Key West, Florida, but the pilot was able to eject safely before the crash.

1997: Shortly after taking off, a Stavropol Airlines AN-24 jetliner exploded into flames and crashed into a wooded area in southern Russia. All 48 people aboard the airplane were killed in the crash. It was later reported that the plane literally fell apart because of rust.

1998: One of the passenger terminals at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Ohio had to be closed down and evacuated for two hours after a man rushed through a security checkpoint and disappeared. When no bomb was found, passengers were allowed to return to the terminal and flights were resumed.

1998: When the nosewheel of a British Airways ATP turboprop plane collapsed as it landed at Manchester Airport in England, the 58 passengers had to jump to safety down emergency chutes. One passenger was injured during the evacuation.

1998: A teenager, who hacked into a phone company's computer system and cut off vital services to the Worcester Regional Airport in March 1997, was charged by federal prosecutors today. Airport backup systems kicked in to prevent any major damage.

1998: A Formosa Airlines Saab 360, with eight passengers and five crew, crashed into the Taiwan Strait moments after taking off from Hsinchu, Taiwan. All thirteen were killed.

March 19

1982: When the plane he was in buzzed the tour bus of heavy metal star Ozzy Osbourne, lead guitarist Randy Rhoads was killed as the plane crashed into a house in Leesburg, Florida.

1996: A Marine Corps transport helicopter crashed shortly after taking off on a training mission at the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Arizona. No one was killed in the crash, as the five crew members and seven passengers evacuated safely.

1996: An Air National Guard F-16 jet crashed near Grayling, Michigan. No one was hurt.

1997: Michael de Guzman, a Filipino who had discovered gold in Kalimantan, tumbled 800 feet to his death when he jumped from the helicopter that was transporting him from Busang to Samarinda, Indonesia. He left a Rolex and 7-page suicide note behind.

1997: The 73-year-old pilot of an experimental Passadori norman Breezy ultra-light aircraft died when his plane crashed in the desert east of Gilroy, California. A passenger survived the crash.

1998: Two Cessnas, a twin-engine 310 and a single-engine 152, collided over a Los Angeles suburb. Both pilots were killed as well as one person who was probably riding in the twin-engine 310. The crashing planes destroyed a house and a condominum.

March 20

1996: After the pilot died of a heart attack, Leland Capps, a man with limited flying experience, landed a single-engine Cessna 206 float plane on the waters of Lake Washington near Seattle. When the floats collapsed, the plane slid out of the water onto the runway of the Renton Municipal Airport. The front of the plane sustained major damage, but Capps suffered only minor injuries. The pilot, of course, died.

1998: Four people died when their small plane crashed near a residential area of New Lebanon, Indiana.

March 21

1983: Five people were killed when a Navy C-1A trainer crashed into Success Glacier on Mt. Rainier in Washington.

1987: Dino Martin, son of singer Dean Martin and a member of the Dino, Desi, and Billy pop group, was killed in the crash of an Air National Guard jet in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. His pop group had one hit, "I'm a Fool." Dino was 35 when he died.

1996: Moments before his F-15C jet crashed on take-off, an Air Force pilot ejected during aerial war games at Nellis Air Force Base. His $26 million plane was completely destroyed; he survived.

1996: While doing an overnight maintenance check at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, American Airlines mechanics discovered 64 pounds of cocaine stuffed into the wall panels of a Boeing 757.

The 100 brick-sized blocks of cocaine, with a street value of $2.9 million, were probably stashed on the plane during one of its stops in Costa Rica or Guatemala during the previous week. The mechanics reported the find to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

1996: Almost 20 years after the incidents, an Argentine army officer testified that more than 4,500 political prisoners were told to dance for joy because they were going to be released -- just before they were loaded onto cargo planes, injected with a heavy sedative, flown over the Atlantic Ocean, and dumped into the ocean. These death flights occurred every Wednesday and, when there was extra demand, on Saturdays.

1997: A twin-engine Delta MD-88 commuter jet made an emergency landing at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina after someone reported a smoky smell in the cabin of the plane. No fire was detected after the plane landed. None of the 140 passengers were hurt in the incident.

1998: When their Cessna 206 developed an electrical problem, caught fire, and then crashed nose first just short of a runway at the East Kansas City Airport in Grain Valley, Missouri, six skydivers were killed.

1998: Poland's LOT Airline had to cancel a weekend charter flight from Tenerife, Spain to Warsaw because the chief stewardess and a mechanic had been drinking. The pilot delayed his take-off and ordered blood tests of the crew after becoming suspicious of the two crew members.

March 22

1992: 27 people were killed when a USAir Fokker 28 jetliner crashed into the bay while taking off in a snowstorm at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Although the plane had been de-iced twice, it iced up again before taking off. Amazingly, 24 people survived the crash.

1996: Col. Robert Overmyer, an astronaut who commanded one of the last successful flights of the space shuttle Challenger, died when the small plane he was test flying went into a spin and crashed near the Duluth, Minnesota airport. He was not able to free himself from the plane, a small-engine VK30 prototype, in time to use his parachuse.

1996: Air Bosnia made its first commercial flight into war-torn Sarajevo using a Cessna 550. It was also the first commercial flight into the Sarajevo airport since the Bosnia War started in April, 1992.

March 23

1994: When the teenage son of the pilot disconnected the plane's autopilot, an Aeroflot Airbus A-310 crashed near Novokuznetsk in Russia. 70 people were killed in the crash.

1994: An F-16 jet fighter collided with a C-130 transport as both planes attempted to land at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. The fighter pilot swerved to miss another transport on the ground and hit a C-141 transport which was in the process of loading Army Rangers. 24 paratroopers were killed in the incident, but the pilot of the jet fighter was able to eject safely before the crash.

1997: W. Lain Guthrie, a commercial airline pilot who became an environmental hero in the early 1970s when he refused to dump waste kerosene from his plane, died at his home. He was 84. (See August 1.)

1998: An F-16 pilot was able to eject safely before his plane crashed into a runway during an emergency landing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The pilot had radioed ahead that he was having mechanical problems with his $20 million plane, which was severely damaged in the crash. The pilot walked away with minor injuries.

1998: In an attempted suicide, a man splashed gasoline in a Dash-8 plane flying over Taiwan and tried to set it on fire. Other passengers overpowred him before he could set the plane on fire.

1998: An ambulence helicopter carrying an 11-year-old girl who had been injured in a traffic accident crashed near Griffith Park. The child, two medical personnel, and one of the pilots were killed in the crash. The other pilot was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

March 24

1995: A USAir DC-9 was about to taxi onto the runway when flames starting coming out of one of its engines. The plane returned to the terminal. No one was hurt.

1996: A Sudanese airliner was hijacked by a Sudanese man and was forced to land at the Eritrean capital of Asmara. None of the 40 passengers in the play were hurt.

March 25

1996: Four tourists from England and Scotland were injured when their hot-air balloon crash-landed, slammed its basket into a ridge, dumped out the passengers, and caught fire near Hartsel, Colorado.

1996: After their Navy T-44A turboprop training plane crashed in the Gulf of Mexico, three aviators became lost at sea. Their bodies were recovered ten days later.

1996: A Boeing 767 and a DC-10 came within 2.25 miles of each other, a near collision in air traffic lingo, when air traffic radio at the Los Angeles International Airport was out for 15 minutes.

1997: Former president George Bush parachuted out of an airplane, the first time in more than five decades. Watch out for falling presidents! During World War II, Bush received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery after his torpedo plane was shot down over the Pacific by the Japanese.

1997: A private Gulfstream II jet crashed into a maintenance truck while trying to land at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Neither of the two maintenance workers nor any of the passengers on the plane were hurt in the incident although the plane's right landing gear was sheared off and the plane had a bouncy landing.

1998: The pilot of a U.S. Air Force F-16 died when his bomber crashed in the Yellow Sea near Korea. He had been on a training mission out of Osan Air Base in South Korea.

March 27

1968: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person to orbit the Earth, died when his jet fighter crashed.

1977: When a KLM Boeing 747 and a Pan American Boeing 747 jet collided on the runway of the Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands, 582 people were killed, including 249 on the KLM jet and 333 of 394 on board the Pan American jet. It was the deadliest air crash in aviation history. The collision was caused by the confusion in the airport after a terrorist's bomb exploded inside the airport terminal.

1996: Five hours after hijacking an Egyptian Airbus A320 airliner in Egypt and asking to be taken to Libya, three hijackers surrendered peacefully to the Libyan military. No passengers were hurt during the hijacking. The hijackers claimed to have a message from God regarding the Palestinians that they needed to deliver to the heads of Libya, Egypt, and the United States.

1996: Air traffic around the Pittsburgh International Airport was halted for about an hour when the airport's radar screens failed. No accidents occurred. It was the ninth radar failure at the airport in the past six months.

1997: A wing flap from a Delta Airlines jet fell off and landed by a major highway near Dallas. The 18-foot wing flap fell off as the Boeing 767 was approaching the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The plane was able to land safely despite the missing flap.

1997: A Delta Airlines baggage handler was killed when he fell beneath the wheels of an L-1011 jet which was backing up from the gate at Kennedy International Airport.

1997: After losing their last game of the season during the NCAA tourney, the University of Arkansas basketball team got lost on their way home. The pilot of their private charter plane landed at the wrong airport. When their Boeing 727 touched down at the small airport in Springdale, Arkansas, its nose gear got stuck in the mud at the end of the runway. When the pilot tried to back up, the jet engines tore up the runway pavement.

March 28

1997: An Air Force pilot died when his Warthog A-10 Thunderbolt jet crashed while he was trying to land at Willow Grove Air Reserve Station near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

March 29

1959: The president and founder of the Central African Republic, Barthelemy Boganda, died in a plane crash.

1996: Minutes after taking off from the Sydney, Australia airport, a United Airlines jumbo jet flew through a flock of birds which damaged one of its engines. The pilot circled over the Pacific Ocean for an hour to dump fuel before making an emergency landing at the Sydney airport. No passengers were hurt in the incident.

1998: After losing power in one of its engines, a Peruvian Air Force Antonov An-32 plane plunged nose-first into a drainage canal in the middle of a shantytown on the edge of Piura, Peru. The pilot of the plane was able to steer the plane away from the shantytown itself, thus saving hundreds of people. 28 civilian passengers, who were being evacuated from towns being buffeted by violent storms caused by El Nino, died in the crash. Some passengers and the plane's five-member crew were able to walk away unharmed from the crash. Two people on the ground were hurt by flying debris from the crash.

1998: Lightning struck a United Airlines Boeing 727 en route from Chicago to San Diego. Nonetheless, the plane was able to land safely. No one was hurt in the incident.

March 30

1961: Joseph A. Walker, a civilian pilot working for NASA, flies an X-15 to a height of 169,600 feet above sea level.

1996: When a Piper Cherokee lost power in its only engine, the pilot tried to make an emergency landing near Interstate 495 in southeastern Massachusetts. In attempting to land, the plane hit some trees along the highway, crossed the median, and hit a mid-sized station wagon head on. Both people in the airplane were killed instantaneously. A mother and child riding in the car were also killed.

1997: 70 mph winds tore through Washington State and contributed to the crash of a home-built plane into an empty house. The pilot was hospitalized in critical condition.

1997: An electrical fault caused a British Airways Boeing 747 to be delayed in taking off. The good news? While the rest of the passengers chose to go on other flights leaving early, one passenger stayed to take the flight when the plane was finally ready to take off. The man was bumped up to first class since he was the only passenger on the plane. 17 flight attendants attended to his every need. Nice flight.

1998: A Royal Airlines chartered Boeing 727 aborted its takeoff from the Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida after an engine caught fire. 17 people were injured while sliding down the plane's emergency chutes.

1998: An unemployed man seeking employment in Germany attempted to hijack a Turkish Cypriot Boeing 727 airliner using a grenade-shaped cigarette lighter. Instead of taking him to Bonn, Germany as he requested, the pilots landed the plane at its original destination in Ankara, Turkey. No one was hurt in the incident.

March 31

1931: Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, age 43, was killed in an airplane crash.

1986: When a Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashed in a remote mountainous region of Mexico, 167 people died.

1993: When an engine fell off the plane, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed at the Anchorage, Alaska airport. No one died in the incident.

1995: A Tarom Airlines jet bound for Brussels went down minutes after taking off from Otopeni International Airport, Bucharest, Romania. All 60 people aboard the Airbus A-310 were killed.

1997: When baggage screeners saw the image of a handgun in a piece of luggage as it passed the x-ray machine, they scrambled to pick up the bag. They pounced on the wrong bag. When airport police discovered the error, they closed down the airport concourse and delayed flights for several hours while they rechecked 2,000 passengers and readmitted everyone into the departure area. It was the second such incident in March at the San Jose, California Airport.

1997: Two British Airways Concorde flights were canceled on the same day. In the first incident, a Concorde out of Kennedy International Airport had an engine warning light come on and returned to Kennedy just to be safe. In the second incident, another Concorde out of Kennedy had a landing gear indicator light go on indicating that the plane had experienced a blown tire and could not retract its landing gear. The plane returned to Kennedy and landed safely. The problem was a bad indicator light, not a blown tire.

1998: A Canadian bailiff seized a Russian Aeroflot Airbus A310 as it was preparing to take off from Montreal's Dorval Airport. The seizure came about after a Nova Scotia company got a court order to help it collect a $5.8 million debt.

1998: The Leeds United soccer team survived unhurt when their chartered airplane crashed after its engine caught fire and exploded shortly after takeoff. The pilots were able to return to the airport to make an emergency landing, but the plane still landed on its belly, stopping about 150 feet from the end of the runway.

1998: A Navy anti-submarine twin-engine S-3 Viking carrying four crew members crashed into the Pacific Ocean west of Point Loma near San Diego, California. The crew members were able to parachute to safety and were rescued several hours later.

April

2002: An Air China Boeing 767 traveling from Beijing, China to Pusan, South Korea crashed into a mountain. 128 of the 166 people aboard the plane were killed.

April 1

1996: You're not safe even on the ground -- especially if you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. A TV news crew in a helicopter caught several Los Angeles sheriff's deputies clubbing two illegal immigrants after stopping them following a chase that reached 100 mph at times. Both deputies were suspended without pay.

1997: Three servicemen died and seven others were injured when a U.S. Air Force cargo plane bounced off the runway as it was landing at Tocontin Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After bouncing off the runway, the plane slid off the end of the runway and onto a major boulevard. The plane's slide ended just short of a block of buildings including several gas stations. No one on the ground was injured in the incident.

1998: The turbine blades on an engine of a Royal Airlines Boeing 747 tore apart and landed on the runway as the plane was about to take off from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida airport. The plane landed safely, but 18 passengers were injured when they had to jump from the plane. The seven-foot fall resulted in many twisted ankles.

1999: When a passenger mistakenly yelled "Fire!" and other passengers joined in, a Continental jet had to return to the Baltimore airport shortly after taking off. After an inspection of the plane, the passengers and crew reboarded for the flight to Cleveland, Ohio.

1999: As it was taking off from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago late at night, a Korean Air Boeing 747 barely missed colliding with an Air China cargo plane that had mistakenly taxied into its path. None of the 340 passengers were hurt in the incident. The Korean Air 747 continued on its way after the near collision.

April 2

1930: The first New York to Bermuda airplane flight landed in Bermuda.

1986: Four U.S. passengers were killed by a bomb which exploded on a TWA airliner flying from Rome, Italy to Athens, Greece.

1996: A Marine Corps FA-18C Hornet jet crashed while flying over the Restricted Area 25-10 bombing range near El Centro, California. The pilot safely ejected before the crash.

1997: An Air Force pilot disappeared along with his A-10 Thunderbolt jet while flying on a training mission west of Tucson, Arizona. The plane was carrying four 500-pound high-explosive bombs. The search for his plane continued for almost a month until search discovered remains of his plane near Vail, Colorado.

April 3

1994: When his ejector seat fired accidentally while his brother was flying a Provost jet upside down, Dces Maloney was catapulted through the plane's plastic canopy and plunged toward earth. Although his parachute failed to open properly and nearly strangled him, he landed safely in a field outside a supermarket near Colchester, England. He suffered no serious injuries.

1996: Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 others died when their Air Force T-43 passenger jet crashed during bad weather while trying to land at Dubrovnik, Croatia.

1997: Five people were killed when a passenger Mi-8 helicopter from a local medical service crashed in the Ural Mountains of Russia. The helicopter had gotten caught in a snowstorm and ran into a radio mast, burst into flames, and crashed.

1997: Three people died in a small plane crash in a rugged mountainous area of northwest Colombia, but two children and their grandmother were found several days later still alive and well. The children's mother, an aunt, and the pilot died in the crash.

1998: The Denton County, Texas attorney survived the crash of a small plane into Lake Ponchartrain as they were approaching the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Her daughter and two other people were still missing.

April 4

1933: When the U.S. dirigible Akron crashed off the coast of New Jersey, 73 people died.

1975: When a U.S. Air Force C5A Galaxy transport plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Saigon Airport, 172 people were killed, including over 130 Vietnamese orphans being evacuated.

1977: When a Southern Airways DC-9 lost both of its engines during a storm, the pilot tried to land the plane on a state highway in the center of New Hope, Georgia. The plane crashed and burned, killing the pilot, co-pilot, eight people on the ground, and 61 passengers. 19 passengers and 2 stewardesses survived the crash.

1991: Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.

1996: A state police helicopter crashed in a hillside neighborhood near Yeager Airport in West Virginia. Two troopers were killed in the crash.

1997: Russian sailors aboard the Kapitan Man merchant ship fired a laser beam at a Canadian CH-14 Sea King helicopter that flew over it while the Russian ship was observing an American submarine near the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Washington state and Vancouver Island. The laser beam burned the eyes of an American intelligence officer and the pilot aboard the Canadian helicopter.

1997: A man assaulted a woman on a Delta Air Lines flight after the woman passenger took too long to change her baby's diaper in the first-class lavoratory.

1997: Two pilots fought in the cockpit of a Turkish Airlines passenger plane during a flight between Bangkok and Istanbul after one pilot misunderstood tower control instructions. A third pilot had to complete the flight after the two pilots were subdued by other officers aboard the plane.

1997: While searching for a small plane that crashed in the mountains of northwest Colombia, a small Cessna itself crashed. All four people aboard the rescue plane were killed in the crash.

1998: A single-engine Cessna 172 and a Cessna 525 Citation jet collided over Roswell, Georgia. Five people were killed in the collision, the pilot of the Cessna and a pilot and three passengers of the jet. The Cessna fell on a house but the residents were spared. The jet crashed about a mile away in a rural area. The Cessna 172 was piloted by a man who was inspecting power lines for Georgia Power Company. The Citation jet carried four lawyers from a top Atlanta law firm.

April 5

1988: Shiite terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet on the way from Thailand to Kuwait. Demanding that Kuwait release 17 pro-Iranian terrorists, the hijackers divert the plane first to Iran, then Cyprus, and finally to Algeria. During that time they kill two passengers. On April 20th, they release the rest of the passengers and are allowed to leave Algiers.

1991: While on business for NASA, astronaut Manley Carter Jr. was killed in the crash of a commercial airliner near New Brunswick, Georgia. Also on board the plane was John Tower, former Senator from Texas and head of the Tower Commission that studied the National Security Council's actions during the Iran-Contra Affair. His daughter, Marian, and his entourage were also killed.

1996: A Krasnoyarsk Airlines II-76 cargo plane carrying 21 people crashed into the side of the Vachzhets volcano in Russia's far east near the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky airport. Chances are that the crash was caused by an overloaded airplane, a common occurrence in Russia.

1996: Eleven people escaped a sinking Dornier 228 airplane after it crashed into the sea near the island of Matsu. Six others died in the crash caused by bad weather.

1997: When the flight attendant refused to continue to serve her drinks after one bloody mary, a woman passenger attacked the attendant and tried to wrestle her to the floor. While three men attempted to help the attendant, the woman passenger kicked, scratched, bit, and cursed them until she was restrained by headset cords and seatbelt extensions (and a gag in her mouth). Thie incident occurred on a Delta Airlines overnight flight from Tucson, Arizona, to Atlanta, Georgia. Four or five passenger disruptions are reported EVERY DAY to the Air Line Pilots Association National Security Committee. Note: The penalty for assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member is a felony punishable by a maximum ten-year prison sentence as well as a fine.

April 6

1993: A China Southern Airlines Boeing 757 was hijacked by steel firm buyer Huang Shugang and businessman Liu Baocai. Each got seven years in prison in Taiwan for hijacking.

1994: A plane carrying the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda was shot down as it neared the Rwandan capital of Kigali. This tragedy sparked months of killing as the Hutu and Tutsi tribes tried to kill each other off. Ironically, the presidents who were killed were just returning from a conference in Tanzania to discuss ways to dissolve the ethnic rivalries.

1996: During a stopover flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta, a passenger got off the plane at the Phoenix airport and did not make it back in time to catch the continuing flight. Thinking the passenger's bag was a security risk, the pilot tossed the bag from the plane onto the tarmac. In the process, the videocassette recorder in the passenger's bag was smashed to smithereens.

April 7

1997: The head of Cambodia's chamber of commerce shot the tire on a parked Royal Air Cambodge jet after becoming frustrated with lost luggage and flight delays. He flattened the tire with a single shot. His only regret was "that I did not get to shoot the other three tires."

1997: A Continental Airlines Boeing 737 had to make an emergency landing at the Wichita, Kansas airport when one of its two engines malfunctioned. The plane had been on a trip form Los Angeles to Cleveland.

1997: A single-engine Piper Cherokee crashed on the lawn of a Long Island home. The three people aboard the plane suffered serious injuries but lived.

1998: A man who was unhappy because the flight attendant refused to give him more beer to drink began to cause a ruckas on an Air 2000 Boeing 757 charter flight from Birmingham, England to Malta. Several passengers had to stop the man as he tried to get into the pilots' cabin. The man's son then joined in to defend his father. Eventually the pair were subdued. The pilots made an emergency landing at Milan's Malpensa airport, where they handed the father and son over to Italian police.

1998: A single-engine Cessna cargo plane operated by Federal Express crashed into a field as it approached the Bismarck, North Dakota airport. The pilot died in the crash.

April 8

1995: Fourteen people were killed when an Il-76 plane crashed on the slopes of a volcano as it was preparing to land at the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regional airport in Russia.

1997: The Air Force grounded its B-2 stealth bombers after a shaft assembly connecting an engine on one of the aircraft broke in flight. A week earlier six of the B-2s had become part of the Pentagon's nuclear war plan and were detailed to carry nuclear weapons.

1997: Teng Bunma, a Cambodian businessman, took a pistol from his bodyguard and shot the tire of a Royal Air Cambodge jet in Phnom Penh, Cambodia when he got angry that the airline had lost his luggage.

1997: Five people were injured when a South Florida Waste Management helicopter crashed on the grounds of the Palm Beach International Airport.

1999: A USAirways Express propeller plane hit a doe and two fawns as it was taking off from the Kinston, North Carolina airport. The deer were killed and the plane's right wheel and engine were damaged. The Charlotte-bound flight was cancelled.

2000: A Marine MV-22 tiltrotor Osprey crashed at the Marana Northwest Regional Airport northwest of Tucson, Arizona, during a training exercise. 19 Marines were killed in the incident.

April 9

1997: Israel Radio reported that its air force had been using the wrong control settings on its Bell-212 helicopters for the past twenty years due to a misunderstanding about the manufacturer's instructions. In December 1994, two airmen were killed because of this misunderstanding.

1998: A Cessna 150 became entangled in power lines while trying to land at the King County Airport near Seattle, Washington. The pilot was stranded for hours in an upside down cockpit until he was rescued.

April 10

1936: Football coach and TV color man, John Madden was born on this date. John refuses to travel to football games by air; he always travels by Madden cruiser. He probably read this calendar. He clearly knows something.

1960: An Eastern Electra crashed after hitting birds on taking off from the Boston, Massachusetts airport. 62 people died in the crash.

1973: A BEA flight to Basel, Switzerland, crashed on landing. 104 of the 143 people aboard were killed.

1997: A Cessna Caravan single-engine plane operated by Hageland Aviation crashed nose first into sea ice about five miles off the coast of northern Alaska. None of the five people aboard survived the crash.

1997: Two people were forced to ditch a Piper PA-31 in the Pacific Ocean off the island of Hawaii after the plane's right engine and the other engine couldn't carry the load of a fully-fueled airplane. Both people got safely into an emergency raft moments before their plane sank. The pilot, Kenneth Landau, had previously been involved in a small plane crash. In May 1991, he attempted to land a Cessna 152 on the I-80 near Richmond, California. In that incident, his plane hit the west side of the highway, flipped into the eastbound lanes, and then back to the west lanes. Neither passenger was hurt in that incident either, although one woman in a car was hospitalized.

1998: Two men died when their airplane, operated by Yukon Aviation, crashed in a remote area of southwestern Alaska.

1998: An Italian tourist caused a ruckas on a Continental Airlines DC-10 jetliner flying from Milan, Italy to Newark, New Jersey. After being told by a stewardess to put out a cigarette he was smoking in a bathroom, he got angry. The pilots diverted the flight to Bangor, Maine, where the Italian tourist was taken off the plane and charges with simple assault. He was later sentenced to seven days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

1999: Bits of debris from a C-5A transport plane, including a 16-foot flap, fell on residential property outside Springfield, Massachusetts. The flap narrowly missed a suburban couple doing outdoor chores. The plane, which landed safely, was on a routine training mission working out of Westover Air Reserve Base.

1999: Passengers on an Eastwind Airlines flight from Orlando, Florida to Trenton, New Jersey, refused to get off the plane at Greensboro, North Carolina for fear that they would be stranded at Eastwind's home airport. The discount airline had been plagued by flight delays, cancellations, and reroutings for several weeks prior to this incident.

April 11

1996: You're not even safe in the terminal. When a fire broke out in a flower shop at the Duesseldorf airport, at least 16 people were killed and another 100 injured. Most of the dead people were found in the Air France lounge, but at least one died in an elevator and another in a restroom. The deaths were caused by inhaling poisonous fumes.

1996: Jessica Dubroff, a 7-year-old pilot attempting to set a record for youngest to pilot a plane across the United States, died when her plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Cheyenne, Wyoming airport. Earlier in the week, in a London Times interview, she said, "This started off as a father-daughter adventure, and it's gotten wonderfully out of hand...I'm going to fly till I die."

1997: A three-year-old corpse of a suicide was found aboard the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which has a crew of 1500 and more than 20 miles of rooms and corridors. You're not safe in the air, not on the land, not even on the sea. Duck!

1997: Duck II: A meteorite hit a car in the mountain town of Chambery, France. The 3-pound molten meteor set the car on fire. Since no one was in the car at the time, no one was hurt.

1997: Two people were killed and another critically injured when their Cessna 172 ran out of gas and crashed in dense woods near Vichy, Missouri.

1998: Two people were killed when their Piper Malibu crashed in a rugged mountain area outside Bigfork, Montana. Several months later, the bodies were finally discovered, already largely consumed by grizzly bears.

April 12

1928: Baron Guenther von Huenefeld, James Firzmaurice, and pilot Hermann Koehl made the first transatlantic flight from east to west. They left Dublin, Ireland, for New York City in their Junkersmonoplane. 37 hours later, they crashed on Greely Island in Labrador. They were rescued.

1997: Four people were killed when their single-engine Beechcraft 36 airplane developed engine problems and slammed into a rocky shoal 75 feet off Crooked Island in the Bahamas.

1998: A Delta Air Lines shuttle flight filed a near midair collision report after coming close to an unidentified aircraft near Reagan Washington National Airport.

April 13

Friday the 13th, in some years.

April 14

1994: Two American F-15C jet fighters mistook two U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters for enemy helicopters and shot them down over a no-fly zone in northern Iraq. All 26 Army personnel aboard the helicopters were killed.

1996: Two Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopters collided at Fort Bliss, Texas, while they were on a night training mission. Three of the four crew members were killed in the crash.

April 15

1986: The United States launched an air raid against Libya in response to the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin ten days earlier. According to Libya, 37 civilians were killed in the bombing raids.

1996: One woman was killed and seven others injured when a hot air balloon carrying tourists crashed and burned in the desert near Interstate 17 in Phoenix. As the balloon attempted to land, the basket began to roll which, in turn, caused the propane tank to catch fire. The balloon was owned by the Get Carried Away Hot Air Balloon Company.

1996: While escorting the bodies of two soldiers who had been hacked to death by villagers who accused them of raping two women, an army lieutenant opened fire in an airport hangar in Timika, New Guinea. His shots ignited a gun battle that resulted in the deaths of 16 people (11 soldiers and 5 civilians) and the wounding of at least 15 others.

1997: A BK-117 helicopter owned by the Colgate-Palmolive Company crashed into the East River moments after taking off from the 60th Street heliport in New York City. A 3-foot section of the helicopter's tail as well as the rear rotor broke off after a loud bang. One passenger was killed; two others were seriously injured; one escaped with minor injuries.

1999: Passengers of a long-delayed Eastwind Airlines flight grew angry and began chanting, "We want answers," after they got off the plane during a schedule stop in Greensboro, North Carolina. The plane, originally scheduled to leave Boston, Massachusetts for Orlando, Florida at 6:00 a.m. didn't leave until that afternoon. The delay was caused because one of Eastwind's five planes was down for repairs. The plane finally left Greensboro for Orlando around 8:00 p.m. that night.

2002: Air China Flight 129 crashed as it approached Pusan, South Korea. More than 160 passengers and crew were killed.

April 16

1997: Contrary to FAA regulations, a contract maintenance company shipped seven oxygen generators aboard a Continental Airlines jet. After the ValuJet crash in Florida eleven months earlier, the FAA had banned the shipment of such generators on airplanes.

1997: Two jumbo jets, a KLM Boeing 747 and a VASP MD-11, nearly collided as they approached the Los Angeles International Airport. The two passenger jets came within 400 feet of each other when one of the pilots failed to turn as instructed by the air traffic controllers. The jets landed normally and no one was hurt, but it was a close call.

1997: Two Army intelligence officers were killed when their Beech King plane crashed in a marshy area at Ossabaw Island off the coast of Georgia. The two pilots were on a training mission when the plane crashed.

2000: More than 101 people were killed and another 100 injured when a string of blasts rocked the Kinshasa, Congo airport. The cause of the first explosion wasn't clear, but once the first blast hit, it set off fuel and army munitions stored in various buildings. Besides crushing several airport buildings, the blasts shattered windows and threw deadly debris up to several miles away.

April 17

1996: A Navy F-14B jet fighter crashed and exploded at the Oceana Naval Air Station near Virginia Beach, Virginia. Both crewmen were able to eject safely before the crash.

1996: Lionel Rotcajg, son of a Paris nightclub queen, was indicted on May 1 for assaulting and intimidating flight crew members aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on April 17. The crew members had requested that he stop smoking in the aisles. On October 6, 1997, he was found guilty and sentenced to one year probation and a $6,000 fine.

1997: An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jet crashed near Fort Stewart, Georgia when the pilot failed to see a tower during a low-level practice bombing run. The pilot ejected safely.

1999: Seven people were injured, three critically, when their private jet crashed while attempting to land in high winds at the Raleigh County Airport in Beckley, West Virginia. The jet skidded off the runway and crashed down a 150-foot cliff. Amazingly, one person walked away from the crash unhurt.

April 18

1996: One crewmember was killed and five others injured on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz when an arresting wire failed during aircraft landing operations in the Gulf of Thailand.

1996: Nebraska backup quarterback Brook Berringer and a friend were killed when his small plane crashed into an alfalfa field. Berringer, age 22, helped Nebraska win the 1994 national title and expected to be selected in the NFL draft.

1997: Fifteen people were killed when a Merpati Nusantara ATP turboprop crashed off the island of Sumatra.

1998: Two young boys escaped serious injury when a Beechcraft Bonanza crashed into their house and stopped within three feet of where they were playing with a computer. The plane, on its final approach to North Las Vegas Airpport in Nevada, experienced engine problems which caused it to crash. The two people in the plane also escaped with minor facial cuts. Neighbors doused the plane with fire extinguishers to contain the fire until the local fire department made it to the scene of the crash.

1998: On the same day, in Canton, Michigan, neighbors once again came to the rescue of a crash victim when they used garden hoses and fire extinguishers to douse the burning wreckage of a small plane which had crashed in their surburban neighborhood. A dozen neighbors lifted the tail of the plane and were able to pull the pilot out of the plane. They used their water hoses and fire extinguishers to contain the fire until firefighters could arrive to rescue the passenger in the plane. Both people in the plane were in serious condition after the crash. The two-seater plane had hit the ground so hard that its propeller bounced more than a block away.

April 19

1998: After it ran out of fuel, a kit-built plane known as a Long Easy, crashed in a Detroit, Michigan baseball field, spilling bales of marijuana and a duffle bag of cash around the diamond. The pilot, a 63-year-old man died shortly after the crash. Before hitting the field, the plane had clipped some trees and landed upside-down.

1998: Under windy conditions, two pilots were killed when their single-engine biplanes collided during acrobatic maneuvers at the Kissimmee Air Show of the Stars in Florida. They were members of the four-plane Red Baron Stearman Squadron.

1998: The pilot of a single-engine Mooney M20 plane was killed when his plane crashed less than a 100 yards from the main terminal at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Connecticut. The man missed the approach to the airport, which does not have approach lights.

1999: Three passengers were injured when a Metrojet Boeing 737 had to put on its brakes as it was roaring down the runway. Why did it put on the brakes? Because its left engine was smoking.

1999: Three U.S. Marines were killed when their CH-53E helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Okinawa during routine night flight training.

2000: 131 people died when an Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 jetliner crashed near the southern city of Davao. It may have overshot the runway as it attempted to land.

April 20

1967: 126 people died when a Swiss Britannia turboprop crashed at Nicosia, Cyprus.

1968: A South African Airways Boing 707 crashed on takeoff from Windhoek. 122 people died.

1978: A Korean Airline Boeing 707-300 enroute from Paris to Tokyo was fired on and forced down near Kem, USSR for violating their airspace. Two passengers were killed.

1997: A passenger aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Daytona Beach, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia, attacked a flight attendant. The passenger was taken into custody when the plane landed and was prosecuted under federal law.

1998: Shortly after taking off from the airport at Bogota, Colombia, a Boeing 727 airliner leased by Air France went off course, hit a mountain, and exploded in a fireball. The impact was so strong that debris rained down on a residential district in central Bogota miles away.

April 21

1918: The Red Baron, Manfred von Richtofen, was killed in action during World War I.

1962: Frederick Handley Page, designer of the first big airplane (of more than 40 seats), died of natural causes.

1997: An Air Force F-16C jet fighter crashed in a remote swamp in southern Georgia, about 20 miles north of Moody Air Force Base. The pilot was able to eject safely before the crash caused by engine malfunction. It was the third military crash in Georgia in less than a week.

April 22

1966: An Ameriflyers Electra military charter crashed on approaching the Ardmore, Oklahoma airport. 83 people were killed.

1996: The pilot of a small airplane died when his Cessna 150 crashed into a Fokker aircraft plant in Hoogeveen, Netherlands. His passenger, a Dutch forestry service member, was critically injured. No one was injured in the three-story aircraft plant.

1996: Darkstar, a remote-controlled battlefield surveillance aircraft, crashed as it took off on a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The 15-foot unpiloted spy airplane had its maiden flight near the end of March.

1996: As Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew and his family were boarding a plane after returning home from the funeral of his teenage daughter (who had died of leukemia), he asked an attendant to put a wrapped photography of his daughter in a storage area. When the attendant grabbed the photo and threw it into an overhead compartment, Carew told him that if the photo was damaged, "you're not going to hear the end of this." A few moments later, the plane's captain told the Carews they would have to apologize to the attendant or get off the plane. The Carews apologized (even though it had been the Northwest Airlines attendant who had been rude).

1998: A Marine pilot was killed when his AV-8B Harrier attack jet crashed during a routine training mission near Yuma, Arizona. He had apparently ejected, but was found dead five miles from the crash site.

1999: Seven soldiers were killed and four others injured when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky during a training session.

April 23

1974: 107 people died when a Pan American 707 jet crashed in Bali, Indonesia.

1998: The pilot of a Beechcraft Baron operated by AirNet Systems, a small-package delivery service, died when his plane crashed and burned near the end of the runway at Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio.

1999: Pushing Tin, the movie about out of control air traffic controllers, premiered nationally. If you are comfortable flying in airplanes, don't see this movie.

April 24

1967: Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Kimarov became the first human to die in space. When his parachute tangled during reentry, Kimarov fell more than four miles to earth.

1980: In an ill-fated attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran ended when three of the eight helicopters used in the attempt failed. To top things off, one of the remaining helicopters then collided with a C-130 transport. Eight American servicemen were killed, five others were injured.

1996: One surgeon was killed and another broke a leg when their helicopter crashed near the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Diego. Before their helicopter lost power and crashed, they had been filming aerial shots of another doctor in a gorilla suit in a spoof of the movie medical thriller "Outbreak."

1996: After a mid-air collision at 400 mph during a mock dogfight over the Atlantic Ocean, two Navy pilots flew their damaged FA-18 Hornets 65 miles to the Oceana Naval Air Station where both landed safely with only a few scratches for injuries. One plane lost its canopy and nosecone, the other five feet of its left wing plus part of its left tail section.

April 25

1937: Clem Sohn, a 26-year-old air show performer, died when his parachute failed to open.

1945: During World War II, the last Boeing B-17 air attack against Nazi Germany took place on this date.

1980: A chartered Boeing 727 crashed into a mountain as it attempted to land at the airport in the Canary Islands. 138 British vacationers and 8 crew members were killed in the crash.

1996: A car bomb exploded at the Nigerian air force base near Lagos, Nigeria. No one was injured in the attack by the United Front for Nigeria's Liberation.

1997: A man who hijacked a Cuba-bound plane and diverted it to Miami, Florida in 1996 was convicted on this date. He was later sentenced to 20 years in prison. The man had fled a Palestinian shantytown because of poverty.

1997: 200 passengers were evacuated from Concourse F in Terminal 3 of the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida after a discarded container of pepper spray went off in a garbage can. The concourse was reopened about 40 minutes later.

April 26

1937: German-made airplanes destroyed the Basque town of Guernica in Spain, one of the most significant events of the Spanish Civil War.

1944: Japanese fighters attack an American B-29 for the first time. One fighter is shot down.

1952: The U.S. minesweeper "Hobson" rammed the aircraft carrier "Wasp." 176 were killed in the accident.

1993: A domestic Indian airliner slammed into parked truck during takeoff and crashed near the western city of Aurangabad, killing at least 55 of the 118 people aboard.

1994: When a China Airlines Airbus crashed at Nagoya Airport in Japan, 262 people died. Seven people survived.

1996: Six people died when a Cessna plane crashed and burst into flames while attempting to land at Kushiro Airport on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido.

1997: An American Airlines MD-80 had to make an emergency landing at the St. Louis, Missouri Airport after ammonia fumes leaked from a passenger's carry-on baggage.

1998: The automated train system at the new Denver International Airport broke down for several hours, thus stranding or inconveniencing thousands of travellers. A wheel fell off one of the cars, thus derailing the train, which resulted also in severing cables for the central computer and other electrical lines.

1999: An Apache AH-64 helicopter crashed during NATO actions in Kosovo. The two crew members escaped with minor injuries.

April 27

1996: A helicopter on a test flight plunged into a basketball court in a residential area near Manila, Philippines. Two out of the four people on board were killed in the crash.

1996: Four people were killed when their Comanche PA28 single-engine plane crashed in a field north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The crash was caused by defective parts introduced into the plane when an unknown mechanic used automobile parts to repair the plane.

1996: Two TV helicopters filming forest fires in a mountainous region of Japan collided in mid-air, killing all six people aboard.

1997: During a foggy and rainy night, a small Piper Aerostar clipped some trees and crashed into a hillside near Leesburg, Virginia. Both people aboard the plane were killed. So, too, the pet dog of the passenger.

April 28

1947: A Trans-Canada Airline Lockheed Lodestar 18 CF-TDF disappeared near the Vancouver airport. 15 people were declared dead. The wreckage wasn't found until 1994 in mountains within view of the control tower.

1988: During an air show, three Italian Air Force jets collided over the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. When they crashed to the ground, 70 people were killed including all three pilots and many spectators. It was the worst air show disaster ever.

1988: When the roof tore off an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 while en route between two islands, a stewardess was killed. The plane was able to land safely. The roof tore because of metal fatigue.

1996: A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 was forced to return to London after a life raft fell off and landed in a tree near Heathrow Airport in England. The plane landed safely and no one was hurt.

1997: An American Airlines MD-80 had to return to the Tucson, Arizona airport after it lost pieces from an engine moments after taking off.

April 29

1996: Almost twenty years after it happened, Suhaila al Sayeh, a Palestinian woman who hijacked a Lufthansa airplane in 1977, was put on trial for the hijacking and also for killing the captain of the airplane.

1997: A Boeing 737 bound for Las Vegas was forced to return to the terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport after a passenger alledgedly blurted out that everyone on the flight was going to die. The plane was searched by a bomb squad but no bomb was found. The passenger was arrested for making a terrorist bomb threat.

1997: Two people were killed when their homemade Christian Eagle biplane crashed off the coast of California.

1998: A Navy EA-6B Prowler jet crashed in the desert north of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The four-man crew were able to eject safely before the crash.

April 30

1926: Bessie Coleman, the U.S.'s first black female pilot, died in a flying accident.

1996: A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 with a crippled left landing gear made an emergency landing at the Ontario International Airport. No one was hurt as the the aircraft skidded to a halt with a shriek of metal and a billow of smoke.

1997: The Air Line Pilots Association organized the International Conference on Disruptive Airline Passengers to discuss the problem of unruly passengers. According to American Airlines, their cases of passenger misconduct at airport gates or aboard planes soared from 296 cases in 1995 to 882 in 1995.

1997: Two Americans died when their Cessna 172 crashed into Cambodia's highest mountain, Oral Mountain, while doing a survey for the Japan National Oil Company.

May 1

1961: The first U.S. airplane to be hijacked to Cuba was hijacked on this date.

2006: In May, an Airbus A-320 of the Armenian airline Armavia, flying from Yerevan to the Russian resort of Sochi, crashed in the Black Sea. All 113 people on board were killed.

May 2

1997: KLM flight KL129 from Amsterdam to London exposed passengers to excessive radiation when the airline carried technetium generators for x-ray machines destined for a hospital in southern England. Some passengers received a dose of radiation equal to .1 rem, the most anyone should be exposed to in any one year.

1998: Less than five minutes into its maiden flight, an ultralight plane crashed in a field north of Grand Prairie, Alberta. The pilot was killed in the crash.

May 3

1968: A Braniff Electra crashed during a storm near Dawson, Texas. 85 people died.

1996: Shannon Williams, manager of the Wauseon airport in Ohio, pulled two people out of a burning airplane moments before the plane exploded at his airport.

1996: Six passengers and two flight attendants were injured when an American Airlines Fokker F-100 jet experienced turbulence at 35,000 feet on a flight between Buffalo, New York, and Detroit, Michigan.

1996: Four people died when a Cessna 310 crashed into the Pacific Ocean a mile west of Dockweiler State Beach.

1997: A United Airlines jet backed into a plane tow truck as the jet backed away from the gate at San Francisco International Airport. No one on the plane was hurt but the tow truck driver suffered facial lacerations and was taken to the hospital. The fuselage of the plane was damaged in the rear so passengers had to be transferred to another plane to continue their flight.

2000: During an Alaska Airline flight from San Diego to Seattle, one passenger began vomiting blood, splashing seven nearby passengers. The vomiting passenger told the crew that he might be infected with hepatitis C. Airplane crashes are not the only dangers of airline travel; infectious passengers can also spread havoc!

May 4

1961: Americans Victor Prother and Malcolm Ross set a balloon altitude record when they reached 113,739 feet above the Gulf of Mexico. Prother drowned when his pressure suit filled with water after they landed.

1996: A World War II-vintage airplane crashed before a crowd of 13,000 people at the Sertoma Cajun Air Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana. The pilot who was killed in the crash was doing a

barrel roll in his AT-6 trainer when it veered hard to the left and hit the ground at a 45-degree angle.

1996: 53 people were killed a Sudanese passenger plane crashed while attempting to make an emergency landing during a sandstorm at Khartoum, Sudan.

1996: When George Hook of Brainerd, Minnesota, forgot to unlatch one of the chains attaching his helicopter to his truck, his helicopter jerked downward, the rotor blades carved into the cab of his truck, and landed upside down. He came away unhurt.

2002: A BAC1-11-500 plane operated by EAS Airlines crashed in the Nigerian city of Kano. 148 people were killed in the crash, half from the plane and half from the ground.

May 5

1972: 115 people were killed when an Alitalia DC-8 crashed west of Palermo, Sicily.

1994: While walking along the Derbyshire moors near Laneside, England, a couple saw a huge World War II airplane weaving to the left, clearly in trouble only 40 to 50 feet above the moor. He ran over the hill, expecting to see a crash but instead saw only a peaceful meadow with sheep grazing. His sighting was only a few feet from where a U.S. Air Force Dakota crashed in July 1945. Others have reported similar experiences in this area -- the ghost of the Dakota.

1996: A Key West Seaplane Service seaplane was forced to ditch in the ocean. No one was injured in the accident.

1997: A 13-year-old boy ran away from home by sneaking aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Los Angeles, California. He was picked up by police at the LA Airport as he got off the flight. He had snuck on to the flight by posing as someone else's child.

1997: A Navy OH-58A scout helicopter crashed into the Patuxent River during a practice landing/takeoff session. The two navy pilots were rescued.

1999: Two American soldiers were killed when their Apache AH-64 crashed during a high-speed night training mission over Albania, near Kosovo.

1999: New Y2K-compatible software at the Chicago radar control center crashes the computers for 50 minutes.

2000: 20 passengers became sick when methamphetamine fumes permeated the interior of a United Airlines jet. The fumes, coming from meth oils in a garment bag stuffed into an overhead bin, were only eliminated when the bag was removed and stuffed in the back of the plane. No one claimed the bag at the Des Moines airport when the flight landed.

May 6

1937: The German zeppelin Hindenburg burned at its mooring at Lakehurst, New Jersey. 36 people died in the fire.

1997: During a Delta flight, a man lost his temper when a woman took too long to change her baby's diaper in the plane's toilet cubicle. He kicked the door. And when the woman finally came out of the toilet, he slapped her.

1997: Major airlines began a limited test to find any unaccompanied bags that might carry bombs (by matching bags to passengers). Delayed flights were expected as a result.

1998: A Boeing 737 jet, chartered by Occidental Petroleum, crashed while trying to land in the rain at a remote oil camp in the Amazon jungle. Only 13 people survived the crash, including one Peruvian flight attendant, Keila Malpartida, who had previously survived another crash in 1994.

1999: Printer software problems at the New York air traffic control center shuts down the main computer for 45 minutes.

May 7

1995: The worst storm in 20 years blasted through north Texas dropping grapefruit-sized hailstones on 51 jets and 24 smaller planes at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Hundreds of flights had be cancelled as a result of the storm.

1996: An Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet crashed at Joe Foss Field in South Dakota. No fatalities.

1997: FBI and Port Authority agents arrested 81 people charged with stealing millions of dollars worth of luxury cars, designer clothes, aircraft parts, and guns from cargo passing through Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

1997: A Japanese man hanged himself in a toilet during an All-Nippon flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Tokyo, Japan. When the cabin crew discovered his dead body, the plane had to make an unscheduled landing in Moscow.

1998: A family of four died when their small plane crashed into Silver Canyon on Santa Catalina island off the shore of California.

1998: After hail and high winds tore off the nose cone and smashed the cockpit window and wings of an AirTran DC-9 jet, the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at Lovell Field in Chattanooga, Tennesee. With some of his guidance instruments knocked out and unable to see through the window, the pilot had to rely on the ground crew to guide him in for a safe landing. No one was seriously injured when the plane landed safely.

2002: 112 people were killed when a China Northern MD-82 jet crashed into the sea off Dalian in northeast China.

2002: An EgyptAir Boeing 735 crashed landed near Tunis. Most of the 65 people on board survived the crash.

May 8

1978: A National Boeing 727 crashed on approach to the Pensacola, Florida airport. 2 people died in the crash.

1996: The airplane of Governer Jim Edgar of Illinois was struck by lightning but landed safely after passengers put out a cabin fire. No one was hurt as the pilots brought the Beechcraft King aircraft down at the Peoria airport.

1996: Don Mynard, a retired Army colonel flying a private plane, unwittingly sent out an emergency alarm indicating that the plane was hijacked. He had been fiddling with his busted radio when he inadvertently sent the alarm. When he landed at a rural Alabama airport, he was met by 15 police officers who had been sent there to deal with a possible hijacking.

1997: A China Southern Airliner Boeing 737 veered off the runway as it landed at Huangtian Airport in Shenzhen, China, during a fierce thunderstorm. The plane then exploded, broke into three pieces, and caught fire. At least 35 people were killed and dozens more injured in the crash.

1997: The pilot-side windshield on a private Gulfstream 3 jet blew out 2 1/2 hours into a flight from Miami to France. The pilot was able to land at Bangor, Maine, where he picked up another jet. The cabin of the jet never lost pressure so no passengers were hurt in the incident. Actor Sylvester Stallone, who was aboard the plane on his way to the Cannes Film Festival, said “I've always wanted to travel to Europe in a convertible.”

2003: More than 120 soldiers, wives, and children were sucked out and hurled to their death when the rear door of an Ilyushin 76 cargo plane burst open over the Congo about 45 minutes after taking off from the Kinshasa airport. A number of people survived by holding on for dear life as the plane returned to the airport. The plane had been chartered by the Congolese military.

May 9

1957: A one Air Force pilot crashed in the Sierra Nevadas near Kings Canyon National Park. After an extensive search for him, the Air Force declared him dead. But 54 days later 1st Lt. David Steeves was discovered by hikers. He had survived on canned ham, beans, and fish he had discovered in a ranger's cabin at the park.

1970: Walter Reuther, leader of the United Auto Workers, died in a jet crash.

1987: An Ilyushin 62M crashed after taking off from Warsaw, Poland. 183 people died.

1996: A military CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopter crashed and burned at Sikorsky Aircraft testing facility in Stratford, Connecticut. Four people were killed while doing a flight check on the helicopter which was scheduled to be added to the White House fleet.

1997: Shortly after taking off, a Delta Boeing 727 had to return to the Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, when one of its engines caught fire. The pilot was able to land the plane safely.

May 10

1996: The FAA grounded the Key West Seaplane Service and ordered it to fix shortcomings in seven areas before resuming flights because of two major accidents in two months.

1996: The Air Force suspended all of its test flights for B-2 stealth bombers after discovering a cracked clamp during an inspection. All ten $2 billion planes at the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri were grounded until the clamps could be replaced.

1996: Four Canadian oil prospectors were killed when their single-engine Cessna crashed near the mining town of La Oroya, Peru.

1996: 16 people were killed and 3 injured when a De Haviland Twin Otter DHC-6 carrying miners crashed while trying to land in rugged mountains of northwestern Mexico.

1996: While participating in joint British-American war exercises using night-vision goggles, a Marine CH-46E Sea Knight troop carrier helicopter and an AH-1W Super Cobra assault helicopter crashed at 2:00 a.m. at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. 14 troops were killed, but miraculously the pilot and co-pilot of the CH-46E survived.

1997: A CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean moments after lifting off from the USS Juneau amphibious land ship. Four Marines died in the crash.

1997: Two small planes collided in mid-air over northern Utah. One plane, a single-engine Cessna 182, crashed to the ground, killing the three people aboard the plane. Although it sustained some damage and was leaking fuel, the other plane was able to land safely at a nearby municipal airport. Witnesses on the ground said the planes had been chasing each other when one of the planes banked into the other and crashed to the ground.

May 11

1996: A ValueJet DC-9 jet crashed in the Florida Everglades shortly after taking off from the Miami, Florida airport. 109 people were killed in the crash. The plane had a history of maintenance problems which had forced it to return seven times after takeoff in the past two years (including lost cabin pressure, a loose oil cap, faulty heat exchanger, faulty hydraulic pump, and rear door ajar). Candi Kubeck, the pilot, became the first woman commercial jetliner captain to die in a U.S. crash.

1997: A Continental Airlines pilot landed at the wrong airport in Texas when he landed at Cabaniss Field, a World War II military landing strip 4 1/2 miles from the Corpus Christi International Airport where he was supposed to land. The landing strip at Cabaniss, closed since 1958, is 3,000 feet shorter than the one at Corpus Christi. No one was injured in the incident, but the pilots were suspended for their mistake.

1997: Five people were killed when their single-engine plane crashed into a field shortly after taking off from the Truckee-Tahoe Airport near Truckee, California.

May 12

1996: The flight crew of an American Trans Air Boeing 727 temporarily lost consciousness when the cabin air pressure disappeared. The crew made an emergency landing at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport. Many passengers reported ear pain due to the loss in pressure. 12 were hospitalized overnight.

1996: Hours earlier, another American Trans Air Boeing 757 developed engine problems and had to return to the Saint Petersburg, Florida airport. No one was hurt.

1997: After looking more deeply into the January 9 crash of a commuter plane in Monroe, Michigan, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that all Brazilian Embraer EMB-120 turboprops would be required to have ice-detection equipment.

1997: A US Airways Express propeller commuter plane taking off from National Airport came within 100 feet of a moving Learjet owned by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA Learjet came that close to the commuter plane because the FAA pilots had ignored the air traffic controller and continued on a 1/4 mile past the turnoff they should have taken.

1997: An American Airlines A300 jet hit severe turbulence as it landed at Miami International Airport around the same time as a tornado was sweeping through downtown Miami. Several passengers and flight attendants were injured, but the plane landed safely. The tornado itself did little damage in downtown Miami.

1998: Four people were killed when their Beechcraft single-engine plane crashed in the Allegheny Mountains near Davis, West Virginia. Something apparently happened to the plane in mid-air to cause the crash. The people had been on their way to golf in North Carolina when the crash occurred. There were no survivors.

May 13

1996: A private plane flipped over as it made an emergency landing near a highway in Illinois. The three people aboard the aircraft survived the crash with minor injuries.

1996: A Philippine National Police single-engine aircraft crash landed at the Manila airport minutes after taking off. No one was hurt in the accident.

1997: A tractor trailer truck delivering aircraft tires struck the wing of a Delta jet as passengers were boarding the plane. One of the passengers was seriously hurt when he fell to the tarmac as the jet was pushed away from the loading platform.

May 14

1996: A Miami Air Boeing 727 charter flight lost cabin air pressure and had to make an emergency landing at the Norfolk, Virginia airport. Several passengers got bloody noses or earaches as a result of the loss in pressure.

1996: A Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 turned back to the Mercer County Airport shortly after takeoff when the pilot felt an unfamiliar vibration on the control services.

1996: The United States and France signed an air safety agreement aimed at closer cooperation in plane inspections and maintenance. The FAA had signed other bilateral air safety agreements with the Netherlands (in September 1995) and United Kingdom (in December 1995).

1996: A 5-year-old boy accidentally set off a can of Mace on board an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu. 10 passengers were treated for ill-effects and one woman was hospitalized.

1996: AV Atlantic, the charter airline that supplied a plane for Senator Bob Dole's presidential campaign, was grounded because of inadequate training of flight attendants.

1996: An Allegro Airlines charter DC-9 jet ran out of gas and had to make an emergency landing at the Tampico, Mexico airport -- pancaking about 200 yards short of the main runway. The plane had been flying from Florida to Cancun, Mexico.

1997: The JetStream aviation catalog filed for bankruptcy protection and shut down operations.

1998: A Baker Aviation Cessna commuter plane crashed upside down on Newton Peak, ten miles northeast of Nome, Alaska. Two people were injured in the crash. The other ten passengers escaped without injury.

2000: A Cypress Airways jet was diverted to Athens, Greece when one of its passengers became unruly (groping stewards, making suggestive comments, smoking, abusing the attendants). The plane had been on a flight from London to Lamaca, Cyprus.

2000: A woman was injured when a Russian helicopter plunged into the woods near her home in southern Russia. As the helicopter went down it hit electric cables which caused it to fire rockets into her apartment. All 15 men aboard the helicopter were also hurt in the crash.

May 15

1996: A Norwegian and a Swede helping with Norway's annual reindeer roundup were killed when their Bell 206B Jet Ranger III helicopter hit a power line and sank into the sea off northern Norway.

1997: 8-year-old Aaron Suelter of Westfall, Kansas, discovered a purse in a recently plowed field on his family's farm. The purse belonged to Lynn Elliott, who had lost the purse several year's earlier when the purse fell out the back window of her family's private plane. The purse was worse for wear, but was otherwise intact and still holding the $300 in traveler's checks, $80 in cash, and other items that were in it when she lost it.

1997: Researchers report in New Scientist magazine that airliners could be spreading dangerous viruses around the world via the on-board toilets. Many infectious viruses survive the chemical toilets currently used on commercial aircraft.

1997: The door to the landing gear of a TWA L-1011 jet dropped from the plane and landed in downtown St. Louis as the plane was moving in for a landing at the St. Louis Airport in Missouri. No one was injured by traffic stopped when the door landed in front of city hall.

1997: An azerbaijan Airlines Yakoviev Yak-40 jet crashed in flames after being hit accidentally by a burst of machine-gun fire from a military exercise on the ground near Azerbaijan's national aviation academy. Six people died in the crash.

1998: Abdul Hakim Murad, a commercial pilot who plotted to bomb about ten U.S. commercial jetliners, was sentenced to life without parole, plus sixty years, for killing a Japanese passenger in the bombing of a Philippine Airlines jet in 1994.

1998: A single-engine Commander 114B plane crashed in a field near Elkhorn, Wisconsin, killing four people. Witnesses reported seeing the plane break up just before the crash.

May 16

1977: Five people die as a New York Airway helicopter toppled on top of the PanAm building in New York City.

1997: Great Lakes Aviation suspended all its flights after the Federal Aviation Administration said that the carrier operated "unairworthy aircraft." The regional carrier then ordered all its planes to its headquarters at Spencer, Iowa, for inspection by company officials and FAA personnel.

1998: Woody Lemons, one of the first bank executives convicted in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, died along with his wife and mother when their private British Beagle twin-engine plane crashed just outside Vernon, Texas. They had just taken off form the Wilbarger County Airport when their plane began to experience engine trouble. Lemons wife, the pilot, attempted to return to the airport but lost altitude and crashed into a local highway, then skidded 100 feet into a wheat field before bursting into flames.

May 17

1981: Jeannette Ridlon Piccard, the first American female free balloon pilot, died of natural causes.

1987: When an Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, 37 American sailors were killed. The attack was supposedly a mistake.

1997: Two paratroopers (out of 360) were injured while trying to land in a gusty wind during the open house air show at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC.

May 18

1996: The DC-XA experimental reusable rocket, designed to be the prototype for replacing the space shuttle, burst briefly into flames after completing its first test flight at the White Sands Missle Range in New Mexico.

1997: Two small aircraft, a single engine and a twin engine, crashed in mid-air during celebrations marking the 55th anniversary of a local airport in southern Brazil. Twelve people in the two planes died in the crash. Also one woman on the ground died of a heart attack when one of the falling bodies dropped on top of her.

1997: A British Airways jetliner blew out six tires as it made a panic stop while taking off from Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Air traffic controllers, on seeing that a United Airlines plane could not stop in time while crossing a runway, ordered the British Airways jet to stop its takeoff from that same runway. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: An unidentified airplane came close to a Northwest Airlines DC-9 that had just taken off from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan.

1998: Four people were killed when their helicopter crashed into a house in Arlington Heights, Illinois. A woman escaped a ranch-style house as the helicopter plunged, rotors-down, into an attached garage.

May 19

1945: During World War II, a Royal Canadian Air Force Lancaster military plane crashed while trying to land. All six crewmen were killed in the crash.

1993: When a SAM Airlines Boeing 727-100 crashed into a jungle mountain while attempting to land at the Medellin, Columbia airport, all 132 people aboard the plane were killed.

1996: According to statistics gathered by the General Accounting Office and the National Transportation Society, from 1984 to 1994, 42 U.S. commercial jets have been destroyed in crashes (killing 125 crew members and 1,520 passengers) while 1,523 military aircraft were destroyed (killing 1,633 service members and costing taxpayers $21.2 billion).

1997: A United Airlines Boeing 737 landed safely at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois, after smoke appeared in the rear galley area. The fire was quickly extinguished. No one was injured.

1997: A New York businessman was dragged half-naked from an airplane toilet by several crew members after the smoke alarm went off in the Air France toilet. In July, he sued the airline and its crew for assault.

1998: A stunt pilot was killed when his Sukhoi Su-29 crashed during an air show sponsored by DARE, a drug awareness program for children. No one in the crowd was injured at the site near Manassas, Virginia.

1999: Computers replacing outdated machines at the New York air traffic control center fail for 67 minutes.

May 20

1965: When a Pakistani Boeing 720-B crashed at the Cairo Airport in Egypt, 121 people died.

1978: A cop was shot near El Al Airlines in Orly Airport (Paris, France) by three members of the PFLP.

1996: Flight controllers at Tel Aviv airport in Israel closed the airport for more than three hours after pirate radio broadcasts kept interfering with tower communications, especially after a French passenger plane had to switch to an emergency channel in order to land.

1998: Volcanic ash from Mt. Pacaya showered on Guatemala's capital and international airport, thus closing the airport to larger planes for a several days.

May 21

1959: A 30-foot weather balloon suspended from an aluminum gondola crashed during a low-altitude training exercise near Roswell, New Mexico. When it landed on top of Dan Fulgham's head, it caused his head to swell up plus two black eyes and a yellow skin condition. When he was taken to the hospital, people thought he was an alien. Some people say that this incident is the cause of so many rumors regarding the Roswell Incident (which, however, occurred several years earlier).

1990: Mary Victor Bruce, who was the first woman to fly around the Empire State Building in 1930, died of natural causes.

1997: The last episode of the TV show, Wings, aired. The show, which ran for eight seasons, featured two brothers who ran a one-plane commuter service on Nantucket Island.

1997: A SkyWest Embraer 120 twin-turboprop commuter plane made an emergency landing at the Miramar Naval Air Station shortly after taking off from the San Diego airport. The pilot had to shut off one of the engines after there was a loud bang and a warning light indicated the engine had caught fire. Then, while landing at the air station, the plane's brakes also failed, thus causing the plane to run off the runway. Surprisingly, no one was hurt in the incident.

1997: An executive at Conseco was killed when he was struck in the head by a helicopter blade as he got off the company's helicopter at Indianapolis International Airport. After leaving the helicopter, he turn left and began walking around the front of the helicopter, but the helicopter's engine had already been shut off so the blades had begun to slow down and droop, thus hitting the man in the head.

1998: Four passengers and three flight attendants were injured when a Continental Airlines DC-10 hit turbulence over the Pacific Ocean, thus forcing the plane to return to the Los Angeles Airport.

1998: Just after taking off, a Navy F-14 Tomcat jet fighter crashed near the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina. Both crewmen were able to eject safely.

May 22

1962: A Continental Boeing 707 crashed after a bomb went off as it flew over Kansas. 45 people were killed.

1996: A USAir Fokker F100 had to return to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when smoke entered the cockpit from the windshield heating system. According to KSTP-TV, that plane had made seven unscheduled landings in the past ten years.

1997: A pressurized stainless steel canister was seized at the New Orleans International Airport after an unidentified man tried to pass it through an X-ray machine. The man fled when security tried to questions him about the cylinder. Several weeks later the cylinder was taken to the Aberdeen Proving Ground for further inspection.

1997: Guy Colado survived the crash of a helicopter that lost power at 1,200 feet and fell to the ground in a quiet Winter Park, Florida neighborhood.

May 23

1908: When a dirigible exploded over San Francisco Bay, 16 passengers fell to the sea but none died.

1996: Two Marines were killed when their AH-1 W Cobra helicopter crashed near a school and burst into flames. The helicopter had just taken off from the Bell Helicopter Textron factory in Hurst, Texas, before crashing ten minutes later near a high school in Hutchins, Texas.

1997: A teenage boy discovered the body of a man who had apparently fallen from the wheel well of an airplane about to land at Miami International Airport in Florida. The man had apparently been a stowaway on an international flight.

May 24

1963: CIA pilot Ken Collins ejected safely just before his Lockheed A-12 crashed. It was the first Lockheed A-12 to crash.

1986: Astronaut Stephen Thorne died in a plane crash near Alta Loma, Texas.

1996: A jaguar being transported from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Mykolayev, Ukraine, broke free from its cage and roamed free through the cargo hold. When baggage handlers at the Lviv, Ukraine airport opened the hold, they were greated by the 10-year-old jaguar. The plane's passengers were evacuated and the plane was flown to Kiev, where zoo keepers and animal trainers were waiting to subdue the jaguar.

1997: A couple were killed when their Piper Turbo Saratoga plane went down in the Deschutes National Forest seven miles south of Bend, Oregon.

1998: A Lufthansa Boeing 747 was forced to land at the Billings, Montana airport after a passenger suffered a heart attack and died while en route from Los Angeles to Germany.

May 25

1928: Italian explorer Umberto Nobile crashed in the polar regions shortly after crossing the North Pole in his airship. Norwegian explorer Raold Amundsen died trying to rescue his friend.

1979: 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed after taking off from O'Hare Airport in Chicago. It was the highest death toll in U.S. aviation history.

1997: An American Trans Air Lockheed L-1011 TriStar jetliner had to make an emergency landing at Kennedy International Airport when one of its engines began to vibrate. The plane had just taken off from Newark International when the vibration was noticed.

1997: Six people were killed when an overloaded Cessna 205 went into a spin as one of the passengers prepared to jump from the plane over the Florida Everglades. The woman jumper floated to the ground as she watched her fellow jumpers die when the plane crashed into a sweet potato field. The owner of the company, Skydivers, Inc., was among those who died.

1998: Three hijackers were captured after a brief shootout when Pakistani officials posed as Indians and stormed the plane at the Hyderabad, Pakistan, airport to free 29 hostages on a Pakistan Airlines Fokker Friendship airplane. No one was injured by gunfire.

1998: Five people were killed when their Bell 206 helicopter hit power lines and crashed in dense fog just after midnight. The helicopter, carrying fans from a NASCAR stock car race, crashed on a four-lane highway 30 miles north of Monroe, North Carolina.

1998: In two separate crashes, four people were killed when their planes experienced plane. trouble. One two-seater plane crashed in the woods of southeastern Massachusetts near Taunton while another four-seater crashed near Middletown, Rhodes Island (where two died and two others were injured).

2002: A China Airlines Boeing 747-200 with 225 people aboard crashed shortly after taking off from Taiwan for Hong Kong. All aboard were killed.

May 26

1991: When a Lauda Air Boeing 767 exploded over rural Thailand, 223 people were killed. An engine thrust reverser inexplicably deployed shortly after takeoff.

1995: ABC's 20/20 TV show reported on the dangers of breathing the recycled air in airplanes.

1997: Air Force One, while carrying President Clinton to a European summit, came within 1,000 feet above and three miles left of a UPS 747 cargo plane. The cargo plane had no collision avoidance equipment aboard but the President's plane did.

1998: Four men forced the pilot of a small plane to land at Rondon do Para in northern Brazil where they proceded to rob the Banco do Brasil of $1.7 million that the plane had been transporting.

2003: An Ukrainian Yak-42 airplane carrying Spanish peacekeepers back from Afghanistan crashed into a fog-covered mountain in northeastern Turkey near the Black Sea resort of Trabzon. All 74 people aboard the plane were killed.

May 27

1997: Russian newspapers reported that 76 top aviation officials refused to take Aeroflot, the Russian national airline, when flying to the United States. Concerned about safety problems, they chose to fly Finnair instead.

1997: An Air Force A-10 jet crashed in the Barry Goldwater Training Range near Tucson, Arizona. The pilot, a woman, died in the crash. The investigation revealed that she had lost track of which way was up after flying at a steeply angled bank and then virtually upside down.

1998: Six people survived the crash of their Cessna 206 on icy Mount Torbert by huddling in the broken fuselage for more than six hours before rescuers came via helicopter.

1998: A Navy pilot was killed when his FA-18 jet fighter crashed during night training exercises at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada.

May 28

1971: Audie Murphy, the most decorated combat soldier of WWII, died in a private plane crash while on a business trip. The Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website: http://www.audiemurphy.com/.

1996: A crippled Martinair 767 passenger jet blew out eight of its tires as it made an emergency landing at the Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. After losing use of its navigational instruments, the plane was also unable to use its flaps, spoilers, or automatic anti-skid system to make the landing. No one was hurt in the landing.

1997: A Phoenix, Arizona couple were charged with beating two newly-adopted 4-year-old Russian girls while returning home on a flight from Moscow to New York City. Passengers accused the couple of repeately screaming at the girls, hitting them, choking them, pulling their hair, and hitting them with eating utensils during the ten-hour flight. Police met the couple at the airport in New York and charged the couple with assault, child endangerment, and harassment.

1998: One crew member was killed and nine others injured when their SH-60F Seahawk helicopter made a hard emergency landing in the Nevada desert near Fallon Naval Air Station.

May 29

1997: A Dutch pilot was jailed for four months for singing the Flintstone's theme song over his small plane's radio in March of 1996. His singing tied up a radio frequency used by air traffic controllers at the Groningen, Netherlands airport and tied up air traffic for 20 minutes while the pilot sang, "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, they're a modern stone-age family..."

May 30

1995: Air Force Major Donald Lowry was killed when his F-15 jet crashed on take-off. The crash was caused by crossed wires which caused the plane to push into the runway rather than lift off. The Air Force had known since 1986 that the two wires could be crossed but had not taken measures to educate its mechanics or change the wiring so it was mistake-proof.

1996: Fumes from a new auxilary power unit engulfed the passenger cabin of a ValuJet aircraft en route to Philadelphia. When the APU was shut down, the fumes disappeared.

1998: When a flightseeing helicopter from Era Aviation collided with a Cessna 172 floatplane near downtown Juneau, the six passengers on the helicoper suffered only minor injuries as the copter safely put down in a valley, but two people were killed when the Cessna crashed into Gastineau Channel.

May 31

1995: A rabbi and his assistant were accused of fondling a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Los Angeles, California, to Australia. The assistant was sentenced to 22 months in prison in January 1996. The rabbi was sentenced to perform 500 hours of community service and undergo counseling when he was sentenced in September 1997.

1997: Four people were killed when their single-engine Piper Cherokee PA-28 airplane crashed and burst into flames in a vacant parking lot near Melville, Long Island. Earlier, the pilot exercised a missed approach at the Republic Airport in Farmington, New York before crashing a few miles away while trying to return to the airport.

1998: Shortly after taking off from Smith Reynolds Airport for a test flight, a small airplane lost power, crashed into a house near in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and caught fire. Both people on board the plane were killed but the occupants of the house escaped injury. More than 50 people lost power for several hours due to the crash.

1998: During a flight from London to Johannesburg, a couple made love in full view of other passengers on a South African Airways jet. According to one woman who had two young sons on the flight, "It was the most callous display of lust I have ever seen."

June 1

1937: Amelia Earhart took off on her ill-fated flight around the world. Her plane crashed on July 2, 1937.

1996: A German airman training with U.S. forces at Fort Bliss, Texas, was killed when his vehicle overturned while scouting the desert on an unpaved road in preparation for Operation Roving Sands, one of the largest war-game exercises in the United States. Besides 12,000 U.S. troops, 2,500 Europeans also took part in the war games.

1997: A Korean War-vintage F-86 Saber jet fighter crashed in a field during an air show at the Jefferson County Airport near Denver, Colorado. The pilot, who had intentionally flown the plane away from spectators before crashing, was killed when he couldn't pull the plane up from a steep dive.

1998: A US Air Boeing 757 was forced to make an emergency landing at Little Rock National Airport in Arkansas after the smell of burning rubber filled the cockpit. The plane had been on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to San Francisco, California, with 161 people on board.

1998: Pilots struck Air France, the French state airline, thus causing the cancelling of 85% of the airline's flights and endangering the attendance at the World Cup soccer tournament.

1998: Two scientists and three crew members were killed when a Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter crashed into the ice shortly after taking off from a research ship near Antarctica.

1999: Nine people were killed when an American Airlines MD Super 80 passenger jet skidded off the runway at it tried to land at the Little Rock, Arkansas airport in a gale-force rainstorm. 137 people escaped the burning plane. A good number were treated for severe burns, broken bones, and smoke inhalation.

June 2

1983: When a fire broke out in the bathroom of an Air Canada DC-9, it crashed on attempting to land at the Cincinnati, Ohio airport. 23 people died in the incident.

1995: Bosnian Serbs shot down an Air Force jet flying a United Nations survey flight over Bosnia. On June 8, after surviving on roots and berries, Captain Scott O'Grady was rescued.

1996: Four people were killed when their single-engine Piper Malibu broke apart and crashed during a thunderstorm near Aitkin, Minnesota. The four business leaders from Ottumwa, Iowa, were returning from a hunting trip in Canada.

1996: An America West airliner had to make an emergency landing at Chicago's Midway Airport when birds flew into one of its engines and shut it down shortly after take off. The plane returned to the airport safely and no passengers were hurt.

June 3

1962: 130 people died when an Air France Boeing 707 crashed on taking off from the Paris Airport.

1963: When a chartered Northwest Airlines DC-7 crashed into the Pacific Ocean off of British Columbia, 101 people died.

1973: The first supersonic plane crash occurred when a Soviet Supersonic TU-144 crashed near Goussainville, France. Six crew members were killed as well as eight people on the ground. There were no passengers on this flight.

1996: A TWA 767 airliner was evacuated before takeoff at the Los Angeles International Airport when a ventilation duct ruptured and sprayed dust into the passenger cabin. There were no injuries as the 153 passengers slid down the emergency chutes during the evacuation.

1996: The Japanese destroyer Yuugiri accidentally shot down a U.S. Navy A-6E attack bomber as it towed a target during RIMPAC war games 1,600 miles west of Hawaii. The two pilots were able to eject safely. No one was hurt in the third war game accident to happen in the past month.

1998: A flare gun went off inside a French tour operator's suitcase at Miami International Airport moments before it was to be loaded on a U.S. Airways flight to Philadelphia. The flare ignited a smoky fire that could have caused serious problems of it had gone off while the plane was in flight.

1998: A Piper Aerostar broke into pieces before plunging into the ground in a forest in the Berkshire Mountains near Dalton, Massachusetts. All three people aboard the plane were killed in the accident.

1998: Two people died when their single-engine plane crashed into a house after running into trouble moments after taking off from the Winston-Salem, North Carolina airport. The three people inside the house made it out with minor injuries.

June 4

1996: Residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania woke to the sound of ammunition explosions during a mock air battle of helicopters conducted over the city from late the previous night to early in the morning on the 4th. While most residents had been warned that the mock air battle would occur, one family had not been warned. The wife went into labor as a result of the shock.

1996: When Europe's new unmanned satellite-launching rocket, Ariane 5, began to veer off course seconds after launch, technicians blew it up so it would not land in any populated area. Four science satellites were destroyed in the accident.

1996: An American Airlines MD-80 had to make an emergency landing at the Oklahoma City airport after turbulence injured seven passengers and two flight attendants on a flight from Chicago, Illinois to El Paso, Texas.

1997: A Stealth F-117A Nighthawk jet fighter skidded off the runway after its main landing gear collapsed. The pilot, who was hospitalized in stable condition, had just returned from a routine training mission when the incident occurred at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

June 5

1921: Pioneering woman aviator Laura Bromwell died when she lost control of her airplane and crashed from over 1000 feet in the air. Only a month earlier, she had set a new world's record by looping the loop 199 times at speeds up to 135 miles per hour.

1944: During the first B-29 bombing raid in World War II, one plane was lost due to engine failure.

1997: The National Air Traffic Controllers Association released a report revealing that the Doppler system at the Tampa International Airport in Florida was out of service more than 737 hours (equivalent to 31 days!) during the past 11 months. The Low Level Windshear Alert System was also out more than 258 hours. These systems warn incoming planes of dangerous wind conditions that could cause accidents. The FAA has dealt with frequent Doppler outages at the Denver, Kansas City, and Washington DC airports as well.

1998: President Clinton's Air Force One briefly dropped off air traffic control radar screens twice on its way from Washington to Massachusetts. Two days later, Vice President Gore's Air Force Two also disappeared from radar screens while over New Jersey.

June 6

1971: A Hughes DC-9 crashed with a military jet over California. 49 people died in the collision.

1994: 160 people were killed when a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev-154 aircraft crashed on a flight from Xian to Guangzhou.

1994: A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 was hijacked to Taiwan on a domestic flight from Fuzhou to Guangzhou by food company purchaser Zou Weiqiang. A Taiwan court sentenced Zou to 13 years in jail.

1996: 13 people out of 14 aboard were killed when a German army transport helicopter crashed south of Dortmund, Germany. The passengers of the Bell UH-1D helicopter included 6 youth festival attendees as well as two television crews.

1997: Con Air, the action movie starring Nicolas Cage, premiered nationwide. It told the story of a prison plane taken over by the prisoners which makes a dramatic landing in the middle of downtown Las Vegas.

1997: A French woman report to French TV that she was keeping a chunk of ice that fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of her house. She put the chunk in her freezer in the hopes that some day she could track down which airline let fly the chunk of ice -- and thus collect damages from them to fix the gaping hole in her roof.

1997: According to the latest figures of the Federal Aviation Administration (as reported in today's New Scientist magazine), you have a greater chance of dying from a medical emergency aboard an airplane than from a crash. An average of 118 people have died from air crashes over U.S. soil in the past 20 years. On the other hand, about 350 passengers a year die on board a plane operated by a U.S. carrier. Over 14,000 medical emergencies occur each year on the nine major U.S. airlines. Be sure to bring your doctor with you when you fly!

June 7

1989: 168 people died when a Suriname DC-8 airplane crashed in heavy fog near Paramaribl Airport in Suriname. 17 people survived the crash.

1996: The pilot of an Air National Guard F-16 ejected safely as his jet crashed in a field near Valley Springs, South Dakota. The crash was caused by a fan blade which sheared off during flight.

1997: Two French pilots who were attempting to make the first nonstop transAtlantic helicopter flight had to give up their attempt when a fuel leak developed in their auxiliary tanks. The helicopter was forced to land on the Abeille tugboat which had been used to refuel it.

1997: A Continental Airlines Boeing 727 bumped into a jetway as it was going from one part of the Newark International Airport in New Jersey to another part. The nose of the 727 became lodged in the corridor of the jetway, causing part of the plane to buckle. Two crew members were hurt in the incident. No passengers were aboard the plane when the incident occurred.

1997: The flight of a Paris-bound Corsair Airlines Boeing 747 was delayed when the airlines received a bomb threat at the Oakland International Airport in California. Over 300 passengers were in the boarding line when someone used a white courtesy phone near the boarding site to make the bomb threat call. The plane was evacuated, taken to an isolated area of the airport, and searched thoroughly. No bomb was found. The plane took off with passengers about four hours later than originally scheduled.

1998: Vice President Al Gore's Air Force Two disappeared briefly (24 seconds) from air traffic control radar screens just days after Air Force One had also disappeared from air traffic control radar screens in the Northeast U.S.

1998: Ethiopian jets bombed a military-civilian airport near Asmara, Eritrea, as hundreds of foreigners were attempting to leave the war-torn country.

1998: Today, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Association made public a list of 150 airports worldwide with major safety problems. 15 airports, including those in San Francisco and Hong Kong, were listed as "critically deficient."

June 8

1995: A flight attendant suffered burns and several passengers had minor injuries after a Pratt & Whitney JT8D-91 engine caught fire on a ValuJet DC-9 at the Atlanta, Georgia airport. The rest of the passengers and crew were evacuated safely.

1996: 91 of 346 passengers refused to reboard an Excalibur Airways DC-10 jet after smoke seeped into the cabin from the air-conditioning vents. Although the pilot told them the problem had been fixed, the 91 passengers waited for another jet before flying back to Manchester, England from the Orlando, Florida airport. The pilot, crew, and other passengers had a safe flight home as well.

1997: A disgruntled employee might have cut wires on a Pan Am Airbus at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The cut wires, which would have made the plane dangerous to fly, were discovered before the plane took off.

1997: A Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter with four crew members was lost at sea during a late night rescue mission 40 miles west of Eureka, California.

1997: You are not even safe from pilots when you are dead. Investigators today began searching for a California pilot who put thousands of boxes of cremated human remains in storage rather than spread them over mountains or at sea as he had been paid to do. Over the past 40 years, he placed more than 3,500 boxes of cremated remains in public storage lockers and at his hangar.

June 9

1980: United Airlines President Percy Woods was injured at his Lake Forest, Illinois home when he opened a package that had been sent to him by the Unabomber.

1997: A United Airlines Boeing 737 heading for O'Hare Airport was forced to climb abruptly when a twin-engine Cessna came within a half mile of its flight path. Two flight attendants were injured in the incident, which occurred about 70 miles east of O'Hare.

1997: The Israeli El Al airline delayed a flight for seven hours after a passenger reported seeing a mouse on the plane. Since mice have been known to eat electrical wires, the Israelis delayed the plane until they could find the mouse. No mouse, however, was found during the seven-hour search.

1997: An Air Malta Boeing 737 was hijacked by two men who demanded the release of the Turkish gunman who tried to assassinate the Pope in 1981. The gunman surrendered their guns to the pilot but only after the flight from Malta to Turkey had been diverted to Germany. None of the 80 people aboard the plane were hurt in the incident.

June 10

1981: 17 people died when an NLM Cityhopper Fokker F-28 Fellowship 4000 aircraft hit a tornado on a flight from Rotterdam, Netherlands to Hamburg, Germany. The tornado tore the right wing off the airplane, which then crashed out of control.

1996: The TWA Boeing 747 that exploded in mid-air off Long Island on July 17, 1996, was used five weeks earlier as a testing facility for bomb-sniffing dogs during a routine training exercise.

1996: Two airliners, an American West Boeing 757 that was landing and an American Airlines Airbus A-300 that was taking off, came too close for comfort at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A U.S. Air Force C-130 airplane evacuated 54 foreigners, including 30 Americans, from the Republic of Congo where fighting between the government and rebels was taking place. The plane encountered some ground fire as it took off from the Brazzaville airport.

June 11

1991: An experimental V-22 tiltrotor Osprey airplane crashed during a test flight. Two people aboard suffered minor injuries. The plane was hovering about 15 feet off the ground when it tipped to the left and the engine slammed into the ground and ignited a small fire.

1997: The Chicago Sun-Times reported that a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Air National Guard was suspended without pay for setting up a video camera in the ceiling of the women's shower of his unit.

1997: A Kansas City man plead not guilty to assaulting a woman passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight on April 4. When she used the first class lavoratory to change her baby's diaper, he kicked at the door and demanded that she return to coach where she belonged. She, in turn (according to his statement), struck and cut his face with her long fingernails.

1997: Air traffic along the eastern seaboard was slowed down for nearly eight hours after communications equipment broke down at National Airport, thus preventing controllers from talking to airplanes in flight.Using a limited backup system, controllers were able eventually able to bring all planes in for a landing. The breakdown occurred after the equipment, which can draw 140 amps of power, was wired into a 60-amp breaker, thus causing the circuit breaker to trip.

1997: At the other DC airport, Dulles International, 2,000 passengers had to be sent back through metal detectors after one man bolted past the checkpoint. The man was never found. 50 flights were delayed by the incident.

1997: A disgruntled employee might have cut wires on a Pan Am Airbus at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The cut wires, which would have made the plane dangerous to fly, were discovered before the plane took off. A similar incident occurred three days earlier on the same plane.

1997: After inexplicably losing power, a small single-engine airplane crashed in a woman's backyard in Saefern, Maryland. Falling through the trees, the plane ended up crumpled with its tail tipped forward and its right wing wrapped around the trunk of a tree. The two men aboard the plane escaped with minor but bloody injuries. They were treated and later released. The woman, who makes angel figures for people with terminal illnesses, figures that explained why the two men were able to walk away from the crumpled wreckage.

1998: A mistake made by an air traffic controller caused a private Beechcraft Baron plane to fly within 200 feet of a Delta Air Lines jetliner near the Nashville, Tennessee airport.

1998: Two people died when their small Navy training plane crashed off the Florida Keys near Key Largo, Florida.

June 12

1996: Two Black Hawk helicopters crashed during anti-terrorist training exercises near Townsville, Australia. Eighteen servicemen died and 12 others were injured, some seriously. The accident was the result of poor planning, defects in command, and errors of judgment.

1997: Despite a ceasefire between the dissident Congolese militia and the army of President Pascal Lissouba, mortar blasts and grenade explosions rocked the area around the Brazzaville airport in the Republic of Congo.

1997: When a passenger noticed an alarming message on the bathroom wall of a Delta flight bound from Atlanta, Georgia, for Spain, the pilot made an unschedule landing at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The passenger, a disgruntled employee of Delta, might have been responsible for the alarming message.

June 13

1996: Four people died and 59 others were injured when a Garuda Indonesian Airlines DC-10 ran off the runway and burst into flames while taking off from the Fakuoka Airport in Japan.

1996: A plane carrying former president George and Barbara Bush and retired general Colin Powell was forced to land at the Bangor International Airport when an indicator light showed a problem with the left engine. The plane, having taken off from Portland, Maine, was headed to Europe where Bush, his wife, and Powell were intending to vacation.

1997: It was Friday, the 13th, and a leaking coffin soiled the luggage of fellow passengers. Body fluids of a three-month old corpse leaked from an improperly sealed coffin during a Belgin Sabena flight from Nice, France to Brussels, Belgium. Do you know where your luggage has been?

June 14

1985: Shiite terrorists hijacked a TWA Boeing 727 and forced it to land at Beirut, Lebanon. Demanding the release of 700 Arabs held by Israel, they kill a U.S. Navy diver and hold 39 other American hostages until Syrian mediation ended the stand-off on July 1st. The terrorists then released all remaining hostages.

1989: All four passengers on a Grumman AA5 Traveler survived when their small plane flipped over while landing at the Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio. An air traffic controller incorrectly told the pilot to "keep it in tight" while landing behind an American Airlines 737 jet. The smaller plane got caught in the wake of the bigger jet, flipped over, and skidded to a stop under the wing of an empty USAir 737.

1995: Drew Stephens, former boyfriend of Karen Silkwood, died in a plane crash while practicing aerobatic loops outside El Reno, Oklahoma. Stephens was played by Kurt Russell in the 1983 movie, Silkwood, which dramatised the death of Silkwood, who was a worker in a nuclear plant who alleged serious safety violations in that plant.

1996: A Transavia airlines Boeing 737 en route from Faro, Portugal to Amsterdam, Netherlands made an emergency landing at a military base in Beja in southern Portugal. No one was hurt in the landing.

1997: Three Americans died when their Cessna 185 hit the top of a mountain near Lac Morin, Quebec, and burst into flames.

1997: Two flight instructors died when their two-seater Cessna crashed shortly after taking off from Lee Airport in Edgewater, Maryland. They had been practicing takeoffs when the plane crashed.

June 15:

1997: United Airlines released a customer survey of frequent travelers that revealed the following: 75% said that airline seats are not comfortable. 58% panned the food. 48% said that airlines don't give out honest information when something goes wrong. 46% reported that catching connecting flights is not a smooth or seamless operation. 41% said that airline service has gotten worse in the past five years.

June 16

1994: When a China Northwest Airlines TU-154 crashed ten minutes after takeoff, 160 people died.

1995: When an Antonov An-2 single-engine plane crashed in bad weather in far eastern Russia, twelve people were killed.

1996: Two people were critically burned when their hot air balloon struck a power line and caught fire in Portland, Oregon. Two other passengers escaped with minor injuries.

1998: The occupants of a home fled unhurt after a small plane crashed into their house near the Van Nuys, California airport. The house and plane burned.

June 17

1989: Astronaut S. David Griggs died in the crash of a World War II training plane near Earle, Arkansas.

1993: Twenty-four people died when an Antonov-26 plane crashed near the village of Choporti in Crimea.

1997: Even jet skis are unsafe. Richardo Enamorado of Chicago, Illinois, was stuck adrift on chilly Lake Michigan for almost two days when his craft stopped running and would not restart. Searchers spotted him about 500 yards offshore of Chicago's Montrose Harbor.

1998: A Tower Air Boeing 747 had to return to the gate at Kennedy Airport in New York City after a passenger became unruly when the crew took away a liquor bottle he had brought aboard (which is against regulations). The passenger, a French citizen, was detained by airport police.

1998: Robert Kupferschmid, an 81-year-old man, took over the helms of a two-seat Cessna after the pilot died of a heart attack while the plane was in the air. Kupferschmid radioed for help and was assisted in locating an airport and landing by several other pilots. He circled the Mount Comfort, Indiana airport three times before he was ready to attempt the landing. When landing, the plane's nose nudged the ground, causing the plane to bounce several times before the tail struck the ground. Kupferschmid walked away unharmed, while the Cessna, with a bent propeller, ended up in the soggy grass next to the runway.

June 18

1953: 129 people died when a U.S. Air Force C-124 crashed and burned near Tokyo, Japan.

1996: A month after a fatal ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades, the Federal Aviation Administration ousted its top safety official. Earlier, ValuJet agreed to temporarily halt all operations after the FAA discovered several serious deficiencies in the carrier's operation.

1996: Two Army UH-60 helicopters collided during a mock rescue mission at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Six people were killed and 28 injured in the crash, the second fatal Army helicopter collision within a month.

1998: A twin-engine turboprop flipped over and caught fire while making an emergency landing at a small airport near Montreal Canada. Eleven people, including two pilots and nine GE employees, died in the crash.

1998: One concourse of the Columbus, Ohio airport had to be closed when a man fled an airport security checkpoint after being question about a suspicious looking object in one of his handbags. Flights were delayed for up to 90 minutes before the man was caught inside a plane waiting at the gate. The man was charged with inducing panic and held on a $31,000 bond.

1998: In its July/August issue published today, Mother Jones magazine reported that several U.S. airlines -- including American, Continental, Delta, TWA, and US Airways -- use pesticides on their planes. These pesticides have been linked to respiratory problems, skin reactions, and cancer. In the enclosed ecosystem of an aircraft, where passengers are closed up in a poorly ventilated area for hours, these pesticides are even more dangerous.

June 19

1996: The pilot of a Navy FA-18 Hornet jet fighter died when his jet crashed while he was doing acrobatic maneuvers in preparing for an air show. The jet narrowly missed a house as it crashed in the back yard near St. Louis, Missouri.

1996: G. David Schine, the Harvard-educated aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy whose draft into the Army caused the downfall of the senator, was killed in a crash of a private plane piloted by his son. Schine, his wife, and his son were killed in the crash just after taking off from the Burbank, California airport. Schine had also been the executive producer of the 1971 movie "The French Connection."

1997: It was reported today that members of rock singer Van Morrison's band gotten drunk and rowdier during a flight from London to New York. Some passengers reported that one of the men pulled a knife. Police met the plane in New York and questioned the members of the band, but no charges were filed.

1997: Australia's treasurer was stranded in the bush for several hours after his airplane experience brake failure while landing at Echuca, Australia. The plane overshot the runway and ran to a stop in a bog. No one was hurt in the incident and all were able to take off an hour later after a tow truck pulled the plane from the bog.

1998: The pilot was able to eject safely from his Air Force F-16 jet fighter just after taking off from Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The plane, however, skidded off the runway, burst into flames, and broke apart. It was a total loss.

June 20

1956: When a Venezuelan Super Constellation crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off of Asbury Park, New Jersey, 74 people died.

1996: A vintage World War II DC-3 plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Montgomery County Airport near Houston, Texas. After an explosion shut down one of the plane's engines, the pilot tried to return to the airport but clipped trees and power lines before smashing into a pick-up truck and skidding into a house. The pilot and two passengers walked away from the crash with only minor injuries.

1996: A plane carrying a top advisor to General Sani Abacha (the military ruler of Nigeria) lost power, hit an antenna, and crashed. All 12 aboard the plane were killed in the crash. It was the second plane crash in 1996 involving members of the Abacha government.

1997: An electrical fire at a power substation cut off power to Newark International Airport for five hours, thus stranding thousands of air passengers across the country. More than 100 flights were canceled as a result.

June 21

1996: A US Air Force B-1 bomber was forced to make an emergency landing at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa after developing engine trouble on its way to an air show in Indonesia. No one was hurt in the landing.

1997: The 1963 Aston Martin DB5 used in several early James Bond movies was stolen from an airfield in Boca Raton, Florida.

June 22

1962: 113 people died when an Air France Boeing 707 crashed in a storm near Guadeloupe, West Indies.

1997: Two small airplanes collided as they competed in the Wings Over Long Island race. When the wing of one plane clipped the other, both planes crashed. One of the pilots was killed, the other was critically injured.

1999: 100 incoming flights were delayed at the Minneapolis airport after memory failure (or faulty plugs) caused the air traffic control computers to shut down temporarily.

1999: A United Airlines 737 jet made an emergency landing at the Western Nebraska Regional Airport in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, after smoke appeared in the cockpit and first class cabin. On the same day, a TWA airline circled the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for an hour before landing because the cockpit indicator revealed that the plane's nose gear did not deploy (it had). Both planes landed safely with no one hurt. That same day, another United flight, from Minneapolis to Denver, experienced smoke (probably from burning wires) after passing through severe weather.

June 23

1967: A Mohawk BAC-111 crashed near Elmira, New York after a bad valve started a fire. 34 people were killed in the crash.

1985: An Air India Boeing 747 carrying 329 people aboard it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland. The crash was the apparent result of a bomb hidden on board the plane. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history and the world's worst commercial air disaster at sea.

1996: When its landing gear failed to engage, a Comair EMB 120 commuter airplane was forced to land on its belly at the Orlando International Airport. Before landing on a closed runway, the pilot jettisoned the fuel. The plane threw back 45-foot flames scraped the runway with its belly. The airport fire department quickly covered the plane with foam as it came to a stop. No one was hurt in the landing.

1998: A mentally-ill Spaniard hijacked an Ibera Airlines Boeing 727 by brandishing a remote control which he claimed was connected to a bomb planted in the cargo hold. He forced the pilot to land in Valencia to refuel and take him to Tel Aviv in Israel. During a stand off, he finally released the 130 people aboard the plane and surrendered to police.

1998: As an Air Afrique airplane prepared to taxi toward the runway at Murtala Mohammed airport in Nigeria, thieves pried open the hold and stole baggage as passengers and crew watched helplessly from the plane. Several weeks later, the airport took steps to eliminate potential hiding places. In addition, it began providing armed guards to watch over aircraft as they prepared to take off.

1999: A twin-engine Cessna 402 made an emergency landing on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Van Nuys, California. As it landed, it hit two school buses approaching the intersection of Hayvenhurst and Parthenia Street from different directions. The crash tore the wing tips and fuel tanks from the plane while wrecking the front ends of both buses. The 42 children in the buses escaped with minor injuries. One of the drivers was seriously injured. The pilot walked away unhurt.

June 24

1966: A Bombay to New York Air India flight crashed into Mont Blanc in Switzerland. 117 people died in the crash.

1975: 113 people were killed when an Eastern Airlines 727 crashed during a storm while trying to land at JFK Airport in New York City.

1993: A Xiamen Airlines Boeing 737 was hijacked by factory employee Zhang Wenlong, who received a nine-year sentence for hijacking.

1996: When one of the engines of a Piper Aztec twin-engine plane fell off, the plane nose-dived into a pasture and exploded. Five people were killed in the crash near Clanton, Alabama. The plane had been en route from Key West, Florida, to the Shelby County Airport 20 miles south of Birmingham, Alabama.

1996: The cockpit crew of a USAir shuttle 727 was grounded after taking off in a severe storm at Washington's National Airport. Minutes after their take-off, the control tower at the airport suspended operations and controllers left the control tower for safety reasons. No passengers were hurt in the flight, but the plane was shaken up by wind shear and one of its wings was damaged when it smashed into a runway light while taking off.

1997: The Russian space station Mir collided with a 7-ton cargo ship during a docking maneuver. No one was hurt in the incident, and the space station's air pressure appeared to be normal.

1997: The main air traffic control computer at the Indianapolis air traffic control center crashed, thus causing flight delays across the entire region.

1997: A single-engine Beechcraft airplane caught fire and crash-landed in a field at the Stetter farm in Antis township, Pennslyvania. The passenger was injured but the pilot escaped unhurt.

1998: A National Guard pilot and a U.S. Forest law enforcement officer were killed when their Army National Guard helicopter crashed in the mountains of Tennessee while on a reconnaissance mission to find marijuana plants as part of a state task force.

June 25

1942: During World War II, 1,000 British Royal Air Force bombers ran a bombing raid against Bremen, Germany.

1994: A Harka Airlines Tupolev TU-134 crashed at the Lagos, Nigeria airport killing 15 of the 80 people aboard.

1994: While skydiving near Preston, England, John Goodyear's main parachute got tangled up with his emergency chute and he went plummeting 3,000 feet. Fortunately his landing was broken by a tree where he was found hanging about twenty feet above the ground. He suffered a broken leg and other minor injuries.

1996: A terrorist bombed the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 American airmen were killed in the blast.

1996: Six people survived the crash of a Soviet-made Antonov airliner in northern Angola by climbing out of the burning airplane.

1997: Two British glider pilots went on trial in Gap, France. They were charged with manslaughter after a skydiver crashed on top of their glider in mid-air and died in June 1995. The two pilots were able to parachute to safety after the crash but the skydiver was knocked unconscious and failed to open his parachute.

1997: A flight instructor and Air Force Academy cadet were killed during a routine training flight in Colorado. The cadet had apparently turned the T-3A Firefly aircraft downwind and the instructor failed to take corrective action right away.

1998: A Eurocopter AS350 tour helicopter operated by Ohana Aviation crashed ten miles west of Lihue on the island of Kauai. All six people aboard the copter were killed in the crash.

June 26

1978: When a tire burst as an Air Canada DC-9 was taking off from the Toronto International Airport, debris from the tire was sucked into an engine causing it to stall out. Two passengers (out of 102) were killed when the plane overran the runway as it aborted the takeoff.

1996: One of four Flying Elvises died from injuries after being blown off course into a yacht club in Quincy, Massachusetts. He and his partners were parachuting in celebration of the opening of a night club on Boston Harbor when they were hit by whipping winds.

1997: A British woman sued her fellow parachutist for injuries she sustained during a tandem jump. The pair hit the ground at 40 miles per hour after their main chute failed to open and several seams in the reserve chute ripped apart. She suffered five broken ribs as well as a broken leg, heel, and pelvis.

1997: A drunken airport worker drove a freight carrier into the wing of an Air Georgia Tupolev airplane just moments after the plane had landed and docked at the Frankfurt, Germany airport. The drive tested positive for three times the legal limit of alcohol.

June 27

1976: Demanding the release of 53 pro-Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, Europe, and Kenya, German and Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France jet and forced it to land at Entebbe, Uganda. On July 4th, Israeli commandos raided the plane and rescued the hostages. Four passengers were killed in the rescue operation.

1980: An Itavia Airlines DC-9 exploded near the Mediterranean island of Ustica, killing 81 people. The explosion has not yet been explained.

1997: Two people died when a commuter plane operated by Olson Air Service crashed in Nome, Alaska.

1998: An air tanker fighting a fire in the Gila National Forest of southwest New Mexico went down while banking to dump its load of chemical retardant. Both the pilot and copilot were killed in the crash.

June 28

1983: An Ecuadorean jetliner crashed into mountains as it attempted to land near Cuenca, Ecuador. 119 were killed in the crash.

1996: Aircraft pioneer Charles Fayette Taylor died of pneumonia at the age of 101. Taylor developed the internal combustion engine used in aircraft.

1997: Robert Schuller, the TV minister and book author, was accused of assaulting a male flight attendant during a United Airlines flight to New York City to attend the funeral service of Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X. Schuller responded by saying that it was all a misunderstanding, that he had just touched the attendant while addressing him.

June 29

1994: A Navy EA-6-B Prowler jet crashed at the Navy air station in Fallon, Nevada. No one was hurt or killed in the crash.

1996: Peggy Alcorn, an airshow comedy pilot, died when her plane went out of control at a Racine, Wisconsin airshow. She had been flying erratically as part of a comedy act in which she pretended to be an inexperienced pilot. Some spectators thought her crash was part of the act.

1997: During a routine search at the Bogota, Colombia airport, police discovered 123 pounds of cocaine stashed in the spare tire of a plane bound for Mexico.

1997: Six skydivers and their pilot were injured when their twin-engine Beechcraft Bonanza crashed just after taking off from the Tullahoma Regional Airport in Tennessee.

1998: A single-engine Cessna crashed into a shed as it was trying to land at Dalton Airport near Flushing, Michigan. The pilot and his passenger escaped with minor injuries.

June 30

1956: When a TWA Super Constellation and a United DC-7 collided over the Grand Canyon, 128 people died.

1971: When their Soyuz II spacecraft depressurized during reentry, three cosmonauts died.

1985: 39 American hostages were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days following the hijacking of a TWA jetliner.

July 1

1994: While skydiving above Kent, England, Bill Coomber's main parachute became entangled with his emergency chute. Just 200 feet above the ground, Coomber was able throw his emergency chute clear and allow his main chute to open properly. He suffered some back injuries upon landing but was able to walk away on his own.

1996: The Air Force grounded its ground-war radar plane, the E-8C Joint Stars aircraft, after inspectors discovered that the wrong rivets were used in various places.

1997: Northwest Airlines ended most in-flight movides on domestic flights because, as they said, the passengers didn't want them.

1997: Seven former security personnel at La Guardia Airport in New York City were accused of taking bribes from drug traffickers. The AMR Services employees had developed a system of identifying suspected drug traffickers and demanding a bribe from them to let them pass.

1997: The Air Travelers Association announced that it had begun compiling safety ratings for airlines around the world. 29 of those airlines failed. ValuJet was the only U.S. airline to get a failing grade.

1997: The pilot of a home-built single-engine airplane was killed when his plane crashed at Camp Blanding in Florida. He had taken off from a nearby civilian airport and crashed shortly thereafter in a remote area of the Air National Guard base.

1998: Five people were killed when a Bolivian Air Force plane crashed into a peak in the Alto Camatindi mountain range during a storm that reduced visibility.

1998: Three people were killed and 13 injured when a Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter crashed shortly after taking off near Lake Baikal in southeastern Siberia.

1998: Three crew members were injured when another Mi-8 helicopter belonging to Tajikistan's presidential guard crashed while landing at the Tajikobad airport.

2002: A Russian Tupolev 165 airliner collided with a Boeing 757 transport plane over southern Germany. 71 people were killed in the crash, including many children on a school trip to Spain.

July 2

1937: Amelia Earhart crashed near a Pacific Ocean atoll during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. Her aircraft, thus far, has not been found. Her crash was one of the most reported and unexplained crashes in aviation history, thus making her name well known even today.

1982: Larry Wadsworth became the first man to fly via a lawn chair and balloons. In landing, he crashed into some electrical lines but still landed safely.

1994: 37 of the 57 passengers aboard a USAir DC-9 died when the jet crashed near the Charlotte, North Carolina airport during a thunderstorm.

1997: Three people died and two survived the crash of a small airplane into the Mississippi River near Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota.

1998: After fire broke out in the galley, a U.S. Airways Boeing 737 had to make an unscheduled landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. One person was injured in the incident but the plane landed safely.

1998: When a floatplane lost power over Lake Coeur d'Alene, it narrowly missed some log pilings as it crashed into the water. The pilot was able to escape with just a few cuts.

July 3

1970: 112 people were killed when a chartered British jetliner crashed near Barcelona, Spain.

1988: When the U.S. Navy warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian A300 Airbus airliner over the Persian Gulf, 290 people were killed. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history.

1997: A sightseeing single-engine Piper Cherokee Six crashed in a southeast Alaska bay 50 yards from shore after the pilot reported a fuel problem. The pilot and a lady passenger survived. Two other women passengers died in the crash, and two male passengers were missing.

1998: Volunteers had to help sort baggage by hand when a computer glitch shut down much of Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.

2001: A Russian Tupolev 154 crashed near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 133 passengers and 10 crew members.

July 4

1998: A woman acrobatic skydiver plunged to her death while performing at a Fourth of July fireworks show in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her husband, another skydiver, watched in horror as his wife plunged passed him to her death.

July 5

1970: 108 people were killed when an Air Canada DC-8 crashed while attempting to land at the Toronto International Airport. One of the four engines struck the runway after the ground spoilers were deployed prematurely. The plane was able to climb again after bouncing off the runway but after several explosions, another engine and part of the right wing broke away from the plane. No one survived the crash.

1998: Shortly after taking off, an experimental glider crashed into a grove of trees near Crystal Airport in Palmdale, California. The pilot suffered two fractured legs and assorted chest injuries but was listed in stable condition after the crash.

July 6

1996: A drunken passenger on a USAir flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Charlotte, North Carolina, became so unruly and belligerent that the flight crew was forced to subdue him and return the plane to Atlanta. Later, in December, a U.S. judge sentence the passenger to four years in prison, 200 hours of community service, and a fine of $611.35 to recompense the airline for the fuel it used in returning to Atlanta.

1996: A mother and her 12-year-old son were killed when a Delta MD-88 jet aborted its takeoff after its left engine broke apart and parts of the engine tore into the passenger cabin of the plane.

1997: A water-dropping helicopter crashed while fighting a large wildfire in the San Bernardino National Forest, 75 miles east of Los Angeles, California.

1997: Leftist rebels of the National Liberation Army shot down a helicopter that was ferrying soldiers to an oil pipeline attacked by the rebels. The crew members were civilian employees of Helicol, the company that rented the helicopter to the army.

1997: The landing gear of a Delta Airlines jet buckled as the plane landed at the Albuquerque, New Mexico airport. As the tires began to smoke, the plane tipped, damaging the right wing. Three passengers suffered minor scratches when all 154 passengers and crew were evacuated down an emergency chute.

1997: A Delta Airlines Boeing 727 had to return to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, because of a malfunction in the hydraulic system. The plane was able to land without incident.

1998: A U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed on a runway at Georgetown in the Bahamas. The wives of two soldiers, who were not authorized to be on board, were killed in the crash. The two pilots and the other passenger were also badly injured.

1998: The pilot was killed when his Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter crashed while attempting to land in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region during training exercises. It was the fifth crash of an Mi-8 helicopter in the past month, four of which involved fatalities.

July 7

1963: A U.S. Marine jet crashed on approach to Willow Grove Naval air station, killing seven people and injuring 70.

1996: A Cuban police lieutenant colonel hijacked a Cuban Aero Taxi and forced it to drop him off the U.S. base near Guantanamo Bay. He requested asylum but his return was required by a migration treaty sign by Cuba and the U.S. in May 1995.

1997: Indiana Pacers basketball player Jalen Rose was escorted off a Northwest Airlines after he spat his chewing gum at a gate attendant as he boarded a flight at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport. After an apology, he was boarded on a later flight.

1997: Milwaukee Brewers All-Star third baseman Jeff Cirillo almost missed his flight to the All-Star Baseball Game in Cleveland, Ohio. Due to a gate change, he ended up boarding a flight to New Jersey before an alert baseball fan recognized him and told him he was on a plane to Newark. Jeff and his wife were able to deplane and catch their correct flight which was then boarding two gates down from the Newark flight.

1998: On a flight from Tampa, Florida, to Birmingham, Alabama, an engine caught fire on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, but the plane was still able to land safely. The fire shut down soon after the pilot turned off the affected engine. No one was injured in the incident.

1998: A couple in their 70s were killed when their single-engine Cessna burst into flames after crashing at the Milton Limestone Quarry in Ontario.

1998: Two men were killed when their Swearingen Merlin II turbo prop smacked into a cliff on St. George Island off the coast of Alaska. While the weather was bad, the airport on the island was equiped with a beacon that allows pilots to make instrument landings. That beacon was working at the time of the accident, so the cause of the accident remains a mystery. Pilots are not supposed to land on the island unless they can see the ground when their plane is at 880 feet. Their plane was flying at 500 feet when it hit a cliff 50 feet below the top.

July 8

1947: A rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, found debris from a flying saucer. Although the Air Force claimed the debris came from weather balloons, other observers reported seeing alien bodies. The Roswell Incident is the most famous of UFO incidents.

1996: A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 ran off a runway at the Nashville Airport when the pilot aborted the take off after a bird was sucked into an engine. No one was hurt.

1996: When its engine went out 20 minutes after taking off from the Salem, Ohio airport, a helicopter crashed near a campground. All five people aboard the helicopter were killed.

1997: Eight soldiers were killed when an Army Blackhawk helicopter crashed and burned in a far corner of Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

1997: Shortly after taking off from the Farmingdale, New York airport, a single-engine Grumman airplane crashed into the ocean about a half mile off a crowded Long Island beach. All three people aboard the plane were killed.

1997: Minutes after taking off from Dallas Love Field in Texas, a small Sero Commander 500 plane lost power, clipped telephone lines, and somersaulted into the back of a house in the suburb of Addison, Texas. The pilot was seriously injured but the co-pilot escaped with only a few bruises. The couple who owned the house had been sleeping when the plane crashed into their living room. Neither was injured. The plane had been carrying copies of the New York Times for delivery to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1998: After four inches of rain fell within 90 minutes, flooding caused Northwest Airlines to cancel 40 flights at Wayne County Airport in Detroit, Michigan. Northwest and its Airlink partner account for 75% of the flights at the airport. No other airline flights were canceled on that day. Northwest was able to go ahead with more than 450 flights that day.

1998: When most passengers and crew began coughing and complaining of watery eyes and itchy throats during a United Airlines flight from Boston to New York, the plane was diverted to T.F. Green State Airport in Rhode Island. Eight passengers were taken to a hospital for treatment. The cause of the sudden attack of complaints was not found.

2003: A Boeing 737 crashed in Sudan shortly after taking off. 155 people on board the airplane were killed. Amazingly, one small child survived the crash.

July 9

1964: A United Airlines Viscount crashed over Tennessee after a fire broke out aboard the plane. 39 people died.

1982: When a Pan-Am Boeing 727 crashed after taking off from Kenner, Louisiana, 153 people were killed, including 8 people on the ground.

1996: A tornado caused minor damage to cars at a parking lot at the new Denver International Airport in Colorado.

1996: A Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 made an unscheduled landing at the Lansing, Michigan airport after a warning light indicated possible brake problems. No one was hurt in the landing.

1996: A twin-engine charter airplane crashed in the mountains of central Papua New Guinea. 19 people, including two babies, were killed.

1996: Even though the ValuJet fleet was grounded, one of their DC-9s was involved in an accident when a delivery truck slammed into it left wing while it was parked at a gate at the Atlanta, Georgia airport.

1997: An experimental bomb exploded as it was being loaded aboard an IAR-93 fighter-bomber in Craiova, Romania. At least one person was killed in the incident.

1997: 25,000 passengers were stranded when several unions struck British Airways. While the airline was able to operate 70% of its flights, many passengers were stranded when the airline was forced to cancel 50% of its flights from London's Heathrow Airport.

1997: A man was sucked out of a Brazilian TAM Fokker-100 airplane after an explosion blew a hole in the aircraft. The man's body was found next to part of the plane in a field outside Suzano, Brazil. Six of the other people aboard the plane were injured in the explosion, but the plane was able to land safely at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport.

1998: When its left engine caught fire shortly after taking off, an American Airlines Airbus 300 turned around and landed at the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport. The plane landed safely, airport fire crews put out the fire, and no one was injured.

1998: When a warning light indicated an oil filter was blocked shortly after the plane took off, the pilot of an American Airlines Airbus 300-600 shut off the affected engine and returned to Heathrow Airport near London, England. When the plane landed hard on the runway, a small fire was ignited in the undercarriage. The fire was quickly extinguished by emergency crews and the crew and passengers were safely evacuated via a portable set of stairs.

1998: Vietnamese officials barred a European from leaving after he landed a kit-built aircraft illegally at Ho Chi Minh City airport. About a week later, he was allowed to continue his journey from Spain to the United States.

2006: A Russian SibirAirbus A-310 passenger plane with 200 people on board overran the runway at Irkutsk, crashed into a building, and caught fire while attempting land early in the morning. 55 people were taken to the hospital with burns. Another 120+ people, including 6 of the crew of 8, were killed.

July 10

1940: During World War II, the Battle of Britain began as Nazi Luftwaffe airplanes began to bomb southern England. The Battle of Britain lasted 114 days until the British were able to repel the Luftwaffe, which had suffered heavy losses.

1997: After a passenger said she needed an aspirin "before I kill someone," the pilots of an American Airlines flight from Chicago to Newark, made an unscheduled stop at the Detroit, Michigan airport. The California woman was taken off the plane and was questioned by the FBI but released shortly thereafter.

1997: Severe turbulence in the skies over North Dakota threw an American Airlines Boeing 757 into a dramatic drop that slammed many passengers into the ceiling. Lunch had just been served, so food also was thrown all over the airplane as a result of the turbulence. At least 22 people were hurt. The Seattle to New York flight had to make an emergency landing at the Denver airport to care for the many people were injured.

1998: When a single-engine plane landed in a farmer's field short of the runway at Wadsworth Municipal Airport. The two people aboard escaped with minor injuries, but the plane's landing gear was damaged.

1998: After passengers smelled something burning and an engine warning light began flashing, a United Airlines Boeing 727 had to make an emergency landing at the tiny Akron, Colorado airport. The plane landed safely and no one was injured, thanks to the fact that the small town of 1500 had an airport equipped to handle larger planes.

July 11

1973: When a Brazilian Boeing 707 crashed while approaching Orly Airport near Paris, France, 122 people were killed; 12 survived.

1986: An Air Force plane crashed in the Sequoia National Forest in California. The plane might have been a stealth fighter (which, at that time, had not yet been made known to the public).

1991: 261 Muslim pilgrims were killed when a Nigerian DC-8 crashed on landing at the Jedda airport in Saudi Arabia.

1996: When an Air Force F-16 jet fighter made an emergency crash landing near Pensacola, Florida, a 4-year-old boy was killed and his mother was severely burned. The pilot ejected safely. The crash was caused by a small rock or piece of concrete that got sucked into the jet's engine before it took off.

1997: Four people were killed when their single-engine plane crashed into a building at an abandoned rock quarry near Salida, Colorado.

1997: While on a training mission, a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle jet crashed in a remote wooded area 11 miles west of the Dare County Range in North Carolina. The two crew members ejected safely with only minor injuries.

1997: 44 people were lost at sea when a Cubana de Aviacion Russian-made Antonov-24 airplane crashed into the Caribbean off southeast Cuba. Some of the bodies were never recovered. The plane experienced engine failure shortly after taking off from Santiago de Cuba en route to Havana.

July 12

1928: Mexican aviator Emilio Carranza crashed in the New Jersey Pine Barrens as he attempted to return to Mexico City after flying to New York City in a thank you gesture to Charles Lindbergh (who had flown to Mexico City after his triumphant trans-Atlantic crossing). The cause of the crash was an electrical storm.

1995: 14 students and the pilot died when a Milne Bay Air Twin Otter airplane crashed onto a beach after taking off from a remote airstrip on the southeast tip of the mainland of Papua New Guinea.

1996: An America West Airbus A-320 lost cabin pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing at the Columbus, Ohio airport. No one was hurt in the depressurization.

1997: A retired airline pilot survived a 6,000-foot fall in a crippled glider over the Mount Dora Country Club in Mount Dora, Florida.

1998: Two passengers and the pilot were injured when their twin-engine seaplane flipped forward and turned over while attempting to land in New York City's East River.

1998: People eating at the Walch Store in Lincoln, Texas, were shocked when a single-engine 78 Cessna Skyhawk flew under a power line past the front store window, hit a stop sign at the intersection of Texas 21 and FM 1624, spun around, then crashed into the gas pumps at the gas station, and finally exploded into a ball of flame. One of the people inside the store ran out to the plane and hauled the pilot to safety. He then went back and helped the two passengers to safety. All three people suffered serious burns, two critically. According to witnesses, the rented plane was coughing black smoke before crashing.

1998: An unlicensed pilot stole a Piper Cherokee from Winnepeg Aviation at St. Andrews Airport in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He tried four times to land on the short runways of the airport then headed for Winnipeg's main airport where he landed successfully (with only $4,000 damage to the plane's front end). As he tried to take his bicycle out of the airplane, he was taken into custody by police.

July 13

1995: When a fast-moving thunderstorm with winds up to 100 mph passed through Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, several airplanes were damaged, including a float plane that was turned upsidedown.

1997: A small plane crashed into the ocean off Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

1997: While taking aerial photographs of an outdoor bingo game in the city of Conselheiro Lafaiete, Brazil, a small single-engine plane crashed into a truck and car before plowing into the bingo crowd. At least 8 people died and dozens were injured. The two people aboard the plane escaped with only minor injuries.

July 14

1994: Several people, including a honeymooning couple, were injured when a tourist helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii. That same day, another tourist helicopter also experienced problems.

1996: The pilot of a World War II Lockheed P38 Lightning fighter plane died when his plane crashed and exploded at an air show near London, England.

1996: A United Airlines Boeing 757 made an emergency landing after an engine compressor stalled, emitted popping noises, and caused the plane to shudder. The plane, in flight from Miami, Florida, to Denver, Colorado, made the emergency landing at the Wichita, Kansas airport. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: Stunt helicopter pilot J. David Jones died of lung cancer. Jones had done helicopter work on 400 feature films Iincluding Apocalypse Now, Con Air, Speed, Funny Girl, Twister, and Tora! Tora! Tora! and TV shows (including Airwolf and Batman as well as 1,000 commercials.

1997: In the July 14, 1997, issue of U.S. News & World Report, columnist John Leo suggested that skyjackers be given a new name: aircraft redirection workers. In like manner, shoplifters could be called nontraditional shoppers or voluntary inventory clearance workers, while armed robbers could be called income redistribution workers who strongly believe in the Second Amendment.

1997: The birthday of Cameron Poe's daughter and the day that Con Air crashed on the Las Vegas, Nevada strip -- according to the 1997 action movie, Con Air.

1997: After being denied first-class upgrades, two passengers on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Los Angeles tried to force their way into the cockpit. As the woman banged on the cockpit door and kicked a hole in it, the man threw hot coffee on an attendant. The two were arrested when the plane landed in Los Angeles. Both were later sentenced to prison for the incident.

July 15

1996: Daryl Dickerson scrawled notes on used airsickness bags and dropped them out of the plane to ask some people on the ground to verify whether his landing gear was down. When they indicated that it wasn't, he diverted to the Rogue Valley International Airport at Medford, Oregon, where he was able to manually lower the wheels before landing safely.

1996: A Belgian Air Force Lockheed C-130 transport plane crashed and burned on landing at the Eindhoven, Netherlands airport. All 32 people aboard were killed in the crash, including a Dutch army band returning from a music festival.

1997: A US Airways DC-9 was evacuated at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, when the plane caught fire minutes after the passengers had boarded the plane. The passengers were immediately evacuated via emergency exits. Several people were injured in the evacuation. The plane's engine was doused with foam to put out the fire.

1998: Hong Kong's new bad-luck Check Lap Kok Airport had to close down an automated plane guidance system after a Cathay Pacific jet hit a passenger airbridge. No one was injured in the incident, but it was one of a series of mishaps that occurred at the new airport since it opened on July 6th.

July 16

1948: The first hijacking of an airliner took place in 1948, when a Cathay Pacific Airways flight was hijacked between Hong Kong and Macao. 26 people of the 27 aboard the plane were killed when it crashed after being hijacked.

1996: United Airlines began operating a nonstop scheduled flight between Chicago, Illinois, and Hong Kong -- the longest route segment (7,788 miles) in its history.

1997: After the Philadelphia Phillies, the worst team in baseball, defeated the Atlanta Braves, the best team in baseball, by a score of 8 to 1, their luck couldn't hold. After the Phillies landed at the Philadelphia Airport, their team bus scraped against the wing of an American Airlines 737 charter plane as it was driving off the airfield.

1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her elder sister Lauren were killed when their small Piper 32 Saratoga crashed into the ocean off Martha's Vineyard. Their crash may have been caused by flying without instruments in a twilight haze. Two other Kennedy family members were killed in previous plane crashes. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., brother of John F. Kennedy, was killed in a plane crash in 1944 during World War II. His plane exploded while attempting to destroy German submarines off the coast of Belgium. In 1948, Kathleen Kennedy, John's sister, was killed in a plane crash in the Ardeche mountains. She had been flying to a family reunion on the Riviera.

July 17

1996: Navy pilot Paul Cannon was able to eject before his FA-18 Hornet jet fighter veered off the runway and crashed after its tires blew out during landing at the Cecil Field Naval Air Station near Jacksonville, Florida. He had earlier attempted to land on the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier before he was diverted to Cecil.

1996: A TWA Boeing 747 exploded shortly after taking off from Kennedy Airport in New York City. 230 people died in the crash which was spread out over miles of the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island. After almost a year of investigation, no definite cause has yet been announced although mechanical failure, a bomb aboard, a missile, and other explanations have been investigated.

1997: An Indonesian Fokker 27 jet crashed near Bandung in West Java. Many of the passengers aboard the plane were taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries. 27 people were killed.

1998: American Airlines was ordered by a jury to pay $2.4 million to a New Jersey couple who lost their child when an American Airlines Boeing 757 strayed off course and crashed near Cali, Colombia in December, 1995.

2000: An Alliance Air Boeing 737-200 airliner crashed into houses while attempting to land at Patna, India. 51 people on board the airplane and 4 on the ground were killed.

2005: An Equatair plane crashes soon after taking off from Equatorial Guinea's island capital of Malabo. All 60 people on board are killed.

July 18

1997: The wing of Delta Air Lines Tristar L1011 collided with the tail of a Continental Airlines jet on the taxiway of La Guardia Airport in New York City.

1997: A single-engine Cessna 172 airplane buzzed the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and several other north Texas airports during a flying spree during the early afternoon. An American Airlines Boeing 767 arriving from Germany was forced to quit its landing pattern because of the Cessna's antics. Air traffic controllers delayed departures at the airport for several minutes while waiting for the low-flying Cessna to leave the area.

1997: Lost luggage, the nightmare of every air traveller, hit big today. Less than 12 hours before The Sound of Music was to go on stage, a bird flew into the engine of the jet carrying the $2 million stage set from Bangkok. When the plane finally landed in Hong Kong, it was impounded by drug investigators. By the time the set arrived at the theater, it was soaked by a torrential rain and had to be repainted. With the help of 110 extra stage hands, the show was able to open just 35 minutes late.

July 19

1967: When a Piedmont Boeing 727 collided in mid-air with a Cessna 310 over Hendersonville, North Carolina, 82 people died.

1989: 112 people (out of 296 passengers) were killed when a United Airlines DC-10 crashed at the Sioux City, Iowa airport while attempting to land with a disabled hydraulic system.

1996: Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq, who killed two passengers during a hijacking in 1985, was convicted of air piracy and sentenced to life in prison.

1997: The engine of a United Airlines Boeing 747 lost power twenty minutes into a flight to Hawaii. The plane returned to Los Angeles when the cockpit light indicated compressor failure. The plane landed without further incident.

1997: When a suspicious odor was reported on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Los Angeles, the plane made an emergency landing at the Tampa, Florida airport.

1997: Two private planes collided about 100 feet from the Lake Michigan shoreline. All seven people aboard the planes were killed in the crash, which occurred seven miles south of the Chicago loop.

July 20

1992: An experimental V-22 tiltrotor Osprey plunged into the Potomac River while trying to land at the Marine Air Station at Quantico, Virginia, killing three Marines and four civilians. A combination of a flash fire, engine failure, and failed drive shaft were blamed for the accident.

1996: A DC-9 cargo plane with a burning engine crashed while trying to land at Russian Mission, Alaska. Four people died in the crash.

1996: A United Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Washington DC was delayed five hours after an unauthorized man entered the secured area around the plane. U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, who had been on the flight, returned to Washington on another flight. After the man was arrested and the entire baggage of the flight searched, the plane was allowed to continue its flight.

1997: Shortly after taking off from the Springfield, Missouri airport, a small twin-engine airplane crashed into the bank of a dry pond and burst into flames. All four people aboard the plane were killed.

July 21

1996: A crude pipe bomb was found lying on the tarmac of an air charter service at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, after a number of anonymous bomb threats.

1996: During an air show near Manchester, England, two people died when their World War II Mosquito bomber crashed into some woods near the airport.

1997: A jury awarded John and Anissa White $7.4 million for damages resulting from a November 1995 plane crash in Lake Erie that left John crippled (and killed three of his friends). The lawsuit was against the pilot of the plane (who also died in the crash) and the pilot's leasing business.

July 22

1996: A TWA Boeing 727 landed safely at the Lambert Airport in Saint Louis, Missouri, after losing power in one of its three engines shortly before landing.

1996: A bomb exploded in the terminal of the Lahore's International Airport. Nine people were killed, at least 20 injured in the explosion. It was the 13th bomb in the Punjab province this year.

1997: A Delta Air Lines flight from Tucson, Arizona, to Washington, DC, was forced to land at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when someone made a hoax bomb threat. The passengers were taken off the plane and questioned while bomb-sniffing dogs checked their luggage. No bomb was found.

1998: 310,000 people as well as parts of Detroit Metropolitan Airport lost power during a summer storm. Half of the departing flights and one-fifth of the arriving flights were delayed, some even canceled, before power was restored.

1998: When a TWA jetliner experienced trouble with one of its engines, the pilots had to return to Saint Louis, Missouri, just moments before arriving at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa airport (because the engine could not be repaired at the Cedar Rapids facility). Of the 100 passengers aboard the plane, less than half were accomodated on the next TWA flight out. The rest were delayed for hours waiting for another flight to go to Cedar Rapids.

July 23

1968: Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an El Al jet and diverted it to Algiers. They didn't release the last hostages until September 1st.

1973: An Ozark Airlines plane was knocked out of the air by a bolt of lightning near Saint Louis, Missouri. 36 people died in the crash.

1973: Pioneer American aviator, war hero, and auto racer Eddie Rickenbacker died of natural causes on July 23, 1973. He was born on October 8, 1890.

1982: Actor Vic Morrow and several children were killed when a helicopter landed on them during the filming of the movie Twilight Zone.

1996: A Continental MD-80 jet made an unscheduled (but safe) landing at the Jacksonville, Florida airport after one of its engines started to vibrate and had to be shut down.

1997: The engine of a T-3A jet stopped during a training flight in Colorado. Nonetheless, the instructor pilot was able to land the plane safely.

1997: A small Navion plane vanished somewhere near Yosemite National Park with two people aboard the plane. The plane, which took off on Wednesday, was not reported missing until Friday. It had taken off from the San Jose, California airport and was headed to the airport at Winner, South Dakota.

1997: A tipster reported to police that he saw gay serial killer Andrew Cunanan (who was currently wanted for the killing of fashion designer Gianni Vesace) board a Continental flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Houston, Texas. Police in Houston confronted a man who looked like Cunanan but determined that it wasn't the serial killer, a case of mistaken identity.

July 24

1966: Tony Lema, 1964 British Open champion, died in a plane crash near Munster, Indiana.

1987: Cindy Lewis Schreiber's entire family perished in a private plane crash near Monterey, California. “My dad and brand new stepmom were being taken there as a wedding present by my sister and her husband. First it was a lovely wedding and then it was a horrible funeral.”

1996: A small corporate Piper PA-28 plane crashed off the coast of New Jersey.

1996: A British Jaguar jet fighter crashed during military exercises outside Fairbanks, Alaska. The pilot ejected safely.

1997: When their twin-engine Beechcraft 65 crash landed in the Atlantic Ocean 50 miles west of Andros Island in the Bahamas, five people clung to a two-person life raft for more than 15 hours before the Coast Guard was able to find them through dense rain clouds and dark night. Though thoroughly waterlogged, the five people came through the ordeal in good health.

1998: During routine flight training, an F-16 jet fighter shot off the end of a runway and burst into flames as it attempted to take off from the Misawa airport in northern Japan. The American pilot was injured in the crash.

1998: When his engine failed just after he took off from Vanderberg Airport east of Tampa, Florida, a rookie pilot had to make an emergency landing on a ramp leading from Interstate 75 to Interstate 4. No one was hurt in the incident because the few cars heading up the ramp had time to avoid the plane as it landed.

1998: A small private plane flew into the protected air space of Detroit's Metropolitan Airport in Michigan, thus coming dangerously close to commercial jets going in and out of the airport.

July 25

1996: A judge fined British Midland airlines for a maintenance lapse that forced a plane to make an emergency landing after its engines began spewing oil in mid-flight.

1996: A lone gunman hijacked an Air Algerie Boeing 767 at the Oran, Algeria airport. The hijacking was resolved about five hours later without the airplane taking off.

1997: Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford as a U.S. president whose plane is hijacked by Russian terrorists, opened nationally on this date.

1997: Daniel Harness Jr., 60, of Londonderry, Ohio survived the crash of his ultralight plane when he had engine trouble while trying to land in a field near Chillicothe, Ohio.

1997: A Boeing 707 cargo plane had trouble with its stability system minutes after taking off from the Miami, Florida airport. As the plane flew past downtown Miami, the pilot fought to control the plane as it wobble from side to side within sight of office workers looking down at it from high up in their office towers.. Minutes later the pilot was able gain altitude and fly on to his destination of Newfoundland, where the plane was schedule to be inspected.

1998: Logan International Airport in Billings, Montana, closed to commercial planes while the main runway was repaved.

1998: A Cessna 182 crashed into a hillside and caught fire while attempting to land at Jal Airport in southeastern New Mexico. Four people burned to death as a result of the crash.

2000: An Air France supersonic Concorde airliner crashed shortly after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, France. Witnesses reported seeing the plane on fire shortly before it slammed into the Relais Bleus Hotel in Gonesse, France. All 109 passengers and crew aboard the plane were killed. In addition, at least four people staying at the hotel were also killed. Many others were injured. The chain of events that probably caused the accident began when the plane hit a strip of metal on the runway, bursting a tire.

July 26

1996: Afraid to go to Cuba because he thought he was to be trained for a suicide mission, a Palestinian refuge used a fake bomb to hijack an Iberia Airlines DC-10 flight from Madrid, Spain to Havana, Cuba. He demanded to be taken to Miami, Florida, where he released the passengers and surrendered to police. A year later he was convicted of hijacking and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

1997: A bomb scare forced the evacuation of the North Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. An actual bomb, wrapped in a sweater, was found by the bomb squad. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A small Jordanian plane crashed while doing acrobatic maneuvers at an air show near Ostend, Belgium. The plane crashed and erupted into flames near a first air booth and bleachers. Ten people were killed and dozens more injured. A gust of wind apparently caused the pilot to lose control of the plane during a difficult maneuver.

1998: Lt. General David J. McCloud, commander of all military forces in Alaska, was killed when his single-engine aerobatic YAK-54 plane crashed at Fort Richardson.

July 27

1909: Orville Wright tested the first airplane of the U.S. Army air force.

1944: The Gloster Meteor became the first British jet fighter to be used in combat.

1997: A Marine AH-1W Cobra attack helicopter crashed in the Atlantic Ocean seven miles from Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. The two-man crew was missing in the crash.

1998: A United Airlines Boeing 767 was forced to return to Miami International Airport shortly after takeoff when one of its jet engines failed with a bright flash. The engine did not catch fire, nonetheless the pilot dumped the jet's fuel before landing at the airport. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: Two crop-dusters were killed when their Turbo Thrush T-65 plane crashed during an anti-drug training mission in the jungles of southeast Colombia. The crash was caused by technical problems.

 2002: Eighty-three people were killed and 116 injured when a Ukrainian Sukhoi SU-27 jet fighter crashed at an air show at Lviv in western Ukraine. The jet failed to come out of a difficult rolling dive, clipped its wing on the ground, and cartwheeled in flames into the crowd. The crash, which happened in the western city of Lviv was the world's worst air show disaster.

July 28

1945: A U.S. Army B-17 bomber killed 14 people as it crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City after becoming lost in a thick overcast.

1996: Air Force Captain Scott Allen Swanson drowned during a flash flood as he explored a mountain area in Oman on the Arabian Penninsula.

1996: 16 Africans, who were bound and gagged for resisting deportation from Spain, began drooling, vomiting, and screaming aboard an Iberia Airlines. They were removed from the airplane before it took off from Madrid and deported later that week.

1997: Intense heat melted away heavy metal doors as fire gutted a one-story hangar at Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia. Two airplanes, a Cessna 421 and a World War II vintage AT-6 trainer, were destroyed in the fire.

July 29

1967: A fire swept the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal as it sat in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam. 134 people died in the fire, which also caused $100 million in damage.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration reported that it was investigating Air France after discovering that the airline had carried undeclared oxygen generators on a passenger flight. Such freight has been outlawed since the ValuJet disaster in Florida in May, 1996.

1998: A Chinese stowaway survived a shortage of oxygen and sub-zero temperatures when he rode the wheel well of a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 during a three-hour flight from Shanghai, China to Tokyo, Japan.

1998: A Continental Airlines Boeing 727-200 jet had to be abandoned on the taxiway when the pilot noticed smoke in the cabin as the plane taxied. 100 passengers slid down emergency exits after a hydraulic leak in one of the engines leaked into an air-conditioning pack. The Newark Airport was briefly closed after the incident.

1998: 45 minutes later, an engine blew on a Continental MD-80 jet bound for Houston as it was taking off from Newark. The pilot was able to return to Newark and land the plane without further incident.

July 30

1971: The first collision between a jet fighter and a commercial airliner occurred when an All-Nippon Boeing 727 collided with a Japanese Air Force F-86 over Morioka, Japan. 162 people died in the collision.

1997: Twelve members of a drug-smuggling ring, most of whom were current or previous employees of Delta Airlines, were arrested today. The group, working out of Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, had smuggled hundreds of pounds of cocaine aboard Delta jets.

1998: During training exercises, two Navy F-14 jet fighters collided over the Mediterranean Sea. One pilot was killed while another was injured. The other jet was able to return to the USS Eisenhower without injury.

1998: 15 people died when two small planes crashed over the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of France.

July 31

1964: Country music star Jim Reeves was killed when his light plane crashed near Nashville, Tennessee. His hits had included "Welcome to My World" and "He''ll Have to Go."

1973: 89 people died when a Delta Airlines jet crashed while trying to land in the fog at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts.

1992: All aboard were killed when a Thai Airways jetliner carrying more than 100 people, including 11 Americans, crashed in bad weather in Nepal.

1996: 12-year-old Andy Hedin's dream of flying to Alaska was grounded by a higher authority — his mother.

1996: An Air Force F-16 jet crashed near Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. No fatalities.

1996: A prototype of the Clipper Graham reusable rocket, which is designed to take off and land vertically, was destroyed after a test flight when one of its landing gears failed causing the rocket to tip over and catch fire.

1996: A disturbed passenger aboard an American Airlines Airbus flying from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York City, assaulted a flight attendant, screamed at the other passengers that they were going to die, emptied a bag of urine on some of the passengers, and tried to break into the cockpit. The airplane was forced to land at the Norfolk, Virginia airport because of the disturbance.

1996: A sightseeing helicopter crashed 150 yards from the beach at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Two children were rescued, but the four adults on board were killed in the crash. The cause of the crash was unknown, although light rain was falling at the time of the crash.

1996: An American Airlines Super 80 twin engine jetliner made an emergency landing at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania airport after an engine failed and thick black smoke filled the cabin.

1997: Three construction workers were killed when a five-story high steel framework collapsed on a parking garage expansion at Portland International Airport.

1997: Cambodian businessman (and possible drug smuggler) Teng Bunma pulled out a gun and order the crew of an Orient Thai Airlines plane to delay the flight and wait for several of his friends who were late getting to the Bangkok, Thailand airport. Bunma, who had supported Cambodian strongman Hun Sen in an early July coup, was involved in another airplane and gun incident on April 8th.

1997: A Federal Express MD11F cargo plane crashed as it landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey. As it landed, it flipped on its back, exploded, and then skidded down the runway scattering flaming debris along the way. Surprisingly, all seven people aboard the plane were rescued with only minor injuries. That same plane had previously been involved in another hard landing in 1994 as well as two emergency landings in 1993.

August 1

1970: On his 30th anniversary as a pilot for Eastern Airlines, W. Lain Guthrie decided to celebrate by refusing to dump waste kerosene into the atmosphere (a practice that was very common among airlines at that time). Instead, he ordered the crew to drain the waste fuel that had accumulated from his previous flight before he would take off. For his efforts, he was fired but was later reinstated when public outcry demanded his rehiring and lauded his action.

1977: Francis Gary Powers, the American pilot of a U2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was killed when his helicopter crashed. At the time, he was a helicopter pilot for KNBC television in Los Angeles, California.

1981: Air traffic controllers went on strike in the United States. Two days later, President Reagan fired all those who refused to return to work.

1996: A Russian TU-154 jet was stopped from taking off from the Makhachkala airport when airport security officials noticed a two-foot wide gash in one of the wings. As the plane taxied to the runway, it grazed a refueling hydrant with its wing, thus causing the damage, but the pilots didn't notice the damage and would have attempted takeoff if the airport security officials hadn't noticed the gash in the wing.

1997: Six employees of American Airlines were arrested today for helping to smuggle drugs through several South American airports via American Airlines jets. It was the second major drug ring arrest involving airline employees in two days.

1997: While fighting one of four brush fires raging around San Diego County, an Airborne Fire Attack air tanker flipped over and crashed as it attempted to scoop water from the San Vicente Reservoir. The two crew members were able to excape with no serious injuries.

1998: A Cessna 340 airplane plunged into Lake Michigan shortly after taking off from Miegs Field airport in Chicago, Illinois. One person was killed, three others injured, in the crash.

August 2

1979: Thurman Munson, New York Yankees catcher, died when his private plane crashed in Canton, Ohio.

1985: A Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jet crash-landed as a result of windshear at the Dallas, Texas Airport. 137 people were killed. 27 people, however, survived the crash.

1990: The 360 passengers of a British Airways jet were taken hostage and used as human shields by Iraq when their plane landed at the Kuwait airport on the day that the Persian Gulf War began. Five years later, a French civil court ordered British Airways to pay $5 million to 61 French passengers.

1996: The pilot of a small Mooney 20 airplane was killed when his plane crashed and burned inside the Grand Canyon during a thunderstorm.

1996: A Continental Airlines jet returned safely to Houston, Texas, after fire broke out in an oven while the crew were baking pizzas. No one was injured in the fire as the crew extinguished it with a fire extringuisher.

1997: Chicago Bears president Michael McCaskey registered complaints with the National Football League and Tower Air charter for the travel woes the Bear's experienced on their flights to and from Ireland for an NFL preseason game. The team's plane was delayed three hours at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on the way to Dublin and then had to wait seven hours before lifting off from Dublin on the way back. The flight back also included a bathroom that overflowed and an unscheduled stop in Bangor, Maine.

1997: A Delta Airlines MD-80 jet was about to land at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas when a passenger discovered a bomb threat note in a magazine on the plane. When the plane landed, it was shuttled off to a remote runway where the passengers were evacuated. No bomb was found. A few passengers were injured in sliding down the emergency slides.

1997: An America West Airlines flight did not turn back to the Phoenix, Arizona airport when a computer system showed a landing-gear door was not closed. FAA inspectors later studied why the plane did not return to Phoenix, as is proper procedure, but went on to Columbus, Ohio, where the airline also had a maintenance operation.

1997: A Cessna 150 two-seater airplane caused a small fire when it crashed into a warehouse near Columbia's Owen Field in South Carolina. The two people aboard the plane were injured in the crash.

1997: Two teenage passengers helped to save the pilot of a home-built twin-engine experimental airplane that crashed at the Gratiot Community Airport in Michigan.

1998: A CASA Saetta two-seat training jet crashed in a residential area near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, during the experimental airplanes annual fly-in. The pilot escaped with major injuries, but his passenger was killed in the burning wreckage. The plane crashed after its engines began sputtering. The jet clipped a utility pole, snapped it apart, then crashed. Residents in the area were left without power for hours as a result.

1998: A Cessna 177 headed for the Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, crashed just below the peak of 12,204-foot Mount Rearguard near Red Lodge, Montana. The wreckage of the plane was not discovered until ten days later. The pilot was killed in the crash.

1998: A twin-engine Cessna (with no transponder and, hence, no contact with the control tower) came within 200 feet of a Delta Airlines jet near Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan. No one was injured in the incident.

2005: An Air France Airbus A340 crashed on landing at the Toronto airport. All 309 passengers and crew survived without serious injury.

August 3

1975: When a chartered Boeing 707 hit a mountainside near Agadir, Morocco, 188 people died.

1988: Mathias Rust, the West German pilot who landed a plane in Moscow's Red Square in May of 1987, was released by the Soviet Union after a 14 months in prison.

1996: Denmark's top military officer and eight others were killed when their Gulfstream jet crashed into a mountainside in the Faeroe Islands as their plane approached the local airport in a thick fog.

1996: An Air Force pilot ejected safely moments before his F-16 jet fighter crashed near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

1996: One Mongolian boy died and another was in critical condition when they were found in the wheel well of a U.S. Air Force C-141 B aircraft as it landed at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa after returning from delivering 24 tons of blankets and clothing to Mongolia.

1997: A Cessna 150 Air Coupe clipped the tops of some trees and went down nose first as the pilot tried to take off from a field in southeast Jackson County, Kansas. The pilot was able to crawl out of the plane before it burned. He was treated for a few scratches and released from the hospital.

1998: Thomas Kasper was sentenced to three years in prison for pouring hot coffee on a flight attendant and threatening to open an emergency door during a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Los Angeles on July 14, 1997. His companion, Susan Callihan, had been previously sentenced to two years in prison for kicking in the cockpit door and disrupting the flight. Kasper was also ordered to pay more than $10,000 to recompense the flight attendant.

August 4

1996: A Boeing 737 operated by Lot Airline of Warsaw, Poland, made an emergency landing at the Cyprus airport after receiving a telephone bomb threat. No bomb was found on the plane, but 47 of the Israeli passengers refused to reboard the plane and were flown home later on two private planes sent from Israel.

1996: Clarence "Clancy" Speal, a stunt pilot, lost control of his airplane while flying a loop before thousands of people attending an air show near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After losing control, his plane went hurtling nose first into the Ohio River. He died in the crash.

1997: Lightning knocked out the main radar system at Washington DC's National Airport. Air traffic controllers had to switch to an alternative radar system from nearby Andrews Air Force Base. Five planes were delayed during the switchover.

1997: A small two-engine Beechcraft plane clipped trees and power lines before crashing into a house in New Richmond, Wisconsin, and bursting into flames. The two people aboard the plane were killed in the crash. The homeowner, asleep at the time of the crash, was not injured. The plane may have been returning from the Experimental Aircraft Association air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

1997: Another plane, a single-engine home-built plane crashed in a field near the town of Poygan, Wisconsin. It may also have been coming from the Oshkosh air show. Two people also died in this crash.

1997: Dallas Cowboy coach Barry Switzer was arrested at the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport in Texas when a loaded and unlicensed revolver was found in his carry-on bag. He claimed that he had hid the gun in the bag to keep it from the prying eyes of visiting children and had forgotten to take it out before going on the trip.

1998: Two men were killed when their Cessna 185 float plane crashed while en route from Superior, Wisconsin to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Ten days after the crash, a reward was offered for anyone who could locate the plane (which had not yet been located even after an extensive ground and air search).

August 5

1981: The U.S. government began to fire striking air traffic controllers.

1996: A Swedish air force pilot was killed when his Viggen fighter plane crashed into the Gulf of Bothnia near Ornskoldsvik while on a low-flying practice run.

1997: During a rainstorm near Guam Island, a Korean Airlines Boeing 747 crashed into a deep ravine and burned as it attempted to land. 26 out of 254 people aboard the plane survived.

1998: During a sightseeing trip, a Taquan Air Cessna 185 floatplane crashed iin the Misty Fiords National Monument in Alaska. One passenger was killed while the pilot and the passenger's mother were injured.

August 6

1966: A Braniff BAC-111 crashed over Kansas due to bad weather. 42 people were killed in the crash.

1995: The pilot of a American U-2 spy plane was killed when his plane crashed shortly after taking off from an airport 80 miles west of London, England.

1995: A report stated that pilots on transcontinental routes have jet lag so bad that 9 out of 10 have trouble staying awake.

1996: Okay, it's not an airplane story per se, but one man did try to fly -- out of a window on the 30th floor of the IDS Tower in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He failed. He died.

1996: A suspicious package forced an American Airlines jet to return to the Los Angeles International Airport. The package turned out to be a bag of cat food.

1996: A British Airways Boeing 747 turned back from its flight to Mexico City after experiencing vibrations in its number two engine. The plane landed safely back in London and continued on its flight the next day.

1996: An experienced skydiver collided with another diver as their parachutes opened and fell to his death at the World Free Fall Convention in Quincy, Illinois. It was the fifth death in the 11-year history of the Convention.

1996: On its return from the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-In, a small two-seater airplane was forced to make an emergency landing on a small rural highway in Iowa after an exhaust pipe broke off and tore through its wooden propeller. Making a perfect landing on the highway, the pilot and a passenger walked away from the landing unhurt but shakey.

1996: A Lakers Airways flight from London to Orlando, Florida, after 49 hours and 9 minutes of delays caused by a jetliner that had broken down in Florida, a replacement jet with a defective door, and trying to find an emergency takeoff slot.

1997: After quarreling with her Air Force boyfriend, a young woman set fire to a townhouse complex on Travis Air Force Base in California. Six homes were badly damaged, but no one was injured in the fire.

1997: When their Cessna 172 airplane lost power just after taking off from Oakland International Airport in California, the pilot was able to land safely in a marsh about a half mile from the runway. Three members of Alameda County's Drug Enforcement Task Force escaped with only minor injuries. The plane, too, remained largely in tact after the forced landing.

1997: Five U.N. peacekeepers were killed when their helicopter crashed in the Israeli occupation zone in southern Lebanon.

1997: A Korean Air Boeing 747 crashed into a hillside and erupted into flame while trying to land at the main airport on the island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. According to the black box recordings, the crew members of the jet apparently had no idea they were in trouble. The crash was the 12th total loss for Korea Air in the past 30 years and its 7th crash this decade with damage to the airplane. 29 people out of 254 passengers and crew survived the crash.

1998: Security alarms were triggered by a handgun in a woman's bag at the Los Angeles International Airport. Thousands of passengers were evacuated from the terminal, thus delaying many flights for up to four hours.

1998: Four men were killed when their Cessna 210 crashed while they were scattering the ashes of their mother over a pine-studded valley near Lake City, Colorado. One of those killed was David Ford, Colorado's Agriculture Commissioner.

2005: A Tunisian-chartered ATR-42 jetliner dive-crashed into the sea off Sicily, killing 16 people.

August 7

1989: An airplane carrying Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas and 15 others disappeared in a flight over Ethiopia. The wreckage with no survivors was found six days later.

1995: The air traffic control center in Fremont, California, had an hour-long radar outage that caused one jet to stray more than 100 miles off course. Two other jets came within 1 1/2 miles of each other while in flight.

1996: Two executives of the German magazine Bunte were killed in a plane crash near Offenburg, Germany.

1996: After U.S. inspectors rigorously inspected several Venezuelen airplanes for safety violations, Venezuela retaliated by delaying two American Airlines flights out of Caracas (eventually allowing them to fly to Miami without any passengers). Passengers were stranded for several days while the two countries worked out their inspection policies. One United Airlines flight resumed on the 8th and other resumed in the next two days.

1996: A U-2 spy plane burst into flames as one of the wings blew off. The pilot as well as a pedestrian on the ground were killed as the plane crashed into the parking lot of the Oroville, California Mercury Register newspaper building.

1997: Britannia Airways announced that it was investigating allegations that one of its pilots allowed his wife to fly the jet during a commercial flight.

1997: After seeing flames coming from one of its engines, the pilot of Delta Airlines L-1011 jet aborted its takeoff, stopping the plane just before the end of the runway at Honolulu airport in Hawaii. Ten people suffered from smoke inhalation and two people were injured while being evacuated from the plane. Earlier, the pilot delayed departure for 3 1/2 hours after reporting hydraulic problems.

1997: Three people died when their ultralight aircraft collided in mid-air, fell to the ground, and burst into flames near Arlington, Washington.

1997: A Fine Air DC-8 cargo plane crashed as it attempted to take off from Miami International Airport in Florida. The plane tilted sharply to the right just before the crash, thus leading to guesses that a shift in the cargo load occurred just before the crash. Five people were killed in the crash, including a motorist who was crushed when the plane crashed just outside the airport's perimeter, stopping just short of the International Airport Center shopping area.

1997: Wendy Lee Rogers of Dillon, Colorado, tried to kill her baby girl by holding a plastic bag over her head during a Continental Airlines flight from Portugal to Newark, New Jersey. Fast action by a fellow passenger saved the baby girl. Other passengers subdued Wendy, who believed that people on the plane were going to torture her and kill her baby. She was charged a week later and put in a mental hospital after being diagnosed as suffering from a psychotic disorder with postpartum onset.

1998: Severe turbulence forced a USAir Boeing 737 flying from Philadelphia to Las Vegas to land at the Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania airport. Seven paramedic units met the jet as it landed to assist passengers who had been injured during the turbulence.

August 8

1985: Even on the ground, you are not safe. A radical group exploded a bomb just outside the Rhein-Main U.S. air base near Frankfurt, Germany. Two Americans were killed in the blast.

1996: Two U.S. Navy F-18 jet fighters approached a Qantas 747 commercial airliner bound from Sydney, Australia, to Tokyo, Japan, and forced it to take evasive action.

1997: After cutbacks in their hours forced them to give poor service to tourists, baggage handlers for Iberia Airlines in Ibiza, Spain, declared a hunger strike.

1998: A skydiving instructor was killed and his woman student (on her first dive) was severely injured when their main chute failed to open. The two had been harnessed together when they jumped from a plane above Kapowsin Airport in Washington.

1998: During routine flight operations, the three-man crew of a U.S. Navy SH-60B Seahawk helicopter survived when their copter crashed into the Red Sea south of Eritrea.

August 9

1896: Otto Lilenthal was killed while testing a glider.

1970: When a Peruvian turbojet exploded and crashed after taking off from Cuzco, Pero, 101 people were killed including some on the ground. Among the dead were 45 U.S. exchange students.

1996: The inventor of the jet engine, British engineer Frank Whittle, died of lung cancer at his home in Baltimore, Maryland.

1997: An unidentified wingless flying object passed very close to a Swissair Boeing 747 which had just taken off from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania airport and was cruising at 23,000 feet. Both the pilot and copilot saw the object, although the pilot described it as long and wingless while the copilot described it as more spherical.

1997: A Delta Airlines L-1011 airplane blew two tires as it landed at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Since the plane could not taxi to the gate, passengers were offloaded on a bus and taken to the gate. No one was injured in the crash. The plane was later jacked up and the tires replaced.

1997: A Japan Airlines jet landing in Guam gunned its engines and aborted its landing after misjudging the location of the runway and being told to attempt another landing by the control tower. The jet landed safely on the second attempt.

1997: Asbjorn Sorhaug, a Massachusetts resident, was killed when his homemade single-engine plane crashed near an outdoor flea market outside Ollis, New Hampshire. He apparently was able to steer the plane clear of the crowded marketplace before losing control and crashing.

1998: Nine people were hospitalized after an American Airlines jet ran into to serious turbulence about half an hour after taking off from Miami to Los Angeles. The plane returned to Miami where the passengers were hospitalized.

August 10

1993: An Air China Boeing 767-200 was diverted to Taiwan by wool vendor Shi Yuebo, who got a nine-year sentence for hijacking.

1995: An Israeli Air Force F-15 jet fighter crashed in the Negev desert when birds flew into the engine's air-intake. Both the pilot and navigator were killed in the crash

1995: An Avieteca Boeing 737 crashed near the top of Chichontepec volcano as it approached Comalapa Airport near San Salvador, El Salvador. All 58 passengers and 7 crew members were killed. It was El Salvador's deadliest air disaster.

1996: Seven people, including two stranded hikers who had just been picked up, were killed when a rescue helicopter crashed into the side of Mt. Chiri in South Korea.

1997: A single-engine Cessna 150 developed engine trouble while flying from Grove City to Greenville, Pennsylvania. The pilot was forced to make an emergency landing on the westbound lanes of Interstate 80. Victor Shine Jr., the pilot, quickly took the plane off the road and into the median, where it remained overnight until the plane could be disassembled and removed. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: Three people were killed when their Cessna 206 crashed into Chine Poot Lake shortly after taking off from from Kachemak Bay State Park in Alaska.

1997: A Formosa Airlines Dornier 228 turboprop crashed on the offshore island of Matsu. All 16 people board were killed in the crash. It was the fourth accident involving a Dornier 228 by the airline in the past five years. In April 1996, a 228 crashed into the sea just short of Matsu; six people died while eleven were rescued. In February 1993, six people died when a 228 crashed into the sea off Taiwan. In June 1993, one person was injured when a a landing gear snapped as the plane was landing on another offshore island.

1997: Film director Jean-Claude Lauzon and actress Marie-Soleil Tougas died when their Cessna 180 crashed and burned just south of Kuujjuaq, Quebec. High winds and rain may have contributed to the crash. Lauzon is best known in Canada for his French-language films, Un zoo la nuit and Leolo.

August 11

1957: 79 people were killed when a Maritime Central Airways DC-4 crashed at Issoudun, Quebec, 40 kilometres southwest of Quebec City.

1982: A bomb exploded aboard a Pan American Airlines Boeing 747 over the Pacific Ocean. One person died in the explosion, but the plane itself was able to land safely in Honolulu.

1996: The pilot of a helicopter died when the helicopter struck a south Georgia TV tower and crashed.

1996: A small plane crashed and burned as it prepared to land at the Summersville airport in West Virginia. Three people were killed in the crash.

1997: After experiencing a gear breakdown, an airplane belonging to Misr Air of Egypt skidded from the main runway while landing at the Istanbul, Turkey airport. It skidded for a long distance and finally came to a stop in a muddy area. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: John Thomas Kieser, a real estate agent from Jacksonville, Florida, was caught trying to board a US Airways flight while carrying a flare gun, 19 flares, and an 8-inch filet knife. While he had gotten pass the Philadelphia Airport security check-point, he was caught when Theresa Duncan, a flight attendant, overheard him talking to another passenger about hijacking. When she listened more closely, she heard him say, "I've been scoping out the Philadelphia and Orlando airports, and they would be very easy airports to do." He was charged with carrying dangerous weapons aboard an aircraft.

1997: An old single-engine plane nosedived into a grassy field and burned while practicing touch-and-go landings at North County Airport near West Palm Beach, Florida. All three people aboard the plane were burned beyond recognition.

2000: Jonathan Burton (19) of Las Vegas, Nevada went berzerk 20 minutes before a Southwest Airlines jetliner was scheduled to land at the Salt Lake City, Utah airport. He hit other passengers, pounded on the locked cockpit door, and fought as other passengers tried to hold him down and subdue him. Burton died after being removed from the plane. While being subdued, he had been strangled, beaten, and kicked. He died from suffocation.

August 12

1944: The oldest son of Joseph Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was killed when his Navy plane blew up over England.

1985: A Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed into a mountain in Japan. 520 people were killed in what is thus far the world's worst single-aircraft disaster. Miraculously, 4 people survived the crash.

1996: A landing jet nearly ran into a plane about to take off when the control tower at the Sydney, Australia airport and air traffic control sent confusing messages to the pilot of the plane about to take off. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A man who hijacked a Cuba-bound plane and diverted it to Miami, Florida in 1996 was sentenced to 20 years in prison on this date. He was convicted on April 25, 1997. The man had fled a Palestinian shantytown because of poverty.

1997: A Frontier Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing at Centennial Airport near Denver, Colorado, when a woman suffered a heart attack and heavy fog prevented a landing at Denver's new International Airport. The woman was rushed to the hospital where she was expected to recover.

1997: A Beech 1900 twin-engine turboprop cargo plane landed hard, skidded, and caught fire at Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington. The pilot was trapped inside as the plane's load of financial documents shifted forward. Fire crews were able to put out the fire and rescue the pilot who suffered facial cuts and smoke inhalation.

1997: Four people were killed when their Beechcraft King Air A90 crashed shortly after taking off from the Alice, Texas airport.

August 13

1996: It wasn't Friday the 13th, but this 13th in 1996 was a banner day for airplane mishaps. A banner-towing plane operated by Paramount Air Service snagged a parasailer near the shore at Cape May, New Jersey, and took him for a 200-foot ride before he hit the water and was able to tear away from the plane's banner.

1996: On this date, a newspaper reported that India's air force had lost 13 fighter jets to crashes during routine flights during the past six months. Losses included 2 British Jaguars, 2 Russian MiG-27s, and 9 Russian MiGs.

1996: As an Air France jetliner taxied down the runway after landing at the Perpignan airport in sowthwest France, armed robbers held up the plane at gunpoint and made off with money found in the cargo hold. They used a van to block the airplane on the runway.

1996: A small fire in the cockpit of an American Airlines Boeing 767 forced the pilots to make an emergency landing at the Sydney, Nova Scotia airport. No one was hurt in the landing.

1996: Mistaking some lights he was using as guidance during a night flight in Australia, the pilot of a small plane almost landed at runway 34 at the Melbourne Airport instead of Runway 35 at the Essenden Airport in Australia.

1996: Four people were injured in London when a Spanish Leer jet crashed through a fence after landing and ran onto a highway, hitting a van.

1996: A TWA plane turned back to Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts because a smell of smoke was detected in the cabin. No one was injured as the plane made a successful landing.

1997: Wendy Lee Rogers of Dillon, Colorado, was charged with attempting to kill her baby girl while aboard a Continental Airlines flight from Portugal to New Jersey. See August 7th for details of the incident.

1997: Two birds were sucked into the engine of a Delta Express Boeing 737 as it was taking off from Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. The pilot was able to shut down that engine, circle the airport, and land without further problems. The incident occurred minutes before 300 participants at the seventh annual conference on the danger of bird strikes were to take a tour of the airport. In 1960, 62 peope were killed when an Eastern Airlines Electra hit a flock of starlings and crashed into Winthrop Bay near the airport. Of the 300,000 landings and takeoffs made at the airport thus far in the year, only four others had experienced bird strikes.

1998: A Swedish-model, World War II AT-6 vintage plane en route to an air show crashed in woodlands near Winlock, Washington. Both people aboard the plane were killed in the crash, which occurred while they were performing an aerobatic maneuver.August 14

1958: 99 people died when a KLM Superconstellation crashed west of Ireland.

1972: When an East German Ilyushin-62 crashed on taking off from East Berlin, 156 people died.

1996: When one of its engines lost power shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, a Delta Airlines Boeing 727 made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport.

1996: Continental Airlines settled with a couple who claimed that their 5-year-old daughter was terrorized by a large snake that a woman had taken on a 1994 flight in her bag (a therapist had suggested to the woman that she carry the snake to help her deal with the trauma of being sexually harassed by a professor).

1997: A Continental Airlines DC-9 made an emergency landing at National Airport in Washington, D.C., when the pilots noticed a drop in oil pressure in the right engine and an abnormal vibration shortly after taking off. The plane was able to return to the airport without further incident.

1997: Hours later, a Northwest Airlines DC-10 had to make an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. when trouble developed in its left engine. The plane circled the airport until other planes were cleared out of the way and then landed without further incident. The passengers of the flight to Amsterdam had to wait overnight for another flight when the airline could not locate a fresh crew to pilot another plane.

1997: A King Air BE 200 charter plane crashed as the pilot attempted to land at the Dalton, Georgia airport. The pilot, the only person aboard at the time, died in the crash. The weather was cloudy and foggy at the time of the crash.

1998: Jerry Loftis, a pioneer in the sport of sky surfing, died during a jump at the World Free Fall Conventioin near Quincy, Illinois. His main parachute failed and his reserve chute activated too close to the ground to protect him in his fall.

2005: A Helios Airways Boeing 737 crashed into a hill 25 miles north of Athens, Greece, killing all 121 people on board in Greece's worse airline disaster. All of the passengers and crew were frozen solid in what appeared to be a catastrophic failure of cabin pressure or oxygen supply in freezing temperatures at 35,000 feet. A passenger on the doomed plane said in an SMS text to his cousin in Athens: “The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell, we're freezing.”

August 15

1935: On a flight to the Orient, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post died when their plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.

1996: A Morroccan Boeing 747 jetliner was forced to make an emergency landing at the Cairo International Airport when one of its engines caught fire just minutes after taking off. The plane landed safely and the fire was put out without any injuries.

1996: Passenger Brian Howson had to hang out of a single-engine Cessna and lock its faulty rear wheels into place by hand -- 4,000 feet above Port Hedland in Australia! The plane landed safely.

1997: The FAA was criticized for its handling of airline safety by Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation and author of Flying Blind, Flying Safe.

1997: Australian pilots announced that they were going to boycott four airports in protest of the new airspace management plan proposed by the government for those airports. The pilots protested the mixing of high-speed jets with unnotified light aircraft in the airspace over the airports at Alice Springs, Hobart, Launceston, and Port Hedland. They said such mixings posed a danger for air safety in those regions.

1997: As a result of the Korean Air crash on Guam (where the altitude system was incorrectly programmed, the FAA announced that errors had been found and corrected in two of the 191 airport-based systems that alert air traffic controllers when a plane flies too low.

1998: At least three people were killed when a small plane it a van as it crashed on a busy highway near Blue Ash, Ohio.

1998: Earlier, also in the Cincinnati area, a small plane crashed in a field and rolled onto a road near Amelia, Ohio. The pilot was killed inthe crash.

August 16

1965: A United Airlines Boeing 727 crashed into Lake Michigan killing 28.

1987: When a Northwest Airlines MD-80 plane clipped a light pole in a parking lot while taking off from the Detroit, Michigan airport, it crashed into an underpass beneath Interstate 94. 156 people died, but a four-year-old girl miraculously survived the crash.

1995: Because of a software glitch, the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Auburn, Washington, lost communications with aircraft for a few seconds before the center switched to a backup system.

1996: Three Cubans hijacked a small plane in Cuba and forced the pilot to fly towards the United States. While enroute, the plane crashed in the Gulf of Mexico. All four people aboard the plane were rescued by a passing Russian freighter.

1996: Misunderstanding the instructions he received from air traffic control, an Australian pilot entered into a military exercise zone. He was unhurt, but he did skedaddle out of there when he learned where he was.

1998: After running out of gas just as it was approaching the Santa Monica Airport in California, a Cessna 177 clipped power lines, crashed landed on a junior high school athletic field, and flipped over against a baseball backstop. Of the four people aboard the plane, one was in critical condition, another in fair condition, and the two others suffered only minor injuries.

2005: After its engines failed, a Columbian West Caribbean Airways MD-82 crashed at a cattle farm near Venezuela's border with Columbia. En route from Panama to Martinique, the charter flight carried 152 passengers and 8 crew, all dead. The passengers were vacationers returning to Martinique.

August 17

1942: U.S. bombers staged their first independent raid on Europe during World War II as they attacked Rouen, France.

1944: Second Lieutenant Daniel Haley was shot down and died while trying to liberate Toulouse, France from the Germans during World War II. In 1997, when the town of Toulouse finally discovered his name, they unveiled a memorial to him at the site of his death.

1978: Why take a plane? There are other ways to fly! Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman completed the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight aboard the Double Eagle 2.

1979: When two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collided over the Ukraine, 173 people died.

1988: The Pakistani president and a U.S. ambassador were killed in a plane crash.

1996: A Carnival Airlines jet bound for Puerto Rico returned to Newark International Airport after a passenger found a note claiming there was a bomb on the plane. The plane landed safely and no bomb was found.

1996: A C-130 military plane providing support for President Clinton's vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, slammed into a steep mountainside just after taking off from the airport in Jackson. One Secret Service employee and eight crew members were killed in the crash. An investigation of the crash concluded that the crash was due to crew error.

1997: The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it was disappointed that airlines had not yet begun to install smoke alarms and sprinklers in cargo holds after the May 1996 ValuJet crash in Florida.

1998: Strong turbulence knocked many passengers around when a Continental Airlines jet was flying from Houston to Washington, D.C. With many passengers injured, the plane made an emergency landing at the New Orleans airport where paramedics treated minor injuries and 16 passengers were taken to hospitals for further treatment.

1998: Steve Fossett ended his fourth attempt to fly around the world in a balloon when a severe storm ruptured his high altitude balloon and sent him plunging 29,000 feet into the ocean 500 miles off the Australian coast. During the ten-minute descent, he attempted to ease the plunge by releasing fuel and oxygen tanks. At some point, he blacked out. The next moment he awoke to find himself upside down in a capsule half full of water and on fire. He escaped, scrambled into his emergency life raft, and set off emergency beacons. He was rescued a short time later amid shark-infested waters.

August 18

1996: A World War II vintage Tiger Moth airplane crashed into a seaside promenade near Clacton-on-Sea in England after the plane lost power. The pilot received minor injuries as did an older lady who was walking her dog on the promenade.

1998: After an American International Airways DC-8 landed at Philadelphia International Airport, the nose wheel of the jet collapsed. The three crew members were unhurt, but some of the puppies included in the freight were tossed about and injured.

1998: Tom Guntly, the pilot of a single-engine Piper Comanche, was able to glide his plane two miles to a safe landing after its propeller fell off as he approached the downtown airport at Wausau, Wisconsin. No one was hurt by the falling 40 lb. propeller which stuck in the ground "like a hot knife in butter."

August 19

1960: American U-2 pilot Gary Powers was convicted of espionage by a Russian tribunal.

1980: 301 people died when a Saudi Arabian Lockheed Tristar burned after making an emergency landing at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The plane landed safely but the passengers were not able to get out of the airplane. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history.

1981: Two Navy F-14 jets shot down two Libyan SU-22s in a dogfight over the Gulf of Sidra. This incident occurred on the last day of a two-day exercise by the U.S. Navy.

1996: A military CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter caught fire during a routine training mission in Kuwait. One U.S. Marine was killed; three others were injured in the fire.

1996: A Russian-made Ilyushin 76 cargo jet crashed and exploded into flames while trying to make an emergency landing at the Belgrade, Yugoslavia airport.

1998: A computer crash at the Nashua, New Hampshire air traffic control center for Northeast U.S. forced controllers to use slips of paper to keep track of the speeds and flight paths of hundreds of planes. The outage, which lasted 37 minutes, caused no close calls. The next day, the system failed again for a few minutes.

August 20

1975: 126 people were killed when an II-62 jet crashed south of Damascus, Syria.

1978: It's not safe even when you're not at the airport. Gunmen opened fire on an Israeli El Al Airline bus in London, England.1990: Three former pilots for Northwest Airlines were convicted of flying while intoxicated.

1996: After its engine stalled, a small experimental Glassair aircraft crashed into two automobiles on a road south of Puyallup, Washington. The driver of one car was seriously injured. The pilot and the driver of the other car suffered only minor injuries.

1996: An elderly couple who bought an aerial sightseeing trip at a local Rotary Club charity auction were killed along with their disabled son and the pilot when the engine of their single-engine Comanche plane quit shortly after takeoff from the Whitefield, New Hampshire airport.

1996: The co-pilot of a Cobra helicopter was killed when the helicopter crashed in the Mojave Desert during the filming of a TV commercial for Black & Decker. The pilot came out of the crash with only a broken arm. A film production crew member was also cut by flying debris. The Cobra, one of just a few privately owned attack helicopters, lost power as it swooped in through a rocky outcropping, then stalled and banked to the right where its blades clipped the side of the mountain, thus causing the crash.

1997: A flight attendant filed a $5 million lawsuit against Rev. Robert Schuller for a June 28th altercation on a United Airlines flight.

1998: Dhaka International Airport in Qatar was closed for several hours after a Qatar Airlines Airbus-300 jet made an emergency landing at the airport. The plane, which had just taken off from the airport, had to make the crash landing after an engine caught fire. No one was hurt in the incident.

August 21

1983: Moments after stepping off a plane at the Manila Airport, Benigno Aquino Jr., the Philippine oppostion leader, was shot dead.

1995: After one of its engines exploded, an Atlantic Southeast Airlines Embraer 120 commuter plane crashed in a hay field on a flight from Georgia to Mississippi. Ten people were killed, but miraculously 19 others survived. Fifteen months later, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed manufacturer Hamilton Standard Company for failing to discover and repair corrosion pits on an engine blade, thus causing the blade to break off during flight.

1997: United Airlines called in federal agents after discovering three maintenance irregularities. Apparently a maintenance worker at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport intentionally tampered with the Boeing 747.

1997: Five people were killed when their small airplane ran out of fuel and crashed a few miles from the airport at Katherine, Australia.

1997: 141 passengers died when a Nigerian jet crashed en route to Lagos, Nigeria.

1997: Seven top officials of the alliance fighting the Taliban Islamic army died when their airplane skidded of the runway and crashed at an airfield in Bamian, Afghanistan.

August 22

1834: Samuel Pierpont Langley was born at Rosbury, Massachusetts. Langley was an American astronomer, physicist, and aviation pioneer. Langley Air Force Base in Virginia is named after him.

1985: When fire broke out on a British Airtours jet on the airport runway at Manchester, England, 55 people died.

1996: A Marine Corps FA-18 Hornet jet from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland crashed in the Atlantic Ocean 40 miles off Ocean City. The pilot died in the crash.

1996: An Air National Guard A-10 Thunderbolt jet from the Willow Grove Air Reserve Base in Pennsylvania crashed in a Dorchester County swamp in Maryland. The pilot died in the crash.

1997: WBNS-TV of Ohio reported that the Columbus and Cleveland airports have confusing runways that have caused pilots to attempt takeoffs from wrong runways and to roll their planes onto active runways. More than 50 such runway incursions have occured at the Cleveland airport since 1988.

1997: Federal statistics showed that airplane mishaps on airport runways have increased 16% in 1997, the fourth year in a role that such runway incursions have increased. 137 such incidents occurred in the first six months of 1997. 284 such incidents occurred in 1996.

1997: A United Airlines Boeing 737 was temporarily disabled when a bird was sucked into one of its engines and had to return to the Portland, Oregon airport shortly after taking off. The plane landed safely.

1997: A cracked engine fan blade caused a single-engine F-16B Falcon jetfighter to crash in the Gulf of Mexico. Both crew members were able to eject safely. During the past year, three military aviation accidents and one commercial jet accident were caused by problems with fan blades.

2006: A Russian Pulkova Airlines jetliner with 171 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine (near Donetsk) after the pilot reported a fire on board (as well as heavy turbulence). No survivors were found in the wreckage.

August 23

1944: When a U.S. Air Force B-24 hit a school in Freckelton, England, 76 people were killed, including many on the ground.

1996: China's main airline, CAAC, announced that it would extend a smoking ban to all flights to improve safety and protect passenger's health. Smoking was blamed for the crash of a 1982 CAAC flight that killed 25 people and injured 37 others. The crash was caused by a fire started by a passenger's cigarette.

1996: Four Marines were killed when their EA-6B Prowler jet crashed during a training mission in the southwest Arizona desert. That same day the Air Force canceled a quarter of its training flights to review safety procedures.

1996: The lone passenger was killed and the pilot critically injured when his twin-engine Beechcraft Baron airplane clipped a utility pole, cartwheeled three times, and slammed into a grassy area at the edge of the Seatle-Tacoma International Airport. Seconds before the pilot had successfully avoid a 7-story hotel and a 11-story office building.

2000: A Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashed as it attempted to land at the airport in Bahrain. 143 people died in the crash. The plane circled the runway twice in attempting to land before it plunged into the sea and exploded into flames.

2005: A Peruvian TANS Boeing 737-200 jetliner crashed among heavy winds during a severe storm as it approached the Pucallpa, Peru airport. Of the 100 people aboard, at least 60 were killed. Many were rescued from the crash site with serious burns and broken limbs. “The plane was jumping, stronger, stronger, and the more it came down, the rougher it got,” said one survivor.

August 24

1921: 62 people died when an AR-2 British dirigible broke in two during a trial trip near Hull, England.

1996: Two German Tornado jet fighters crashed during low-level training exercises in northeast Canada. One pilot was killed and three others were injured. Other low-level accidents at the Goose Bay Canadian Forces Base include a 1985 crash involving the death of an American pilot in his prototype Tigershark fighter, the death of a Dutch pilot and injury of another in a 1990 collision between two Dutch F-16s, and the 1993 death of two German officers when their F-4 Phantom jet exploded during landing.

1997: An Indian Airlines Airbus 300 was delayed for 32 hours at the Hyderabad, India airport because of a technical snag (the plane began wobbling while attempting a takeoff at 3:00 a.m. More than 260 passengers had to wait the entire 32 hours while the plane was fixed. The plane finally took off at 11 a.m. on Monday, the 25th.

1997: An Airtours International Boeing 757 made an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport after experiencing problems with its hydraulic systems. No one was hurt even though the aircraft's nose came to rest on the grass because the hydraulic system failure limited the ability of the pilots to steer the plane.

1997: After running out of gas, a Cessna 172 crashed near Highway 12 in Kenwood, California while attempting to make an emergency landing. The four people aboard the plane experienced only minor injuries even though their plane ended up hanging upside down in a tree.

1997: Three people were killed when a Waco YMF-5 sightseeing plane crashed into the ocean about a mile off Ocean City, Maryland. The plane, owned by Ocean Aerial, was the company's first passenger plane to crash. The company, which also flies banners over the beaches of Ocean City, has had eight other planes crash. The owner's brother was killed in a September 1983 crash when his plane's landing gear got caught while he was attempting to pick up a banner.

1998: A U.S. Air Force F-16 jet fighter crashed into the sea a mile off South Korea's coast. The pilot survived after ejecting.

2004: Chechen suicide bombers destroy two Russian airliners carrying a total of 90 people on domestic flights out of Moscow, Russia.

August 25

1940: The first parachute wedding was held on this day. Depending on your outlook, this is a wonderful happening or a clear disaster.

1985: Samantha Smith and her father were killed in an airline crash in Maine. Samantha was the girl made famous for writing a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and getting invited to visit Russia.

1996: A U.S. F-14 jet fighter blew out a tire and caught fire as it landed at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport. No one was hurt in the landing. Aboard the plane was the U.S. pilot and Israel's air force commander.

1996: A Cambodian military MI-17 helicopter carrying 23 people crashed in the central province of Kompong Thom. Two people died in the crash, and many others were seriously injured including General Soeuy Keo, commander of Military Region 1, who suffered a broken back.

1997: Fire destroyed a trailer being used as an office at the Indiana County Airport in Pennsylvania. No planes were damaged in the fire. A hangar at the airport had previously been destroyed by fire in January because of a faulty oil furnace.

1997: British Airways announced that it would investigate allegations that a captain of a Boeing 757 allowed a five-year-old girl to sit at the plane's controls shortly before landing at Heathrow Airport in London, England. The girl, Emily Pickersgill, apparently was allowed to press a control that turned the plane during its flight.

1997: Three men suffered cuts and scratches after running into a barbed-wire fence soon after abandoning a stolen Cessna which they had hot-wired at the Centennial Airport near Denver and flew it in a joy ride to the Limon airport. They were arrested shortly after landing at Limon.

August 26

1974: Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh died at the age of 72 in his home in Hawaii. He was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.

1993: When an L-410 plane crashed as it landed at Aldan, Yakutia (Siberia), 24 people were killed.

1996: Pakistan shot down four Indian helicopters that entered its airspace over the disputed Siachin Glacier.

1996: A man claiming to have a grenade and dynamite hijacked a Sudan Airways flight from Khartoum, Sudan, to Amman, Jordan. The Airbus 310 jetliner landed at the Lamaca International Airport in Cyprus to refuel. Early the next day, the plane landed at Stansted Airport near London, England.

1997: A fight broke out between two air traffic controllers at the control tower of La Guardia Airport in New York City. The fight apparently did not endanger any flights coming into or out of the airport.

1998: An American Airlines MD-80 jet had to make an emergency landing at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona after fuel began leaking form its left engine. The plane had been en route from Chicago to Los Angeles. A few passengers suffered cuts as they were evacuated down inflatable slides.

August 27

1990: Blues guitarist and Grammy winner Stevie Ray Vaughan died at the age of 35 when the helicopter he was riding crashed into a hill near East Troy, Wisconsin. His album, "Couldn't Stand the Weather," went platinum in 1984.

1995: As it tried to land, a seaplane crashed into a Block Island, Rhode Island restaurant and gas station. Four people on the plane plus one person on the ground were killed in the resulting explosion and fire.

2006: Taking off in the early morning hours at the Lexington, Kentucky Blue Grass Airport, a Bombadier Canadair CRJ-100 jet operated by Comair ran off the end of an unlighted 3,500-foot runway designed for smaller planes instead of using the well-lit 7,000-foot runway designed for commercial flights. The plane exploded in flames upon crashing when it wasn't able to lift off (it needed at least 5,000 feet to take off). Only one person of the 50 aboard the plane survived. First officer James Polehinke was pulled from the wreckage by police. Among those who died were a newlywed couple taking off on their honeymoon (former minor-league baseball player Jon Hooker and his bride Scarlett Parsley).

August 28

1988: When three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany, 70 spectators were killed by the flaming debris. It was the worst air show disaster in history.

1993: When a severely overloaded Yak-40 passenger plane crashed into a river in Tajikistan, 76 people were killed. The plane, which is designed to carry 30 people, was carrying 80 people.

1994: Five DEA agents died when their plane crashed in the cocaine-producing jungles of Peru.

1995: A bomb threat closed down the three major New York City airports for more than an hour. 210 planes were delayed as a result.

1997: The Flight Safety Foundation issued a paper announcing that blood clotting during long flights is a serious medical problem that can affect young and old alike. The phenomenon is known as deep venous thrombosis or economy-class syndrome. To avoid the problem, get up and walk around. Also drink lots of liquid (not alcohol) and avoid smoking before the flight. In addition, don't cross your legs and shift positions of your body from time to time. The four highest risk factors for deep venous thrombosis is

1997: Oil pressure problems forced a Continental Airlines Boeing 737 to land at the Columbus, Ohio airport rather than continue on to Nashville, Tennessee.

1997: After both primary and backup radar systems malfunctioned, air traffic controllers were forced to manually route planes coming into Washington D.C.'s National Airport for almost two hours.

1997: Japan Airlines, worried about increasing violence on flights, gave attendants permission to tie up unruly passengers. Pilots and counter staff were also given permission to not board drunken passengers.

August 29

1996: Turbulence caused a USAir 737 to drop suddenly several hundred feet, injuring some of the crew and passengers. The airplane made an emergency landing at the Chattanooga, Tennessee airport.

1996: A Russian Tupelov 154 jet carrying coal miners to work at Spitsbergen, Norway, crashed six miles from the airport. All 143 people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

1996: The pilot of an American Airlines flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Boston, Massachusetts, reported seeing a missle pass his Boeing 757 while in flight.

1997: A Satena Airways PC-6 crashed in the jungles of Colombia just minutes short of landing at the Puerto Inirida airport near the Venezuelan border. Nine people died in the crash.

1998: Northwest Airlines pilots began a 15-day strike.

1998: Two Navy personnel, operating as civilians, were killed when their T-34 two-seater airplane crashed into the Potomac River as they tried to return to the airport at the Quantico Marine Corps Base just minutes after taking off. The plane belonged to a recreational aerial club at the base.

1998: 80 people were killed and 36 injured when a Cubana de Aviacion Tupelov airliner failed in its third attempt to take off from the airport at Quito, Ecuador. 70 of 90 people aboard the plane were killed as well as ten people on the ground, including five children who were playing soccer in the field where the plane crashed.

August 30

1995: Two French airmen were shot down over Bosnia while flying U.N. bombing missions over Serb-held positions.

1996: Continental Connection, a commuter airline operated by GP Express of Grand Island, Nebraska, shut down after losing some federal subsidies and the closing of Continental's hubs at Denver, Colorado, and Greensboro, North Carolina. Not a good day for a flight on that airline.

1996: Washington National Airport was closed for several hours on a Friday night as thousands of people were evacuated when a bus hit a gas line and caused gas to leak into the main terminal and control tower.

1998: An Air Canada DC-9 was quarantined at LaGuardia Airport in New York City for several hours after a passenger, who had been on an earlier flight, claimed he had the deadly Ebola virus. He didn't.

August 31

1944: An American B-24 bomber, with a crew of 10 aboard, crashed into the side of a 6,000-foot mountain and tumbled into a ravine in southern China. The remains were not found until 1996.

1969: Rocky Marciano, former heavyweight champion boxer, died in the crash of a small airplane in Iowa. He was one day short of celebrating his 46th birthday.

1986: When a private Piper PA-28 and an Aeromexico DC-9 jet collided over Cerritos, California, 82 people died, including 15 on the ground, 3 in the small plane, and 64 on the jet. The crash was caused when the Piper PA-28 blundered into the Los Angeles International Airport approach space and wasn't warned away by an overworked air traffic controller. The crash was the first to be followed by mass counseling for survivors.

1988: A Delta Airlines Boeing 727 crashed and burned as it took off from the Dallas, Texas, airport. 14 people died.

1996: A theology student at St. Tikhon's Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania was arrested when he tried to get baggage carrying explosives, ammunition, and weapons through a security checkpoint at the Tampa International Airport in Florida.

1996: A single-engine Cessna crashed after briefly touching down on an airport runway at Youngstown, Ohio. One person was killed and two others were critically injured.

1996: A small plane towing an advertising banner crashed into a hill near the Santee, California. No one was injured in the crash.

1998: A DHL Boeing 727 cargo plane skidded on the runway as it landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Two of the five crew members were slightly injured, but the plane remained intact and the cargo undamaged. The airport was closed for two hours, thus delaying flights for thousands of passengers.

1998: Two commercial airliners, a Delta L-1011 and an Alaska Airlines MD-80, were on a collision course at 25,000 feet over Anza Borrego Desert State Park in California when an air traffic controller noticed their course and got them both to turn sharply. At a combined speed of 1,000 mph, impact was only 8 seconds away.

September 1

1983: A Soviet jet shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 after it strayed into Soviet airspace. 269 people were killed. The Soviets claimed the KAL plane was a spy plane. It was the tenth deadliest crash in aviation history.

1997: As an Alaska Airlines jet landed at the Seattle, Washington airport and began rolling to the gate, its nose gear collapsed. 15 people were injured in the incident, as the 116 passengers and crew evacuated the plane on emergency slides.

1997: A Cessna 182, operated by Blue Skies Skydiving Adventures, crashed into a ravine shortly after taking off from the Bremerton, Washington airport. The pilot and four skydivers were killed in the crash.

September 2

1944: During World War II, future U.S. president George Bush had to bail out when his bomber was struck by weapons fire from the Japanese navy. He landed safely in the Pacific Ocean and was picked up by a U.S. submarine. His two crewmates, however, were killed in the incident.

1958: 17 U.S. Air Force crewmen were killed when a Soviet MiG shot down their C-130 Hercules airplane, which had been flying a reconnaissance mission near the Armenian border and had strayed into Russian territory. 40 years later, remaining fragments of the crewmen (bones, etc.) were returned to the U.S. for burial at Arlington National Cemetary.

1987: West German pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his private plane into Russia and landed in Red Square, went on trial for his escapade.

1996: The FAA grounded Rich International Airlines because the charter airline did not meet federal standards for training and maintenance of equipment.

1996: Two passengers were killed and two others seriously injured when a Piper Chrokee crashed in Grosse Ile, Michigan.

1997: The National Transportation Safety Board announced that 44,525 people were killed in transportation accidents in 1996. 41,907 died in automobile crashes, 769 in marine accidents, 20 in pipeline accidents, 750 in railroad accidents, and 1,089 airplane accidents. 380 people were killed in airline accidents while another 631 were killed in private planes.

1998: An Air Force F-16C jet fighter crashed during a training mission near Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. The pilot was able to eject safely. Note: An F-16C jet fighter costs more than $10 million.

1998: All 229 people aboard a Swissair MD-11 jetliner were killed when the plane crashed into the ocean off Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. The jet, en route from New York to Geneva, was attempting to make an emergency landing at the Halifax airport due to heavy smoke in the cabin.

September 3

1925: The dirigible Shenandoah crashed near Caldwell, Ohio. 14 people died in the crash.

1975: A chartered Boeing 707 crashed in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. 188 people died.

1994: While making her second parachute jump (her first free fall), Sharon McClelland's chute opened only part way. She plummeted over 10,000 feet but landed on her back in a marsh -- unhurt. When she got up, she apologized to her instructor for not following proper procedure and opening her backup chute.

1995: Naked skydivers landed in Fort Dodge, Iowa, during an annual skydiving exhibition.

1996: A Lebonese hijacker claiming to have a bomb forced a Bulgarian Hemus Air Tupolev 54 to fly to Bulgaria and then on to Norway where he sought political asylum.

1997: Two children were the only survivors of the crash of a Vietnam Airlines Tupolev TU-134 near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 64 people were killed in the crash. The pilot had tried to abort a landing at Pochentong Airport but was unable to regain altitude during a heavy rain storm. Instead, it crashed into palm trees and bamboo, skidded into a rice paddy, and exploded.

1998: Two helicopters from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, collided during rescue training in mountains near Area 51. 12 crewmen died in the incident.

September 4

1971: 111 people died when an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 jet crashed into Chilkoot Mountain near Juneau, Alaska.

1987: West German pilot Mathias Rust was sentenced to four years in a Soviet labor camp for his unprecedented flight over Russia and landing in Moscow's Red Square. He was released about a year later.

1997: An ex-Forest Service official and an airplane broker were put on trial for plotting to steal 28 government planes by switching titles to private contractors.

1997: A woman was found unconscious in the bathroom of a Continental Airlines MD80 flight from Las Vegas to Cleveland. When she was declared dead, the plane made an unscheduled landing at the Omaha, Nebraska airport. The plane was delayed two hours while waiting for the woman to be taken off and refueling.

1998: A United Airlines flight to London was delayed when a small bird flew into the cockpit of a Boeing 777-200 and hid inside an electrical panel. It took technicians 2 1/2 hours to find the bird behind the panel. The bird had entered the plane from the jetway at Dulles International Airport, then flew into the cockpit.

1998: Two Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters collided during night exercises in the Nevada desert north of Nellis Air Force Base. All 12 servicemen aboard the copters were killed in the crash. Up to this date in 1998, the U.S. Air Force had experienced 21 major aviation accidents (accidents causing death or $1 million in damages). This is, according to the military, one of the best records in recent military history. That's amazing!

September 5

1976: When the lights inside a Pan Am jumbo jet failed, four hijackers (who had seized the plane in Karachi, Pakistan) opened fire, killing 21 people and wounding dozens of other passengers.

1996: An engine of a Continental Airlines jetliner caught fire as the plane taxied on the runway before takeoff at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Three people were slightly injured as they were evacuated down chutes on the runway.

1996: A Federal Express DC-10 cargo plane made an emergency landing at the Newburgh, New York airport and erupted into flames moments after the three-person crew were evacuated. Flames spread throughout the cockpit and fuselage of the plane. The plane had been en route from Memphis to Boston.

1996: An Air France Boeing 747 en route from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Paris, France, made an emergency landing at the Marseille airport after hitting violent turbulence which injured 20 passengers. Two passengers with broken bones were taken to the hospital; others were treated at the airport and released.

1997: When a rat urinated on a high-power cable, it caused a short circuit that knocked out communications between the control tower and incoming aircraft at the Bogota, Colombia airport. Normal airport operations were resumed after about 40 minutes. The rat was fried.

1997: Because of bad weather, an Alliance Air Boeing 737 almost collided with an Indian Air Force jet about 80 miles from Delhi, India. The Air Force pilot was able to avert the collision by turning his plane to the left side wing of the Boeing 737, thus averting a major tragedy.

1997: When the plane's engine blew, Wesley Benaway, on a flight from Grand Haven, Michigan, to Clinton, Indiana, was forced to land his Commanche 250 airplane between two moving semi-trailer trucks on Interstate 65. He quickly moved over to the meridian, thus averting any accidents. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: Two men were killed when their Challenger II ultra light aircraft crased near Hernando, Florida.

1998: The brother of a man who died in the Swissair crash on the 3rd suffered a heart attack as he flew on another Swissair flight to attend the memorial service. While two doctors gave him emergency care aboard the plane, the man died shortly after arriving at a Toronto, Ontario hospital (the plane had made an emergency landing in Toronto to allow the man to be taken to the hospital).

September 6

1970: In Jordan, three jets were taken over by Palestinian guerillas and blown up but only after the passengers and crew were evacuated. One Pan Am Jumbo jet was blown up in Cairo the next day and two Boeing 707s were blown up on September 12 at Dawson's Field in Jordan. Palestinian guerrillas hijacked on other plane on the 6th. That plane landed in London where the hijacker was arrested.

1985: 31 people died when a Midwest Express DC-9 crashed just after take-off from Mitchell Field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1987: Due to pilot error in setting the wing flaps, a Northwest DC-9 crashed on taking off from the Detroit, Michigan airport. 156 people died in the crash.

1988: A crippled Soviet Soyuz TM-5 spacecraft landed safely with two cosmonauts aboard.

1996: A Marine Corps Boeing CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter accompanying President Clinton rolled over and burst into flames as it sat on the ground at the Orlando Executive Airport in Florida. None of the 6 crew members aboard the helicopter were hurt in the accident. The helicopter had been taxing to a fuel truck when its rotor blade clipped a light pole.

1996: Another Marine Corps helicopter accompanying President Clinton's entourage made an emergency landing south of Orlando when a warning light indicated hydraulic problems.

1997: A Continental Airlines DC-9 was forced to return to the Houston, Texas airport when its there was a problem with its left engine just after takeoff. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A vintage World War II P-61 Mustang crashed on the side of Highway 50 in Raisinville Township, Michigan. The two people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

1997: Five skydivers were killed and one seriously injured when their Cessna Skylane 182 tilted 90 degrees and crashed moments after taking off from the North Central State Airport in Rhodes Island.

September 7

1909: Eugene Lefebvre died when he crashed while test piloting a Wright A aircraft.

1940: The German Air Force began its blitz of London, England, the first of 57 straight nights.

1969: A man hijacked Eastern Airlines Flight 925 at gunpoint and diverted it to Cuba. The plane was one of 57 planes hijacked to Cuba that year.

1996: The landing gear of a Navy EA-6B Prowler collapsed as it was being towed for repairs at the Northrup Grumman Corporation in Saint Augustine, Florida. One mechanic was crushed to death by the left wing; another suffered a broken leg.

1996: A United Airlines 737 was forced to make an emergency landing at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania, when a problem developed with its left engine shortly after takeoff. An 8-foot flame shot out of the engine as the plane was taking off.

1997: An airport guard discovered two stowaways in the cargo hold of a Philippine Airlines 747 bound for the United States. The man and woman stowaways had been smuggled on the plane after bribing some airport workers. They were discovered when the guard noticed a piece of blanket protruding from the cargo hold.

1997: A Super Puma helicopter ferrying ten passengers and two crew between Broennoeysund, Norway and the Norne oilfield. All twelve people died.

1997: Auto racing champion Emerson Fittipaldi fractured his back but his son escaped uninjured when the ultralight carrying them crashed into a swamp near their citrus farm in Araraquara, Brazil.

1997: Three people died when their Piper Cherokee plane crashed near Montrose, Colorado. One person survived the crash.

1998: Four adults and a child died when their single-engine plane crashed into woods near Centerville, New York.

September 8

1989: The tail section of a chartered Convair 580 turboprop plane began vibrating and broke loose thus causing the plane to crash into the North Sea. All 55 people aboard the plane were lost at sea. The cause of the crash were bogus bolts, bushings, and brackets which had been bought on the recycled aircraft parts market.

1994: When a USAir Boeing 737 crashed into a ravine as it was landing at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania airport, 132 people were killed due to the rudder problem.

1997: An Israeli Air Force F-16B trainer crashed in Machtesh Ramon. The two pilots were able to eject safely, although one was injured on landing near some cliffs.

September 9

1889: Charles Leroux, one of the first parachutists to do jumps all over the world, had jumped 238 times before perishing in the Bay of Reval after jumping from a balloon over Tallinn, Estonia.

1969: An Alleghany DC-9 collided with a private plane as it was approaching the Shelbyville, Indiana airport. 83 people were killed in the collision.

1998: Five people died when their plane crashed in Lake Clark National Park in Alaska.

September 10

1976: When a British Airways Trident collided with a Yugoslav DC-9 near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 176 people died. It was the worst mid-air collision on record.

1995: You're not safe even sitting on your back porch. When a plane carrying 11 members of a skydiving school crashed into a house and exploded, everyone aboard the plane was killed. Vincent Harris, owner of the house, was also killed in the explosion near Shacklefords, Virginia.

1998: When a China Eastern MD-11 jet landed with a jammed forward undercarriage at Shanghai, China's airport, nine passengers were injured. Chinese film makers later used this incident as the basis of China's first disaster movie.

September 11

1974: An Easter DC9 crashed on approach to the Charlotte, North Carolina airport. 70 people died.

1982: When a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed during an air show in Mannheim, West Germany, 46 people were killed.

1991: 14 people died in the crash of a Continental Express commuter plane near Houston, Texas.

1996: An American Airlines Boeing 767 made an emergency landing at Glascow, Scotland, after a passenger noticed a note, which read "Remember Lockerbie." Passengers had to wait until the next day to continue their flight from London to Chicago.

1997: A Qantas jet was forced to make an emergency landing at the Sydney Airport in Australia after a bird flew into an engine and caused a fire. Sixty-nine bird strikes were reported at the airport during the first six months of 1996.

1997: The Dulles International Airport control tower shut down for 27 minutes because of a smell of jet fuel caused by being two close to several gates at the airport. It was the sixth time in a week that the tower had to be evacuated because of the smell.

2001: More than 5,000 people were killed when terrorists hijacked four jet planes and crashed them into the two World Trade Center towers in New York City as well as the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The fourth plane crashed in the wilds of Pennsylvania as passengers fought with the hijackers. It was the worst terrorist attack in world history.

September 12

1995: When the main computer at the Federal Aviation Administration's Midwest air traffic control center failed, flights across the country were temporarily halted. It was the sixth major computer breakdown in the past year to disrupt air traffic in the midwest.

1995: The Belarussian military shot down a hydrogen balloon during an international race. The two American pilots of the balloon were killed.

1997: Two men were killed when their single-engine plane designed for aerobatics spiraled to the ground near Adeline, Illinois.

1997: A Bell 205-A1 helicopter crashed while searching for an elderly hiker who had gotten lost in the Olympic National Forest of Washington. Two people were killed and five others injured when the copter crashed in the Buckhorn Wilderness Area of the forest.

1997: A twin-engine plane used by Purdue University students for training crashed and burned shortly after taking off from the university's airfield. Both the instructor and student were killed in the crash as the plane was reduced to a charred, crumpled ball of metal.

September 13

1982: 50 people died when a Spantax Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after taking off from Malaga, Spain.

1997: Three passengers and a flight attendant were injured when a United Airlines Boeing 747 hit severe turbulence after leaving Chicago, Illinois. The plane made an emergency landing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

1997: A twin-engine plane lost power and had to make an emergency landing on Interstate 84 near The Dalles, Oregon. None of the four people aboard the plane were injured.

1997: An Air Force C-141 transport collided with a German Tupelov TU-154 transport off the coast of Namibia on the African coast. All 33 aboard the two planes, 9 Americans and 24 Germans, were lost at sea.

1998: A chartered Boeing 757 carrying members of the White House press corps aborted takeoff when a cockpit signal indicated a rear door was open. The plane landed safely back at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and took off again shortly after landing.

September 14

1996: Jerry Wayne Ray Jr. of Cedar Grove, North Carolina drove to the Raleigh-Durham Airport with a high-powered rifle to plan the assassination of President Clinton. Routine security procedures, however, foiled his plan to kill Clinton when he was visiting the Raleigh area later that month.

1996: A Russian 18-year-old man died from cold and decompression sickness when he tried to fly from Moscow to Rome by hiding in the landing-gear bay of a Russian jetliner.

1997: A Northwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing at the Spokane, Washington airport after a suspicious smell arose in the cockpit.

1997: A Navy F/A-18 Hornet jet fighter crashed in Oman on the Arabian peninsula. The pilot died in the crash.

1997: An Air Force F-117 stealth bomber crashed at an air show near Baltimore, Maryland, when its left wing disintegrated while in flight. The pilot was able to eject safely, and the plane crashed amid a suburban area without casualties.

1998: A man hid inside the landing gear of an Iberia Airlines DC-9 jet en route from Honduras to Miami. He survived the two-hour flight and was discovered by mechanics after the plane landed in Miami.

1998: A Martinair Boeing 767 charter jet was forced to make an emergency landing at Calgary International Airport in Alberta when one of its engines exploded right after takeoff. No one was injured in the incident.

1998: Using a toy gun, a Turkish man hijacked a Turkish Airlines Airbus A-310 jet, diverting it from Istanbul to the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon. None of the 84 people were injured in the incident. The man gave himself up shortly after the plane landed at Trabzon.

1998: A boy and his grandfather survived the crash of a home-built SeaRey seaplane while flying over Chippewa Lake, near Wadsworth, Ohio. They had been celebrating the boy's seventh birthday, one he's not likely to forget.

September 15

1997: Two U.S. Marine crew members were killed during night bombing exercises when their F/A-18D Hornet jet fighter crashed into a North Carolina swamp near Cape Hatteras.

1998: Two men died when their rented plane crashed southwest of Mount Baker, Washington. The men, who had rented the plane in Langley, British Columbia, has intended to fly over the Fraser Valley in Canada on a scenic flight. Somehow they lost their direction and crashed.

September 16

1961: 37 people died when a bad pump caused a Northwest Electra to crash over Kansas.

1997: Two Air National Guard F-16s collided off New Jersey, but both pilots were able to eject safely. No one was killed.

1998: Three state employees were killed when their twin-engine Beechcraft Baron crashed in west central Wisconsin. The pilot reported smoke in the cabin minutes before the plane crashed.

September 17

1965: A PanAm Boeing 707 crashed on approaching the Antigua airport. 30 people died in the crash.

1997: A Bell helicopter used by the Texas sheriff's department cashed at a small airfield north of Fort Worth during an anti-narcotics training mission. Both men aboard the helicopter were killed.

1997: Twelve passengers were killed when a U.N. helicopter crashed into a hill in central Bosnia during heavy fog. The four crew members all survived the crash, but the passengers were killed as a series of explosions hit the helicopter.

1998: 750 homes had to be evacuated for three hours after a 500-pound bomb was dropped while being loaded into a B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, Louisiana. The bomb did not go off, but homes were evacuated until the bomb could be moved to a remote location on the base and detonated there.

1998: A Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast. All four crew members were lost at sea.

1998: Am American Airlines Boeing 767 had to make an unscheduled landing at the Denver, Colorado airport to remove a drunken man who had been bothering members of the Hootie and the Blowfish rock 'n' roll band.

1998: Cockroaches galore! A Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 plane at the Atlanta, Georgia airport was delayed when passengers and crew members discovered cockroaches near the plane's food service area. Scheduled to leave at 9:15 a.m., the flight didn't leave until 1:00 p.m. when passengers boarded another plane to make their flight to San Francisco.

September 18

1961: Dag Hammarskjold, U.N. Secretary General, was killed in a plane crash over northern Rhodesia.

1998: The pilot was killed when his single-engine Beech B-33 airplane crashed near Andersosn Reservoir outside San Jose, California.

1998: A WinAir Boeing 727 charter carrying Brigham Young's football team to Idaho was forced to make a quick evasive dive to dodge a military A-10 Warthog jet (probably flying out of Boise's Gowen Field.

1998: Volcanic ash from Mt. Pacaya showered on Guatemala's capital and international airport, thus closing the airport to larger planes for a day and a half.

September 19

1976: When a Turkish Boeing 727 hit a mountain in southern Turkey, 155 died.

1989: 171 people were killed when a French DC-10 exploded in the air over Niger.

1997: Two Boeing 747s, one from Tower Air and the other from British Airways, came within 1.3 miles of each other while on approach to Kennedy Airport in New York City. Two air traffic controllers took a leave of absence after the trauma of seeing two jumbo jets almost collide.

1997: An Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber crashed and burned on the Montana prairie near Alzada. All four crew members were killed in the crash, the sixth crash of U.S. military planes in one week. The plane left a half-mile long trench as it disintegrated in the crash. During the 1997 fiscal year, the military lost 54 aircraft. In 1996, they lost 67; 69 in 1995, and 86 in 1994.

1998: Two people were killed when their Bell helicopter hit power lines and crashed a mile west of Kajabi in northwestern Queensland in Australia.

1998: The pilot of a banner-towing Piper 22 single-engine plane narrowly missed several homes before he crashed into a field near Interstate 25 outside Denver, Colorado. Residences of the homes rushed out to the field, pulled the pilot form the burning plane, and took off some of their clothes to bandage the pilot's wounds.

September 20

1973: Rock singer Jim Croce died in an airplane crash near Natchitoches, Louisiana. Croce, 30, was famous for his rock hit, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."

1996: Hours before Columbian President Ernesto Samper was to fly to New York City to make an anti-drug speech, drug-sniffing dogs found fourteen packets of heroin hidden in the paneling of his Boeing 707. The hidden drugs were a set-up to make the President look bad.

1997: The pilot of a vintage single-engine Pitts Special died when his plane broke into two as it crashed after he had completed a series of spins and rolls at a Confederate Air Force show at San Marcos Airport in Texas.

September 21

1995: 5 people were killed when a small plane plunged into Salvesen Lake while trying to land at a remote fishing camp in northwestern Ontario.

1995: The pilot and radar officer ejected as their fighter jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines. Their F-14A Tomcat fighter was the fourth aircraft in a year to crash while operating from the decks of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

1997: Seven soldiers had to be treated at the hospital after a hydraulic line broke and spilled fuel on them during the flight of an Air National Guard C-130 transport plane. Aviation-grade hydraulic fuel can cause pneumonia if inhaled or burn if it remains too long in contact with skin. The plane was able to land safely at the Asheville Regional Airport in North Carolina.

1997: Returning from the World Air Games, a Slovakian man committed suicide by hanging himself in the toilet of a Turkish Airlines plane. Two competitors died when their aircraft crashed during the World Air Games held earlier in the week.

1997: A single-engine Beechcraft Sundowner stalled shortly after taking off from the Torrance, California airport and crashed into the top two floors of a medical office building. Four people died in the crash, but no one was hurt on the ground.

September 22

1995: An AWACS radar plane crashed just after takeoff at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, because a flock of geese got sucked up into its engines. All 24 crew members died in the crash.

1996: Four people escaped serious injury when their small plane crashed at Minot International Airport in North Dakota. The plane fell short of the runway and crashed into a field.

1997: A mouse on a British Airways jetliner forced a 24-hour delay while the airplane was fumigated. The plane and passengers took off the next day from Johannesburg International Airport in South Africa.

1997: A man was critically injured and his wife killed when their Cessna 182 Skyline crashed nose-down in the Lexington, Tennessee cemetary. The plane may have run out of gas just short of the Franklin-Wilkins Airport.

September 23

1995: A cold jelly-like substance, enough to fill a kettle, fell from the sky into a garden in Horley, England.

1997: A homeless teenager fell out of the landing gear of a cargo plane as it took off from Caracas, Venezuela. He had taken refuge overnight in the plane's landing gear.

1997: A single-engine Cessna 172 crashed near the Seven Springs resort in western Pennsylvania. The pilot was killed in the crash.

1998: When a Royal Navy two-man Lynx helicopter wen down during a training exercise with the Singaporean navy, one pilot was rescued but the other died at sea during the night excercise.

September 24

1996: Supermodel Linda Evangelista threw a temper tantrum at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan when she was denied a visa to visit the country (because her passport was within six months of expiring). She shouted and stalked up and down the arrival hall of the airport. No one is safe on the ground when she's around.

1997: Because of hydraulinc problems, a Frontier Airlines Boeing 737 returned to the Salt Lake City Airport in Utah shortly after taking off. While landing, the plane ran off the runway. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

1997: A Kuwaiti Airways Airbuss 300 carrying 94 passengers had to make an emergency landing at the Kuwait Airport after part of a front tire was ripped off. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A small plane crashed into Glastenbury Mountain in Vermont around 1:00 a.m. Both people on board the plane were killed in the crash.

September 25

1978: When a Cessna private plane and a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 collided over San Diego, California, 144 people died, including 135 on the jet, 2 on the private plane, and 7 on the ground.

1995: A small jet carrying Newt Gingrich, his wife, and several others overran a northern Michigan runway after a goose was pulled into the right engine and three other geese were struck by other parts of the plane. No people were injured.

1996: A vintage DC-3 Dakota twin-engine airplane crashed off the coast of The Netherlands during a pleasure flight. 32 people died in the crash. One person survived the crash but later died in the hospital.

1997: Two men were killed when their restored 1956 Beechcraft T-34 military trainer aircraft nose-dived into a field shortly after taking off from the Fremont, Michigan airport.

1998: A Southwest Boeing 737 had to make an emergency landing at the Salt Lake, Utah airport after it was struck by lightning. No one was hurt in the incident.

September 26

1994: When a Russian Yak-40 jetliner crashed while trying to make an emergency landing during bad weather at the airport at Vanavara, Siberia, 26 people died.

1996: Three months after it was grounded amid questions of its maintenance after a major crash in the Florida Everglades, ValuJet was granted permission by the FAA to resume operations.

1997: A bicyclist was run over by a twin engine plane as he tried to cross an airport runway at Sorocaba Airport in Brazil. The bicyclist, who was listening to his walkman, did not hear the approaching plane. And the pilot of the plane, who was taxiing down the runway after landing did not see the bicyclist, who was killed in the incident.

1997: Flying through smoke and haze caused by hundreds of forest fires throughout Indonesia, an Garuda Airlines Airbus A-300 jetliner hit a tree, exploded, and crashed, killing all 234 people aboard the plane. The plane had been descending to land at the Medan, Indonesia airport 20 miles away.

1998: Two crew members were killed and two injured when their Navy H-60 helicopter crashed on Mount Grant near Hawthorne, Nevada. The helicopter had been involved in the search for a missing private plane.

September 27

1996: A drunken, knife-waving passenger forced a USAir flight to Las Vegas to make an unscheduled stop at Nashville, Tennessee. When he got off the plane, he was arrested by airport police.

September 28

1995: Five crew members died when a vintage B-26 bomber crashed in a rural oil field near Odessa, Texas. Known as a widow maker by flyers who flew the B-26 during World War II, the plane was owned by the Confederate Air Force which used it in air shows.

1997: Marathon runner Lynn Bjorklund ran six miles for help after coming across an airplane crash while on a camping trip in the Pecos Wilderness, 30 miles northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lynn ran six miles to a telephone and then directed rescuers to the two people who were injured when their twin-engine Beech Baron airplane crashed in a meadow and caught fire.

September 29

1997: When one of its cargo doors flew open just after takeoff, a Delta Air Lines Boeing 727 quickly returned to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. No one was hurt in the incident, as the plane landed safely.

1998: U.S. authorities impounded a Philippine Airlines jet after U.S. Eximbank, one of PAL's creditors, obtained a restraining order to prevent the plane from leaving U.S. jurisdiction. The plane was scheduled to make its final flight for the bankrupt airline the following day.

1998: A Sri Lankan Lionair Antonov-24 airplane disappeared in the Indian Ocean moments after taking off from Patali Airport in Jaffna. 55 people were lost in this crash.

September 30

1949: The Berlin Airlift came to an end. It had helped to carry much needed supplies to the people of West Berlin in spite of a Soviet blockade of the city.

1993: A Sichuan Airlines Tupolev 154 was hijacked to Taiwan by taxi driver Yang Mingde and his wife Han Fengying, who brought along a son. Yang was sentenced to nine years in prison, while his wife got six years for hijacking.

1997: Employees of the Koramo A.S. refinery east of Prague, Czech Republic, were evacuated by police after construction workers discovered a 500-pound unexploded bomb which had been dropped by airplane during World War II. The workers discovered the bomb while digging a seven foot hole near the plant. Police de-activated the detonator and then did a controlled explosion of the bomb. The refinery returned to full operation later that afternoon.

1997: Two Taiwanese Air Force jets, an F-5E and an F-5F, crashed into a mountain near Hualien, Taiwan. They crashed while doing low-altitude training in thick fog and drizzling rain.

October

2000: A Singapore Airlines jet crashed at Taipei Airport in Taiwan. 83 of the 179 people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

October 1

1966: A West Coast DC-9 crashed on approaching an airport in Oregon. 18 people were killed.

1995: Robert Overacker of Camarillo, California, died when he went over Niagara Falls on a Jet Ski and his rocket/parachute combo failed to operate.

1996: Because of the ValuJet crash earlier in the summer as well as the government's decision to ground four of its planes, Kiwi International Air Lines cut its service and filed for bankruptcy protection.

1997: Executive Freight Consolidators paid a courier to carry a package of illegal Dowicide pesticides onto a plane headed for Ecuador from the Miami International Airport. When the package of Dowicide leaked, the passengers had to be evacuated from the plane.

1997: Four people were injured when a U.S. Postal Service Boeing 727 cargo plane collided with a shuttle bus on a taxiway at the Denver International Airport in Colorado. Among the injured were the driver of the shuttle bus, which shuttles airport employees to work, and the copilot of the cargo plane. Both the bus and the nose of the cargo plane suffered severe damage.

2003: An AirTran Airways plane was evacuated at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts after an engine caught fire as the plane was taxing on the runway. The 31 people aboard the plane got free by using the emergency chutes. Apparently the residual fuel ignited when the engine started.

October 2

1910: The first two-plane air crash occurred near Milan, Italy.

1970: One of two Martin 404 chartered airplanes carrying the Wichita State University football team crashed into a mountain in Clear Creek Canyon in Colorado. 31 of the 40 people aboard the plane died in the crash. The cause of the crash was pilot incompetence. Trying to take a scenic route over the Rocky Mountains west of Denver, the pilot flew the plane into a canyon close to the ground. Too late, the pilot discovered he was in a box canyon with not enough room to gain altitude. He tried to turn around but crashed into the canyon walls. The pilot was one of the survivors. Most of those who died perished when the full load of fuel exploded and burned. The few survivors had gotten out of the crashed plane before the explosion.

1972: 105 people died when an Aeroflot II-18 crashed near the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia.

1996: An Aeroperu Boeing 757 slammed into the Pacific Ocean shortly after taking off from the Lima, Peru airport. 70 people were killed in the crash which occurred when the navigation system failed and the pilot became lost in the early morning mist. The crash was probably caused by neglectful workmen who had failed to remove some duct tape from the outside of the plane while cleaning it. The duct tape covered the sensors that register air pressure, altitude, and air speed.

1997: Eighteen Azerbaijani oil workers died when the helicopter ferrying to an offshore oil platform crashed into the Caspian Sea.

1997: A Navy F-14 Tomcat jet fighter crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina during a routine training mission. The pilot was lost at sea, but the radar intercept officer was rescued.

1998: Six crew members were killed when their Canadian Air Force Labrador helicopter crashed near Marsoui, Quebec.

1998: The Federal Aviation Administration directed owners of about 20,000 small airplanes to remove or deactivate door seals that could cause fire or smoke in the cockpit. The inflatable door seals had been added to reduce cabin noise.

1998: A former employee armed with a pump-action shotgun and a grenade hijacked a Fokker airplane owned by Dessault Aviation, a French aircraft manufacturer, and diverted the plane to Marseille. He later surrendered without harming any passengers.

October 3

1996: Technical Sergeant Thomas Mueller committed suicide in Germany after being unfairly charged by the U.S. Air Force for negligence in repairing an F-15 jet that crashed on May 30, 1995. The crash was actually caused by crossed wiring that made the plane push down into the runway rather than lift off. The Air Force had known since 1986 that the two wires could be crossed but had not taken measures to educate its mechanics or change the wiring so it was mistake-proof. After the 1995 crash, they decided to go after the mechanics rather than admit their mistake.

1997: A Glendale Police Motar 318 helicopter made an emergency landing after losing power over the Burbank, California high school. They landed safely in a vacant lot. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A man died when his Piper airplane crashed and overturned on Skilak Lake in Alaska's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

October 4

1960: The deadliest aircraft accident blamed on birds occurred when an Eastern Airlines jetliner struck a flock of starlings and crashed into Boston Harbor. 62 people were killed. An average of 5,400 birds strike airplanes every year, but only 11% of such cases resulted in engine failure, forced landings, or other problems.

1992: An El Al Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed into an apartment building near Amsterdam, Netherlands after one of its engines fell off. 52 people were killed.

1997: All departing flights at Chicago's two major airports, O'Hare and Midway, were suspend for almost an hour while a air traffic control tower was evacuated for a possible gas leak.

1997: While police were trying to coax a shotgun-wielding woman (with a deep fear of aircraft) out of her home, two military jets and a helicopter flew overhead. That didn't help their cause. The woman, who refused court-ordered psychiatric tests, had held the police at bay for 13 days prior to the flyover. She believed that planes and helicopters were spying on her. She could have been right. Watch the skies!

1997: Six men going to the Promise Keepers rally in Washington, D.C., were injured when their rented Piper Lance crashed in a ravine and caught fire near a commuter rail station in a Maryland suburb.

1998: A United Express jetliner had to return to Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after smoke and fumes entered the rear of the cabin. The fumes were caused by the malfunction of a hydraulic line in a set of stairs in the rear of the plane. No one was hurt in the incident although several people were treated for headaches.

2002: A Russian Sibir Airlines Tupolev 154 en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk in Siberia exploded in mid-air and crashed into the Black Sea. All 78 people on board were killed.

October 5

1930: A British dirigible R 101 crashed near Beauvais, France. 47 were killed.

1960: 61 people died when an Eastern Air Lines Electra turbo-prop crashed in Boston Harbor.

1967: Astronaut Clifton Williams was killed in the crash of his T-38 jet near Tallahassee, Florida.

1986: Sandinista soldiers captured American pilot Eugene Hasenfus after his plane was shot down over Nicaragua. His plane had been carrying weapons to Sandinista opponents.

1995: Pilots of two F-5E jets based at the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Arizona, survived a harrowing mid-air collision over western Arizona. One jet crashed; the other, its canopy missing, was flown back to Yuma.

1996: Parachuting into a high school football game to deliver the game ball, a man was thrown off course by a gust of wind that caused him to spin wildly. In landing, he hit two people of his crew. A woman on the ground died; her husband suffered a fractured elbow, and the parachutist broke his pelvis.

1996: Having trouble gaining altitute, a single-engine Cessna 172 tried to land on the entrance road to the Grand Canyon. It crashed, killing the four people aboard.

1996: A Delta Air Lines Boeing 727 was forced to make an emergency landing at Washington National Airport after striking a flock of birds. No passengers, including Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, were injured.

1997: A US Airways Boeing 737 returned to Miami after smoke appeared in the cockpit. The the smoke had already disappeared by the time the plane landed.

1998: A Grumman S-2 air tanker battling an 18,000 acre blaze in inland Southern California crashed, killing the pilot.

1998: One person was killed and two others in critical condition, when a hot air balloon crashed into a power line in an isolated desert area of the Kirtland Air Force Base. The balloon had been participating in the world's largest balloon festival, the Kodak International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 13 people had been aboard the balloon at the time of the crash.

October 6

1996: A Royal Jordanian Lockheed L-1011 Tristar jetliner carrying Jordan's prime minister made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport in Dublin, Ireland, when it developed mechanical problems.

1997: A recent report in Frommer's daily travel newsletter: "I took my first flight on U.S. Air in April and refused the return flight. The plane was on the verge of falling apart, the flight was frightening, and the toilets stank all the way up the exit row where I was sitting."

1998: A Hungarian airport worker was locked inside the cargo hold of a Swissair jet and ended up making an unexpected visit to Zurich as a result. The temperature never fell below 41 degrees Fahrenheit so the worker got cold but was never in any danger.

October 7

1903: Samuel Pierpont Langley's Great Aerodome, in a position to be the first powered manned aircraft, failed its test flight. It flopped into the water immediately upon attempting to take off.

1996: A Palestinian man was sentenced to life in prison for a bloody hijacking that left 60 people dead at the Maltese airport in 1985. Before the sentencing, Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq asked the victims and their relatives for forgiveness, saying that he was a different man now. He was the sole surviving hijacker; the other two had been killed when the plane was stormed by Egyptian commandoes.

1996: The pilot of a Marine Harrier jet was killed when his plane went down in the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range during a training mission.

1997: A charter Boeing 757 jet carrying the Cleveland Indians to Baltimore for the American League playoffs started to take off from the wrong runway at the Cleveland, Ohio airport. Air traffic controllers stopped them in time and got the plane to take off from the correct runway. The Cleveland airport is known for having a runway intersection that has caused similar problems in the past.

1997: Two small airplanes, a Beech Bonanza and a single-engine Piper, collided. Two, possibly three people were killed in the collision.

1998: An Indian Air Force MIG-21 jet fighter crashed near Sonamarg, India, during a routine test flight. The pilot was killed.

October 8

1996: A Turkish F-16 jet fighter crashed into the Aegean Sea after it was intercepted by Greek warplanes south of the island of Chios. One of the two Turkish pilots was rescued.

1996: An Argentinian army transport helicopter crashed into an empty polo field in Buenos Aires. Ten people were killed and five other injured in the crash.

1996: Four people were killed (including a farm couple on the ground) when a Russian Antonov 124 cargo plane plowed into a farm house near Turin, Italy, as it tried to recover from an aborted landing. 13 others were injured while 8 passengers escaped unhurt.

1997: An Israeli traveler left his suitcase containing $46,000 in cash on a trolley as he went into an airport shop at the Zurich, Switzerland airport. When he came out of the shop, his bag had been stolen. A costly visit to an airport shop.

1997: A Scenic Air single-engine Cessna 202B crashed into the mountins of Colorado as it carried eight Department of Interior employees from Montrose, Colorado, to Page, Arizona. All nine people aboard (including the pilot) were killed in the crash. The crash may have been caused by the failure to use oxygen at high altitudes.

1998: The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it was ordering inspections of 1,130 Boeing 737 airplanes for fatigue cracks that could cause rapid loss of pressure at higher altitudes. The action was prompted by reports of cracks in fuselage pressure bulkheads located in front of the cockpits of 737s.

1998: A local judge belly-landed his wife's Beechcraft Bonanza airplane at San Antonio International Airport in Texas. He escaped the plane with only minor injuries (until he got home).

2001: A Scandinavian Airlines airliner collided with a small plane on the runway of Linate Airport in Milan, Italy. 118 people were killed in the crash which occurred during heavy fog.

October 9

1996: An American Airlines flight from Miami, Florida, to Detroit, Michigan, was diverted to Jacksonville, Florida, after receiving a bomb threat. All passengers deplaned safely, and no bomb was found.

1996: President Clinton signed the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996. This $19 billion act called for the upgrading of bomb-detecting luggage scanners at airports, hiked the number of FBI agents assigned to counterterrorism units, increased the inspection of mail packages, and bared unlicensed pilots from attempting aeronautical feats (such as the one that caused the death of Jessica Dubroff on April 11, 1996.

1997: A chartered Beechcraft BE200 tourist plane from the Canary Islands crashed as it approached the Banjul airport in the West African state of Gambia. Eight of the nine people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

October 10

1997: An Austral Airlines DC-9 crashed near Nuevo Berlin in Uruguay. All 75 people aboard the plane died in the crash. Minutes before the crash, the crew had reported that they were altering their flight path to avoide a heavy storm around Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital.

1998: Rebels used a SA-7 Russian-made anti-aircraft missile to shot down a Congo Airline Boeing 727 carrying 40 civilians in eastern Congo. All were killed.

1998: Two people died when their single-engine Piper Cherokee crashed on the Uncompahgre Plateau south of Montrose, Colorado.

1998: One person was injured when their small plane crashed at the Montclair Airport in New Jersey. The pilot reported that the plane's brakes failed as she attempted to land.

1998: Two people were killed when their sightseeing plane crashed nose-first into the ground near Apopka, Florida.

October 11

1997: A six-seater Cherokee Piper crashed into the Tennessee River shortly after taking off from Knoxville's Downtown Island Home Airport. At least three people died in the crash.

1997: When a seaplane tried to land under heavy fog on the Missouri River near Buford, North Dakota, it touched down on the water but then hit a rock, tumbled over, and sunk. Dustin Dishon, an 8-year-old boy, saw the struggling pilot, followed him down river, and finally brought him into shore by holding out a branch which the pilot grabbed.

1997: A single-engine Piper Arrow lost altitude and crashed shortly after taking off from the Monmouth County airport in New Jersey. All four people aboard the plane died in the crash.

1998: A Northwest Airlines DC-9 flight had to make an emergency landing at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport after passengers and crew members became nauseated, dizzy, and disoriented. The fumes were caused by soap that had somehow gotten into a water pack in the plane's air conditioning system.

1998: One man died when his ultralight aircraft crashed in a field south of Bird's Nest Airport near Manor, Texas.

October 12

1995: A Navy mechanic was killed when an ejector seat on an F-14 Tomcat jet detonated during routine maintenance at the Oceana Naval Air Station near Virginia Beach, Virginia.

1996: A single-engine Piper Archer airplane snapped three high-voltage lines and then nose-dived into the concrete center divide wall on Interstate 805 near San Diego, California. The two people aboard were critically injured. Also, some people in San Diego experienced brief power outages as a result of the power lines that were snapped.

1997: Colombian President Ernesto Samper and American Ambassador Myles Frechette were stranded in rural Colombia after the aging presidential Fokker jet failed to start. When mechanics couldn't get the plane started, the two men hitched a ride back to Bogota on a police helicopter.

1997: When a new long-distance radar system failed to show a small plane, a Swissair Boeing 747 and a Piper Aerostar came within 500 feet of colliding over the skies of Lakehurst, New Jersey. The pilot of the Swissair 747 stopped his climb when his plane's cockpit alarm sounded. If he hadn't taken quick action, the two planes would have collided. Controllers in New York had not seen the small plane because it apparently was in a cone of silence above the new radar system.

1997: Singer John Denver died when his experimental single-engine Long-EZ plane crashed about 100 yards of Lover's Point near Monterey, California. At first, rescuers could not identify the body because the face was damaged beyond recognition, but authorities were later able to identify Denver by his fingerprints. Denver had just bought the plane the day before the accident and was taking the plane out for the first try-out. From one reported account, Denver tried to do a roll with the plane, something the Long-EZ is not built to do. He was flying without a valid pilot's license at the time of the accident. Previously, in April 1989, Denver escaped uninjured when his 1931 biplane spun around as he was taxiing at an airport in northern Arizona. Denver was famous for writing and performing "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Rocky Mountain High," and other songs.

1998: A Comair jet made an emergency landing at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania after smoke filled the cockpit. No one was injured as the pilots made a safe landing.

October 13

1926: Jessey Leroy Brown, the first black American naval aviator, was born on this date in Hattisburg, Mississippi.

1972: 176 people died when an East German Aeroflot Ilyushin-62 crashed near Moscow, Russia.

1976: When a Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, the three crew members were killed as well as 97 children on the ground.

1977: A Lufthansa airline was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists while en route from Majorca to Frankfurt. After stops in Rome, Cyprus, and several Mideaster cities, the plane ended in

Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. After the captain was shot and killed, German police stormed the airplane. Three hijackers were killed, but all the passengers survived.

1996: A USAir flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles, California, was diverted to Dayton, Ohio after a passenger said he had a bomb aboard the plane. No bomb was found on the plane and no one was injured in the incident, but the man who made the bomb threat faced up to 20 years in prison for making the threat.

1996: A small plane carrying Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers, skidded off the runway and down a 50-foot embankment before crashing at the Harlan-Guthrie Airport in

Kentucky. All three people aboard the plane walked away from the crash, though Roberts complained of back and shoulder injuries.

1998: One person was killed and another severely injured when their traffic-reporting plane crashed into a Bowie, Maryland home shortly after taking off from nearby Freeway Airport in heavy fog. Residents of the house escaped unhurt, although the house burned down completely.

October 14

1998: An unmanned Boeing 727 jet, its engines off, slipped out of its wheel blocks and began rolling down the tarmac, hitting three light planes. While the three planes were heavily damaged, no one was hurt in the incident.

October 15

1939: LaGuardia Airport (originally named New York Municipal Airport) was dedicated. This may be good news; it may be bad.

1997: Airline traffic at New York City airports became snarled when two-thirds of the controllers at the air traffic control room in a regional facility in Garden City were forced to leave the room after becoming sick. The experiences of burning eyes, scratchy throats, rashes, and so on were caused by a project to replace the ceiling tiles in the room.

1997: A C-130 transport plane owned by the United Arab Emirates was forced to make an emergency landing when one of its four propellers fell off and destroyed two engines. No one was hurt in the incident, even though the plane landed about 50 yards into the woods near the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear, New York. The plane had been on a training mission to Newfoundland when the accident occurred.

1997: An Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 737 came within 1600 feet of colliding with a U.S. Air Force Galaxy transport plane carrying equipment and personnel for President Clinton's visit to Argentina. Air traffic controllers at the Bariloche Airport mistakenly authorized the 737 to land just as the U.S. plane was taking off. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: When one of its engines caught fire shortly after takeoff, a Delta Air Lines jet with 134 people aboard had to return to Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts and make an emergency landing. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: Over a year after the incident occurred, British authorities finally announced that two airliners came within 200 feet of hitting each other near Heathrow Airport outside London, England. After missing its initial approach, a Boeing 737 operated by Sabena was coming into land under heavy cloud cover at the same time as a British Airways Boeing 757 had been cleared to take off. The departing 757 narrowly missed the landing 737.

October 16

1972: House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana, Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, and several others were killed when their plane disappeared over Alaska.

1995: When landing at the Baltimore airport, USAir Flight 1226 hit a deer. No passengers were hurt, but two runways were closed for more than an hour after the accident.

1997: The jury in a sexual harassment lawsuit awarded Capt. Tammy Blakely $875,000 in damages from Continental Airlines. Blakely had sued the airline after getting no satisfactory response from them when she repeatedly complained about pornography left by previous crews in the cockpits of the planes she piloted.

1997: A Navy AV-8 Harrier jet crashed near the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The pilot was able to eject safely before the plane crashed.

1998: The Mexico City Airport was shut down temporarily to all landing aircraft due to a dense fog that surrounded the area.

October 17

1956: Pan American flight 943 bound from Honolulu to San Francisco with 24 passengers and seven crew members aboard ditched into the Pacific Ocean after two of its four engines conked out. The Coast Guard weather ship, the Pontchartrain, was in the vicinity and rescued all the passengers and the crew before the plane sank into the sea. The plane had broken into two pieces, with the tail already sinking into the ocean.

1995: Flights at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport were delayed by up to 90 minutes due to power failure of an FAA computer, the sixth time in months that an FAA computer had a glitch.

1995: Six people were injured when a Hong Kong to San Francisco flight encountered severe air turbulence 33,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

1996: The Natural Resources Defense Council called for replacing the domestic airline ticket tax with an aviation fuel tax in order to curb air, water, and noise pollution at major airports.

October 18

1977: Commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa plane at the Mogadishu, Somalia airport and freed 87 hostages while killing three of the four terrorists who had commandeered the plane.

1995: A twin-engine plane carrying six people crashed into Jamaica Bay near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

1996: A Cessna 310 crashed in a wooded area near in Riviera Beach, Maryland, as it attempted to land at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The pilot walked away uninjured. The sole passenger suffered a broken leg.

1998: An Alpine Aircraft twin-engine Beechcraft plane carrying U.S. mail crashed when it missed the runway of the Missoula airport in Montana. The two occupants walked away unhurt and the mail went through even though the plane was heavily damaged.

October 19

1936: H.R. Ekins of the New York World-Telegram beat out two other New York journalists in a round-the-world race via commercial airlines. It took him 18 1/2 days to make the trip.

1977: The supersonic Concorde mades its first landing in New York City.

1982: Jock Ewing, the patriarch of the Ewing family on the television soap "Dallas," died in an aircrash during this evening's episode. He does not come back to life.

1996: A TWA DC-9 jet made an unscheduled landing at the Columbus, Ohio airport after the pilot reported a low oil reading. No one was injured or evacuated during the landing. A faulty oil line caused the low oil reading.

1996: A Piper two-seater plane crashed into the terrace of a building owned by the French aerospace agency in a suburb of Paris, France. Both passengers on board the plane were killed in the crash.

1996: A Delta MD-80 passenger jet skidded off the runway as it landed at LaGuardia Airport in New York City during a violent storm. The plane's wheels had been knocked off the plane when it came in too low and clipped the approach lights and scraped against a concrete wall at the start of the runway. NBC sportscaster Greg Gumbel was one of the passengers on the plane. No one was injured in the landing. Nine months later, it was reported that the pilot of the aircraft was wearing unapproved contact lens that distorted his depth perception. Because of those monovision contact lenses, the captain could not overcome the illusion that he was farther from and higher above the runway than he actually was. So he belly-flopped the plane.

1998: A German Air Force Tornado plane crashed during a test mission over the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. The two-person crew was missing. One base employee suffered a broken ankle and arm when the plane struck a control van on the ground while five other Navy employees were treated for minor injuries or smoke inhalation.

October 20

1922: Lieutenant Harold Harris became the first person to be saved by a parachute as he abandoned his crippled test plane over the skies of Dayton, Ohio. He landed safely, thus becoming the first member of the Caterpillar Club (people saved by parachutes).

1977: Two members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd rock band, lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Stevie Gaines, were killed when their plane crashed near McComb, Mississippi.

1987: An Air Force jet fighter crashed into the Ramada Airport Inn in Indianapolis, Indiana. 10 people were killed.

1995: Governor George Voinovich, a Republican, violated an FAA no-fly order when President Clinton, a Democrat, was visiting Columbus, Ohio. Voinovich was fined when he told his pilot to take off despite the FAA order to keep planes on the ground while the president was in town. As his plane was taking off, Voinovich radioed the control tower to tell the federal officials that they “could shoot us down” if they wanted to. They didn't.

1995: An investment banker on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to New York defecated on a food service cart and threatened flight attendants after they refused to serve more drinks to him.

1996: A USAir Boeing 737 jetliner made an emergency landing at the Tompkins County Airport in Ithaca, New York, after an air conditioning malfuction sent smoke into the passenger cabin. No one was injured in the incident.

1996: A twin-engine chartered Piper Navajo bound for Maine crashed in a field and exploded near Eel River Crossing, New Brunswick. All eight aboard died in the fiery crash, including four Massachusetts police officers returning from a hunting trip.

1997: Dozens of umpires, baseball officials, fans, and reporters were stranded in Fort Lauderdale when a cracked windshield caused the cancellation of a World Series flight bound for Cleveland. The windshield had crashed on the flight in from Cleveland. Several umpires ended up taking a charter flight with the Florida Marlins.

1998: An American Airlines MD-11 jetliner enroute from London to Chicago made an emergency at Boston's Logan International Airport after the pilot smelled smoke in the cabin. No one was hurt in the incident and the plane went on to finish the trip in Chicago.

1998: 12 hours earlier than the incident above, another plane had to make an emergency landing in St. Johns, Newfoundland after a similar smoke incident.

October 21

October 22

1996: Four passengers and the pilot were killed when their French Aerospatiale AS 355F1 Squirrel helicipter near Middlewich, Cheshire in England. A later report found that the pilot was not qualified to fly the helicopter on instruments.

1996: An Argentine Air Force Boeing 707 cargo plane crashed during an emergency landing at Ezeiza International Airport outside Buenos Aires, Argentina. Two crew members were killed; six others were seriously injured.

1996: A Miami-bound Million Air Boeing 707 cargo plane loaded with frozen fish failed to gain altitude as it took off from the Manta, Ecuador airport. As a result, it clipped a church tower and set an entire neighborhood on fire. 34 people were killed, including the plane's three crew members, a priest at the church, and others on the ground. 70 homes were damaged or destroyed, and almost 400 people were injured.

1996: A single-engine Cessna crash-landed on the rooftop of a Publix supermarket, causing minor damage to the roof. The pilot suffer a minor injury but no one else was hurt in the incident.

1997: As he was trying a stunt, Kenneth Hadden's plane hit the ground nose first and crashed. Hadden was killed in the crash, which occurred near Packer Aviation, a private air strip near Radnor, Ohio.

1997: The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Force T-38 Talon jet trainer were killed when their plane collided with an F-16 jet fighter during a training exercise over Edwards Air Force Base in the the Mohave Desert. The pilots of the F-16 jet were able to land safely even though the plane's wing was damaged.

1998: A student pilot ejected safely before his Air Force F-16 jet fighter crashed in the open desert north of Phoenix, Arizona. The plane, worth about $23 million, burst into flames upon impact and was totally demolished.

1998: A US Airways Express Beech 1900 twin-engine turboprop enroute from New York's La Guardia Airport to Portland, Maine, made an emergency landing at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire airport after the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit. The plane made a safe landing.

October 23

1998: A Cessna 182 flown by a Border Patrol pilot crashed in a remote canyon east of Bellingham, Washington. The Border Patrol agent aboard the plane was killed in the crash.

October 24

1996: A Northwest Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing at the Minneapolis airport when a panel ripped off one of its wings during a flight from Detroit, Michigan to Osaka, Japan.

1996: A Cuban police lieutenant colonel who hijacked a Cuban air taxi in July was indicted on an air piracy charge (which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison).

1997: Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport had its 18th runway error this year on the same day as federal investigators arrived to check into the airport's runway problems. On Friday morning, a Northwest Airlines jet crossed the hold-short line before getting clearance from the control tower.

1997: A Marine Corps Harrier jet crashed in the sea off southwestern Japan, but the pilot survived without serious injury.

1998: Two U.S. Army soldiers suffered minor eye burns when a laser beam hit their helicopter during a night flight over Bosnia.

October 25

1991: Rock promoter Bill Graham, famous for his rock 'n roll shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium and New York City's Fillmore East, died when his helicopter hit electrical lines and crashed in Vallejo, California.

1997: A small stunt plane with two people aboard crashed near Piru, California. Both people were killed in the crash. The pilot, Randy Gagne, was international known as a stunt pilot and aerobatic competitor.

1998: A United Express plane made an emergency landing at Logan International Airport after the pilot smelled smoke in the cockpit. It was the fourth time in two weeks that planes returned to Login after smelling smoke or having engine trouble.

1998: A Cessna 172 four-seater crashed in a vacant field after clipping power lines as it approached Linden Airport in New Jersey. One person was killed, another critically injured, and the other two had more minor injuries.

October 26

1996: Five people were killed and fifteen injured when a Yak-40 passenger plane crashed while trying to land in western Siberia.

1996: An engine on a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 shut down soon after taking off from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. After circling the airport for 40 minutes and dumping 25,000 gallons of jet fuel, the plane made an emergency landing at the airport. No one was injured in the incident.

1997: When the Denver International Airport got 22 inches of snow, United Airlines had to cancel 405 flights because Denver is one of its main hubs. The charter flight for the Denver Broncos football team was able to make it out Saturday evening, allowing the team to make it to Buffalo, New York by 1:00 a.m. While the team was a bit groggy from the flight, they still beat the Buffalo Bills during Sunday's game.

1997: The pilot of a single-engine plane was killed when, in rainy weather, his plane crashed into the treetops near Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

1997: A small private plane from Minden, Nevada, crashed in the Hope Valley area south of Lake Tahoe. Several days later, two searchers were killed when their Civil Air Patrol plane crashed nearby.

October 27

1997: A small twin-engine plane crashed as it tried to land at Tampa International Airport in Florida. Three of the four people aboard the plane were killed. The plane had been owned by Covington Foods, a grocery store chain, and the people were employees of the chain.

1998: An American Airlines MD-80 jetliner returned to Boston's Logan International Airport to make an emergency landing after an oil spill in an auxillary power unit caused smoke in the cockpit. The plane landed safely.

1998: In the latest issue of the Federal Aviation Administration's Federal Air Surgeon's Medical Bulletin, it was reported 3% of patients taking Viagra reported visual disturbances that affected their ability to distinguish between certain blue and green colors -- colors that are found in vital instrument displays of many airplanes. The FAA recommened that airline pilots avoid taking Viagra for at least six hours before stepping into the cockpit.

October 28

1996: An American Airlines MD-80 jet made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport in New York when it began having nosegear problems. Two people were injured in the landing. After landing, the plane was foamed down and the airport was shut down for several hours.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration announced three new air-safety initiatives. 1) They required airlines to share data recorder information in order to spot dangerous trends. 2) They stepped up engine inspections. 3) They cut down on the number of times that planes cross paths on and around airport runways.

1998: An Air Canada jet ran into a food truck as it backed up from a gate at the Toronto, Ontario airport.

1998: An Air China Boeing 737 with 95 passengers and nine crew was diverted to Taiwan on a flight from Beijing to Kunming in southwest China so the pilot could take himself and his wife to freedom.

1998: An Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle jet crashed in Oregon just across the border from McDermitt, Nevada. Both crew members on the plane were killed in the crash. The plane had been on a routine training mission.

1998: A small Piper PA 32 skidded beneath a highway overpass and struck a van during rush hour traffic. The driver of the van was killed; the pilot escaped with serious burns.

October 29

1994: When an Antonov An-12 cargo plane crashed while approaching the Ust-Ilimsk airport in Siberia, 21 people died.

1996: A small plane crashed into a house in eastern Ecuador, injuring three people in the plane and causing panic among the townspeople of Puyo, Ecuador. A week earlier, a Boeing 707 cargo plane crashed into a densely populated neighborhood in the port city of Manta, killing 30 people, injuring 80 others, and destroying housed in a four-block area.

1996: A former Marine helicopter pilot for Presidents Reagan and Bush was killed along with a student pilot when their Cessna 172 clipped the tops of several trees and crashed at the Culpeper County airport in Culpeper, Virginia. The student, who was also killed, was apparently trying to land the plane at the time of the crash.

1997: The Task Force on Assistance to Families of Aviation Disasters recommended that airline travelers be asked to give the name of next of kin when they buy a ticket. It makes you wonder.

October 30

1959: 26 people were killed in the crash of a Piedmont airline plane. Only one person, E. Phil Bradley, survived. This is the only case known to CAB officials where only one person survived a crash. Bradley wrote a book about his experiences. For details, see http://www.trellis.net/sole-survivor.

1992: An Air Force MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter plunged into Great Salt Lake in Utah, killing 12 people and injuring one.

1995: Southwest Airline pilot Shelby LaCroix was temporarily blinded by a laser light show from a nearby casino as his plane took off from the Las Vegas airport.

1996: A fire destroyed the main departure terminal at the New Delhi airport in India. It took more than 250 firefighters and 35 fire engines to bring the blaze under control. No one was injured in the fire.

1996: An Ethiopian air force plane crashed into a market east of Addis Ababa, killing eight people and setting 50 homes and stores on fire. 94 people were wounded in the crash. The pilot ejected and was unharmed.

1996: A Gulfstream IV corporate jet crashed just after taking off from the Palwaukee Municipal Airport. The two pilots, an attendant, and the chairman of the Illinois Board of Higher Education were killed in the crash.

1997: A military C-130 Hercules cargo plane had to circle 4,000 feet above Lake Michigan for three hours while its crew tried to manually lower its landing gear. When the plane took off from Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport on a training mission to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, the landing gear didn't lift properly nor would it return to a locked position for landing. That's when the plane began to circle over Lake Michigan. Once the crew were able to fix the landing gear, the plane was able to land safely.

1997: The wives of two Mondavi brothers (of the Mondavi wine family) had to help the pilot hand crank the landing gear of their twin-engine turboprop plane after the plane lost electricity and, thus, power to its radios and navigational gear. Once they were able to get the landing gear down, they were able to make a safe emergency landing at the Napa County Airport.

1997: A private plane owned by a construction company went into a tailspin and crashed in a cornfield near New Berlin, Illinois. All six men, who had been heading home for the weekend, were killed in the crash.

1997: Both pilots were killed when their Illinois State Police helicopter crashed at the Frankfurt airport (suburban Chicago) when its skid caught in mud alongside the runway.

1997: Six people were killed when their twin-engine Piper plane crashed in northern Saskatchewan during an icy and cloudy night. The plane wasn't properly equipped for flying in bad weather or poor lighting conditions.

October 31

1964: Astronaut Theodore Freeman was killed when his T-38 jet crashed near Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, Texas.

1994: 68 people were killed when an American Eagle ATR-72 airplane crashed during a driving icy rain into a farm field near Roselawn, Indiana while on its way from Chicago to Indianapolis. Doug Smith, the father of ones of the people who died in the crash, is now president of the National Air Disaster Alliance, a family support group.

1996: Col. Frank Kurtz, who flew the last B-17 stationed in the Pacific during World War II, died from complications after a fall. His most famous landing was a crash landing in the Australian outback when he was ferrying Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and several congressional committee members.

1996: Less than five minutes after taking off from Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, a Fokker-100 jetliner clipped an apartment building and skidded through the Vila Santa Catarina neighborhood, causing auto and home fires in its wake. All 96 people aboard the plane died in the crash. Several people also died on the ground.

1997: A woman and her child narrowly escaped death when a Piper Apache airplane crashed within feet of their house. The pilot, a flight instructor, and his student were killed in the crash.

1997: A small Hughes helicopter crashed on Cleveland Memorial Shoreway near the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame while on a birthday celebration flight. The pilot and two birthday celebrants survived the crash with minor injuries.

1998: Five U.S. businessmen and their American pilot died when their helicopter crashed on an excursion from the city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia.

1999: All 217 people aboard an EgyptAir Boeing 767 were killed when their plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean south of Nantucket. The plane had been on its way from New York City to Cairo, Egypt.

2000:  A Los Angeles-bound Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 mistakenly went down a runway at Taiwan's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport that had been closed for repairs because of a recent typhoon. The resulting collision with construction equipment killed 83 people on board. 96 people survived the crash.

November 1

1955: A United Air Lines DC-6B exploded and crashed near Longmont, California. 44 people died in the explosion caused by a bomb planted by John G. Graham to kill his mother, a passenger on the plane, so he could cash in on the insurance.

1996: The first of two fire-damaged airport terminals in Duesseldorf, Germany, reopened with transparent floors and ceilings -- to reassure travelers that a fire would never again break out and spread through the ceiling undetected (as it had done six months previously).

1996: When a Brazilian-made Bandeirante airplane crashed in northern Guatemala, all 14 people aboard the plane were killed.1996: A twin-engine Piper Seneca crashed into a ridge on the rugged east coast of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands. Five people died in the crash.

1997: New York Governor George Pataki's plane had to make an emergency landing at Rochester International Airport after the plane's cabin lost pressure and exhaust fumes began to leak into the passenger area.

1998: At least ten people were injured when their AirTran plane skidded off the runway as the plane was attempting to land at the Atlanta, Georgia airport. The pilot had turned back to Hartsfield Airport after detecting a hydraulic problem. Upon landing, they lost steering capability; hence the skidding.

1998: Twelve missionary doctors were killed when their DC3 airplane crashed during torrential rains in southwestern Guatemala. Six people survived the crash.

November 2

1997: Two people were killed when their twin-engine Piper Northstar broke up in mid-air and crashed near Winchester, Indiana. Plane debris was spread out over 3/4 of a mile.

November 3

1977: An El Al Boeing 747 crashed at the Belgrade, Yugoslavia airport when the plane suddenly decompressed. One person died in the crash.

1996: An American Airlines MD-80 jet had to abort takeoff after a blade failed in one of its engines as it was taking off from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. As the plane was returning to the gate, its brakes locked up briefly.

1997: The Australian Wallabies soccer team, while on tour in Argentina, took the day off to see te Iguazu Falls on the border between Argentina and Brazil. When one of the two planes chartered for the flight failed to show (and the other had already taken off with half the team), the players waited several hours before offering a $430 bribe to convince someone to get their chartered plane out of the hangar. Once boarded, the players became nervous when they noticed that several of the mechanics checking the plane were smoking cigarettes while checking fuel lines and propellers. Fortunately, nothing happened and the takeoff was smooth. But, then, as the plane was about half way, several of the players became ill. Then the pilot announced that they would have to make a detour to avoid a major storm. As the storm became worse, the pilot was forced the land the plane at a small airfield on the border between Argentina and Paraguay. Now stranded for several more hours while the storm raged on, the players were finally told they could continue to fly on to Iguazu Falls but, because there was doubt whether the airport or national park would be opened by the time they got there, the players chose instead to return to Buenos Aires via a commercial flight. All arrived safely back at their hotel -- nine hours after beginning the disappointing trip.

1997: Two men were killed when their Civil Air Patrol plane crashed in a remote wilderness area of Alpine County near Carson City, Nevada, while searching for a lost plane. One other peron was injured in the crash.

1998: A computer shutdown caused a minute-long black out at the Salt Lake Air Traffic Control Center as a backup system also froze up. The black out caused the center to lose track of about 200 planes flying over some of the Rocky Mountain states.

1998: A Northwest Airlink baggage handler at the Memphis, Tennessee airport was killed when she walked into turning propeller blades as she headed from the Saab 340's nose to its tail to unplug an electrical cord. Standard procedure calls for all workers to walk around a plane's wings at all times.

November 4

1994: A Federal Express MD11F cargo plane landed hard and bounced on the runway at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska. Its aft section was damaged as the tail of the plane hit during the bounce. The same plane was involved in several other emergency landings before it crashed for good on July 31, 1997.

1996: Boeing announced that it was considering asking airlines to install a device on 737s as additional protection against unintended rudder movements that could cause a plane to go out of control. The 737 rudder mechanism was the prime focus of investigation into the crashes of a United Airlines 737 near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a USAir 737 crash near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1996: When a cabin door was left ajar on a Swissair flight and the plane could not maintain cabin pressure, the pilot had to return to the Zurich Airport. On his first attempt to land, he saw another plane in the way and was forced to try again 40 minutes later. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: A Polish woman gave birth to a baby girl after going into labor shortly after an Alitalia plane took off from Bombay, India. An Italian midwife helped deliver the baby. Maia Kwiatkowski was born to the cheers of 151 other passengers. Both mother and baby were taken to the hospital when the plane landed in Kuwait. Both did well.

1997: An American Airlines Boeing 757 returned to John Wayne Airport when crew members heard a loud bang in the left engine as the plane was taking off. The plane was able to land safely and all passengers were evacuated without incident.

1998: One police officer died and another was badly injured when their helicopter crashed and caught fire in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. They had been helping ground units look for a stolen car.

1998: A single-engine Cessna 210 carrying three top rodeo competitors to the Grand National Rodeo, Horse & Stock Show crashed in a field near Lodi, California, as it was running out of fuel. The pilot and Scott Johnston, a nationally ranked saddle bronc rider, were severely burned. Also injured were three other competitors: Mark Garrett and Marvin Garrett, both leading bareback riders, and Thad Bothwell, a nationally ranked bullrider. The plane had been on a flight from Bozeman, Montana to San Carlos, California.

November 5

1993: A Xiamen Airlines Boeing 737 was forced to Taiwan by city government driver Zhang Hai, who got 10 years in prison for hijacking.

1997: One of the four sets of wheels failed to properly open as a Virgin Airbus was coming in for a landing at Heathrow Airport outside London, England. The pilot and co-pilots were able to free the landing gear and lock it down while circling above London. The plane skidded down the runway as it landed. Nine passengers and sixteen crew members suffered minor injuries as all passengers were evacuated using emergency chutes.

November 6

1996: A Northwest Airlines 747-400 jetliner was forced to make an emergency landing at Tokyo Airport after the pilot noticed smoke in the jet (probably due to an air conditioning problem).

1997: Bucharest, Romania held its first civil defense alarm test since World War II. 2,500 people were killed in the last real air attack on Bucharest, which was carried out in 1944 by the Allies when Romania was on the side of the Nazis.

1997: An Air Force F-16C jet fighter crashed near a school playground in Sidney, Texas, while the students and teachers watched. The pilot was able to eject safely and no one was hurt in the incident. The plane was part of a training flight from the Fort Worth naval base when the crash occurred.

1997: Three of the engines on a Queen's Flight British Aerospace 146 failed as the plane made an emergency landing at Stansted Airport in England. The plane, one of three used by the British Royal Family, was on a routine flight when the engine problems began. No members of the Royal Family were aboard the plane. No one aboard was hurt as the plane landed safely.

1998: A Cessna 182 owned by Kennewick Aircraft Services and hired by the Fish & Wildlife Service struck an electricity tower support wire and sank into the Colubia River near Vernita, Washington. Two wildlife employees were killed as the were trapped inside the rapidly sinking plane. The pilot, though critically injured, was able to swim to safety. The electric line severed causing power to flicker over much of south-central Washington.

November 7

1996: An aging Boeing 727 operated by Aviation Development Corp. crashed outside Lagos, Nigeria. All 141 people aboard were killed in the crash.

1996: The president of Ecuador was the target of a potential assassination attempt when one of three helicopters in his retinue caught fire and crashed moments after taking off from Pajan, Ecuador. Fortunately, only one of the three people aboard the helicopter was hurt in the crash (a broken leg).

1997: A United Airlines lavatory service truck damaged a propeller and the plane's engine when it collided with a Beechcraft King Air 90 twin-engine plane at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. The driver of the truck was cited for dangerous driving. No one was seriously hurt in the incident.

November 8

1950: The first jet dogfight took place during the Korean War as Air Force Lt. Russell Brown, flying an American F80, shot down a North Korean MiG-15.

1965: An American Airlines Boeing 727 crashed on approaching the Cincinnati, Ohio airport. 58 people were killed.

1993: A Zhejiang Airlines DASH-8 was hijacked to Taiwan by factory worker Wang Zhihua, who received a 10-year prison term for hijacking.

1995: An Air Force plane carrying sergeants and their families to a party crashed into a mountain during a rainstorm near Bueno Aires, Argentina. All 53 aboard are killed.

1997: The MidAmerica Airport opened in Mascoutah, Illinois although no major airlines had yet agreed to use the $300 million airport.

1997: A single-engine Cessna Grand Caravan owned by Hageland Aviation crashed into the Arctic Ocean minutes after taking off from Barrow, Alaska. All eight people aboard the plane, including seven family members bound for a funeral, were killed in the crash. The casket was also aboard the plane when it crashed.

1998: A woman driver in Florida made a wrong turn, drove through a closed airport gate marked "Do Not Enter" and ended up on the runway at Tampa International Airport. The closest she came to any aircraft was 1,000 feet. No one was injured in the incident.

1998: Four U.S. Navy airmen died when their EA-6B radar jet collided with an S-3 Viking jet as it was making a night landing on the deck of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier. The two crew men aboard the Viking jet ejected safely.

November 9

1996: Traces of nitrates on a passenger's shoes in a packed bag triggered an X-ray screening device at the TWA terminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The terminal was vacated for over an hour. The nitrates were residue from a common fertilizer.

1996: Five people were slightly injured when an American Airlines Fokker 100 hit turbulence shortly after taking off from the White Plains, New York airport. The plane continued on to Chicago where it landed safely and several people were treated for neck and shoulder pain.

1997: A jet plane flying Hillary Rodham Clinton to Central Asia was forced to dump fuel and return to Andrews Air Force Base after experiencing engine problems shortly after takeoff. A frayed wire was apparently the cause of the engine alert.

1998: A U.S. Air Force pilot was killed when his F-16 fighter jet crashed while practicing basic flight maneuvers at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The jet was discovered two days later covered in four feet of mud and water.

1998: USA TODAY reported that about half of the world's passenger jet planes had electrical wire insulation that could crack or chafe under certain condition that would then possibly lead to electrical fires or failures.

November 10

1996: An American Airlines MD Super 80 skidded off the runway while trying to land in snowy conditions at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No one was injured in the incident.

1997: While waving to some supporters at the airport, the director of the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation was seriously injured when he fell from an Indian Airlines plane at Borjhar Airport in India. He was taken to the hospital where he was treated for injuries in the arms, legs, and waist.

1997: Two pilots were killed when their Sri Lankan MI-24 helicopter gunship was struck by an insurgent LTTE missle near Trincomalee, Sri Lanka.

1997: The pilot of a single-engine Piper Arrow private plane had to make an emergency landing at the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport when he began having trouble with the landing gear. Using the plane's side-by-side landing equipment, the pilot was able to make a safe landing, though the plane did end up with its nose against the tarmac. Neither the pilot nor his passenger were injured in the landing.

November 11

1965: 43 people were killed when an United Airlines Boeing 727 crashed as it approached the Salt Lake City, Utah airport.

1996: A French appeals court upheld a ruling ordering British Airways to pay $5 million to 61 French passengers held as human shields by Iraq after a BA jet landed in Kuwait on the day that the Persian Gulf War began.

1996: A Delta Airlines MD-88 slipped off the north end of the runway while trying to land in icey conditions at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No one was injured in the incident. Airport personnel had to wait a day before they could find a tow big enough to free the plane from the mud at the end of the runway.

1997: A Sri Lankan helicopter gunship was downed today by the LTTE guerilla group off the island's northeastern seaboard killing at least one pilot.

1997: When a ground crew worker at Philadelphia International Airport confronted a newsstand clerk in an argument over a woman, they began to fight. When one of them grabbed the other by the collar and ran him into the plateglass window of a checkpoint area, both ended up going through the window and falling thirty feet to the tarmac. The man who did the hurtling was critically injured by the fall and the glass; the other man was in fair condition. The incident resulted in no air traffic delays at the airport.

November 12

1993: A China Northern Airlines MD-82 was hijacked to Taiwan by state employee Li Xiangyu and doctor Han Shuxue. Li was given a 13-year sentence, and Han 11 years, for hijacking.

1995: An inattentive crew caused an American Airlines MD-80 to strike trees on a ridge top, thus damaging the wings and engine as the plane attempted to land at the Bradley International Airport at Hartford, Connecticut. There was only one minor injury as the plane landed safely short of the runway and rolled to a stop near the Bradley terminal.

1996: A Saudi Arabian Airlines jet carrying 312 people collided with a Kazakstan Airlines Ilyushin-76 cargo plane just outside New Delhi, India. The Saudi plane had just taken off from the New Delhi airport when it collided with the cargo plane which was on landing approach to the airport. 349 people died in the crash, making it the third deadliest crash in aviation history. It was also the worst midair collision in history.

1998: Three people where killed when their two small planes collided in mid-air and crashed in the middle of Yerington, Nevada. The crash set a house on fire, but no one on the ground was hurt. While one plane crashed into a garage and house setting them on fire, the other nearly grazed an office building as it flew upside-down before crashing in a driveway between two homes.

2001: 250 people on board American Airlines flight 587 and five people on the ground were killed when the jetliner crashed on Rockaway Point minutes after taking off from Kennedy International Airport.

November 13

1997: The control tower of the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in North Carolina experienced an 8-minute power outage and was forced to switch to a backup transmitter in order to reach a U.S. Airways jetline which was converging on a sister jet.

1997: Flight attendants representing major U.S. airlines called for the government to set industrywide rules for the number and types of carry-on luggage. It was estimated that more than 4,000 passengers are injured every year by dropped or displaced bags.

November 14

1970: 75 people, including 43 Marshall University football players and coaches, were killed when a Southern Airways DC-9 crashed in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia.

1970: 47 people were killed when a brake locked and a Capitols DC-8 crashed as it was taking off from the Anchorage, Alaska airport.

1996: Thirteen people were killed when an Antonov An-2 biplane crashed in northern Russia.

1996: A twin-engine Cessna 310 made a hard landing at 1:20 a.m. in the fog-shrouded Van Nuys Airport. As it landed, its nose gear collapsed and the plane skidded 600 feet into six parked planes. The pilot died on impact, but wasn't discovered until the next morning when the fog had lifted.

1996: An American DC-8 cargo plane skidded while landing in heavy rain at the Kingston, Jamaica airport and stopped with its nosewheel sunk in mud, thus blocking the runway. Earlier an Air Jamaica Airbus A310 clipped the wing of a parked American Airlines plane while it was taxiing between two planes. The Jamaica airport was closed down for 24 hours while the cargo plane was unloaded so it could be moved.

1997: A Continental Airlines jet had to abort a landing at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Ohio because another plane was on its runway. The plane pulled up and circled the field before returning to land. No one was hurt in the incident. The Cleveland Airport experienced at least 26 runway incursions in 1997.

1997: India's Union Minister of State for Defence was killed in an Army helicopter crash in Arunachal Pradesh, India.

1998: A 71-year-old skydiver, who had previously made almost 5,000 jumps, plunged to his death when his chute failed to open.

November 15

1978: 183 people died when their chartered Icelandic Airlines DC-8 crashed on landing near Colombo, Sri Lanka during a thunderstorm. There had been 249 Moslem pilgrims returning from Mecca on board the plane, so some people survived the crash.

1979: The third Unabomber attack occurred on an airplane which had taken off from Chicago, Illinois. The bomb aboard the plane failed to explode, but it did burn and produce smoke. Twelve people had to be hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

1987: When a Continental Airlines DC-9 crashed while taking off from Stapleton Airport in Denver, Colorado, 28 of the 82 people aboard the plane were killed. The accident was caused by pilot inexperience with icing on the wing.

1996: A West African businessman posted a $2 million bail after being charged with trying to smuggle military helicopters without an export license.

1997: After a bird flew into its engine during takeoff, a Northwest Airbus had to return to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. The plane was able to land safely, and no one was injured.

1997: Two people were killed when their single-engine Mooney M-20 airplane crashed just after taking off form Big Bear City Airport in Orange County, California. For some reason, thepilot turned south just after taking off. As a result, his plane hit treetops, lost part of its wing, turned upside-down, and crashed on a rocky hillside.

1997: A family of four were killed when their private plane struck a bird while in flight above southwestern France.

1997: A rescue helicopter leaving the site of the crash noted above hit a cable while taking off and banged to the ground. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash.

November 16

1996: A U.N. helicopter en route to evacuate troops in northern Angola was shot at. One of the three Russian crew members was injured by the shots.

1996: A Brazilian Air Force T-27 Tucano trainer lost a wing and crashed into the sea near Santos, Brazil. The pilot ejected safely, but a bather was killed by a piece of the plane that struck him.

1996: A small plane carrying ten skydivers bounced off the end of the runway when it failed to take off from the Orange, Virginia, airport. Then it cartwheeled in a pasture and burst into flames. All eleven people aboard the plane were able to get out just before the plane burst into flames. No one was killed, but all had to be taken to the hospital to be treated.

1996: An Air Philippines twin engine YS-11 airplane caught fire moments after landing at the Naga City, Philippines airport. The fire was triggered in the right engine when the right landing gear collapsed during touchdown. Earlier in August, Air Philippines temporarily suspended operations after two of its Boeing 737 aircraft experienced similar problems with their right landing gears.

November 17

1996: A Brazilian-made Bandeirante Air Force plane crashed in northeastern Brazil after it was bumped by another plane flying in formation with it. Nine officers were killed in the crash.

1996: A twin-engine Piper Aerostar crashed in the mountains of Colorado shortly after taking off from the Eagle airport. Five people were killed in the crash.

1996: Ned Wulin, a skydiver, lost his legs when his plane crashed on his way to a jump. It took him almost two years before he jumped again.

1998: An Indiana Air National Guard F-16 jet fighter crashed during a training mission at the Jefferson Proving Ground in southern Indiana. The pilot ejected safely before the crash.

November 18

1996: USA Today reported that commercial airliners in the U.S. had come as close as 500 feet to another plane at least 23 times this year (three involved planes coming within 100 feet of each other). A cockpit warning system has cut down the number of times planes come so close to each other. In 1989, before the new system was implemented, commercial airliners had come close to other planes 131 times in one year.

1998: A U.S. Air Forice C-131 Hercules cargo plane had to make an emergency landing in the Cayman Islands after smoke began filtering into the cockpit. The plane had been on a mission to take relief supplies to victims of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras.

November 19

1963: 118 people died in Canada's worst airline disaster.

1977: 130 people died when a TAP Boeing 727 crashed on Madeira.

1995: A small plane crashed into Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio. Two people survived, but the other three passengers were lost at sea.

1996: A German court convicted Suhaila al-Sayeh, a Palestinian woman who hijacked a Lufthansa airliner and participated in the killing of pilot Juergen Schumann. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

1996: A United Express commuter plane landing at the Quincy, Illinois airport collided at a runway intersection with a private plane that was trying to take off. 14 people died in the collision.

1998: A U.S. Navy CH-46 helicopter crashed in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sicily. Two of the crew members were rescued shortly after the crash; two others were not found.

November 20

1967: A TWA 880 crashed on approach to the Cincinnati, Ohio airport after the lights went out on the runway. 70 people were killed.

1974: A Lufthansa Boeing 747 crashed while taking off from the Nairobi, Kenya airport. 59 people died in the crash.

1993: All 116 people aboard a Russian Yak 42 flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Skopje, Macedonia, were killed when the plane crashed into a hill near the tourist resort of Ohrid.

1995: On a foggy night, the pilot, a passenger, and a sleeping woman were killed when a Piper Cherokee crashed into an apartment building about a half-mile short of the Fullerton, California, airport.

1996: An Air National Guard ejected from his F-16 just before it crashed near Skiatook, Oklahoma. There were 9 F-16 crashes in 1995 and 17 in 1994.

1997: When two skydivers collided, one of them, Omar Lozada, plunged to his death. A week later his body was found in a Palm Beach County canefield.

November 21

1996: A single-engine Mooney clipped a parked Cessna as it landed at the Scottsdale, Arizona airport. The pilot then lost control of the plane and veered into an empty corporate jet. All three people aboard the Mooney were killed in the crash.

1998: Two small private planes collided over the Kirland Golf Coast in Phoenix, Arizona. Two people were killed; a third was critically injured.

1998: The pilot was seriously injured and his wife was killed when their Cessna 210 crashed into the Castlemont High School cafeteria as a basketball game was being played just yards away. No one in the school was injured.

1998: Actor William Gardner Knight was killed when his light plane crashed as he was trying to land at Lee Airport in Edgewater, Maryland. Knight, who had appeared in such movies as Wall Street and Born on the Fourth of July, might have taken Viagra before the flight and been unable to distinguish colors on the cockpit flight panel and in airport lighting. It was the first time Viagra was associated with a plane crash.

2004: A passenger airplane crashes into a frozen lake near Baotou in the Inner Mongolia area of northern China. All 53 people on board the plane were killed as well as two people on the ground.

November 22

1996: 10 reservists were killed when an Air Force HC-130P Hercules cargo plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean near Mendocino, California, after its four turboprop engines failed. One person survived the crash. A year later, on November 20th, the lone survivor and family members of five of the ten reservists who were killed in the crash filed a lawsuit against Lockheed Martin, the airframe manufacturer, and Allison Engine Company, the engine manufacturer.

1998: A US Airways MD-80 touched down at the Charlotte, North Carolina airport and rolled into the path of another US Airways Fokker F-100 that was taking off on another runway. The incident resulted from a controversial landing procedure called land and hold short operations, which is designed to help move air traffic during peak periods.

November 23

1962: A United Air Lines Viscount crashed after hitting swans. 17 people died in the crash.

1985: Egyptair Flight 648 was hijacked as it flew from Athens, Greece, to Cairo, Egypt. Two passengers were shot and killed as the hijackers demanded their terms after landing at a different airport in Malta.

1996: Police blocked traffic and brought in dogs and bomb experts to search a car left in a no-parking area at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport by a man rushing to catch a plane. The car was harmless.

1996: Three men hijacked an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 as it left Addis Ababa for the Ivory Coast. They demanded to be taken to Australia, but the plane ran out of fuel and crash-landed off the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. 125 of the 175 people aboard the plane were killed in the crash, including at least one of the hijackers.

1997: When his single-engine airplane developed mechanical problems, Paul Sirks of Dayton, Ohio, landed at Grimes Field in Urbana, Ohio. After landing, his plane stalled on the taxiway, so he got out to restart the plane by hand-turning the propeller. The engine started, and the plane took off without Sirks aboard. The empty plane circled above the area for about five minutes before heading off to the northeast. The plane finally went down about 90 miles away when it ran out of fuel.

2001: A small propeller commercial airplane crashed at Palade, Hiiumaa, Estonia. Of 17 people on board, two died, most others were injured. It has since been found to be several counts of pilot error. The pilot will face criminal sentencing 24 January 2003.

November 24

1985: 56 passengers and two hijackers were killed when Egyptian commandos stormed a hijacked Egyptair jetliner parked at the Malta airport.

1996: A United Airlines jet bound for Seoul, Korea, lost power in one of its engines minutes after takeoff. The plane was able to return safely to the San Francisco International Airport.

1997: An Air Force F-15 jet fighter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles off Virginia Beach, Virginia. The pilot was able to eject safely.

1997: A couple were killed when their Cessna 182 crashed during a sudden snowstorm. The couple, who were on the way to a funeral, crashed moments after taking off from the Union County Airport in Marysville, Ohio.

1998: Exxon recalled shipments of aviation fuel delivered to 20 airports after finding out that it failed to meet certain Exxon specification standards for use with prop planes and helicopters.

November 25

1995: Two separate small plane crashes in Iowa left two men with broken bones and four others unharmed. One plane went down near Osceola, the second near Nora Springs.

1997: When his Cessna 152 lost oil pressure and its engine began to seize up, Tom West landed his plane on the waterline of the main beach of Huntington Beach, California. No one was hurt on the ground, although the beach was crowded with sun bathers and swimmers.

1997: Two single-engine airplanes collided as they approached Gillespie Filed near El Cajon, California. The British student pilot of the Cessna 176 was killed as his plane broke up in the collision and crashed into a house. The pilot of the other plane, a student who had been practicing takeoffs and landings with an instructor, was able to land his Cessna 156 on Fanita Road, about a quarter of a mile from the crash site. No one was hurt on the ground.

1997: Two Sri Lankan Air Force pilots and two gunners were killed when their helicopter crashed after being hit by anti-aircraft fire by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam.

1997: A drunken Burmese man tried to haul the pilot of a Cathay Pacific jumbo jet out of the cockpit minutes before landing in Bangkok, Thailand. The co-pilot was able to land the plane safely on his own. When the plane landed, the Burmese man was arrested.

1997: During a flight from Sao Paulo to Porto Seguro, Brazil, a woman gave birth to a baby boy. She spent several hours in the toilet giving birth, stuffing the boy's mouth with a newspaper, cleaning up afterward, and stuffing the baby into the toilet. Trying to hide her bloody clothes after the birth, she told flight attendants she was suffering from severe menstral bleeding and was, thus, taken to a hospital after leaving the plane. The baby boy died by asphyxiation from the toilet paper in the bowl. His body wasn't discovered until the plane landed an hour later in Salvador, Bahia. There the boy's body was found by maintenance workers called in to fix a clogged toilet.

November 26

1979: 156 people died when a Pakistani Boeing 707 crashed near Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Again, many of the passengers were Moslem pilgrims returning from Mecca.

1983: When a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, 183 people died. Eleven people survived the crash.

1996: Aviation pioneer Elrey B. Jeppesen died at home in Denver, Colorado. Jeppesen, who began his career barnstorming for a flying circus, started a multimillion-dollar company that published air navigation charts. One time he landed a mail plane with a dead engine during a stormy night near Omaha, Nebraska. As he put it, he came to "stumbling around in the snow with the parachute between my legs about 100 feet from the burning plane."

1997: Four people were killed when their small experimental plane, a home-built Velocity RG-Standard, crashed about a mile from the airport runway at Florence, South Carolina. The plane had developed engine trouble before the crash.

1998: After pilots reported a penetrating smell in the cockpit of their Swissair MD-80, they returned to Singapore airport. They landed safely.

November 27

1951: The first rocket to intercept an airplane was launched at White Sands, New Mexico.

1970: Pope Paul VI was attacked at the airport in Manila, Philippines, by a Bolivian painter wielding a knife. Pope Paul suffered a chest wound in the incident.

1983: 181 people were killed when an Avianca Boeing 747 collided with another plane at the Madrid, Spain airport.

1989: 107 people were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a Columbian jetliner. The bomb was blamed on drug traffickers.

1996: Two crew members parachuted safely from a National Guard F-16D jet fighter just moments before it crashed into a wooded hillside in southern Ohio.

1996: A United Airlines Boeing 747-400 jetliner turned back to the Hong Kong airport after sparks were spotted near an engine as the plane was taking off. The plane landed safely with nobody injured.

1996: Three armed men, probably Colombians, hijacked a small private plane from Kwabena airport, a remote airstrip in northwest Guyana.

1996: 23 people were killed when a Russian Ilyushin-76 military cargo plane crashed in central Siberia. It may have crashed because it was carrying too heavy a load.

1997: A week after he witnessed the collision of two other skydivers (and the death of one), skydiver James Darby plunged to his death in Lake Okeechobee. While skydiving, his ski board was hit by another diver. This caused Darby to fall backward and lose control. He died from massive trauma when he hit the water.

1997: One person was killed and three others injured when their small plane crashed after hitting some trees as it was attempting to land near Chatham, Massachusetts.

1997: Four people were killed when their twin-engine plance crashed into a hangar at the Carson City, Nevada airport. The plane blew up into a fireball, thus burning the plane, the hangar, and a plane inside the hangar.

November 28

1979: 257 people died when an Air New Zealand DC-10 on a sightseeng flight crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica.

1987: When a fire broke out onboard the plane, a South African Airways Boeing 747 crashed into the Indian Ocean. 159 people died in the crash.

1995: An F-16 jet crashed near Hill Air Force Base in Utah. No one was hurt in the crash.

1996: A single-engine airplane made an emergency landing in the Hudson River off New York City. The plane landed close enough to shore that the two people aboard were able to walk off the plane on the wing to a pier at Battery Park City. The plane then sank into the river.

1996: Twenty-three people died when a Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane crashed in Siberia.

1997: Two people died when their Cessna 310 slammed into woodlands while approaching St. Marys Municipal Airport in Pennsylvania during a heavy fog.

November 29

1963: 118 people died when a Trans-Canada Airlines DC-8F crashed after taking off from Montreal.

1987: A Korean Air Boeing 707 disappeared off Burma when a bomb planted by North Korean agents exploded. All 115 people aboard were lost at sea.

1996: A skydiving Christmas elf was blown off course and landed in a crowd outside the Norwalk Square shopping mall in Norwalk, California. The elf knocked a 1-year-old girl from her mother's arms. The baby suffered serious head injuries. The skydiver was not injured.

1996: The 53-year-old pilot was hospitalized with a broken wrist and some facial cuts after his small plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Potomac Airfield in Fort Washington, Maryland. The plane sheared off part of the roof and chimney of an empty house as it crashed in a residential area.

1997: During normal maintenance on a British Aerospace ATP commuter turboprob operated by United Feeder Service, workers at Chicago's O'Hare Airport discovered that five wires connected to the plane's backup braking system had been severed by wire cutters. United Feeder Service tightened security after the incident.

1998: A United Airlines Boeing 767 had to make an unscheduled landing at Denver International Airport after the pilot reported smoke in the cabin. After mechanics took several hours to fix a minor problem (unspecified), the plane continued on its journey to New York City.

November 30

1991: When a passenger began having a heart attack over the Atlantic Ocean, Lufthansa airlines continued on to Frankfurt, Germany, rather than returning to the states to allow the passenger, Leonard Krys, to get proper medical attention. Krys was healthy when the flight took off from Miami, Florida, but began having severe chest pains as the airplane was passing over the coast of Georgia. In February 1996, a judge ruled that Lufthansa must pay $2.7 million in damages to Krys, who had suffered permanent damage to his heart as a result of the attack.

1996: A Hageland Aviation Cessna 185 crashed at Marshall in southwest Alaska. The pilot and a Fish and Wildlife officer died in the crash.

1996: A small jet did a nose dive into the roof of a two-story medical supply warehouse while trying to return to the John Wayne Airport in California. The three people aboard the plane died in a huge fireball as the plane crashed into the warehouse and set it ablaze. No one was in the warehouse at the time.

1996: Experiencing mechanical problems five minutes after taking off, a small Twin Otter passenger plane crashed near Medellin, Colombia, killing 14. One person survived.

1996: A family of four returning home from Thanksgiving crashed in their Piper Archer single-engine plane in a forest in the Poconos. They spent 16 hours huddled together in the body of the airplane waiting to be rescued during a cold, rainy night. They were found in the late morning of the next day. At least one had a broken arm while other family members had cuts and lacerations, but they survived the crash and the cold night.

1997: Returning from a Thanksgiving weekend in the Keys, the pilot and two passengers were killed when their single-engine plane crashed in Dixie County, Florida. Their plane wasn't discovered until Thursday of the next week.

December 1

1974: During a storm, a TWA Boeing 727 crashed near Upperville, Virginia. 92 people died.

1981: When a Yugoslavian DC-9 crashed into a mountain in Corsica, 174 people died.

1992: Two military cargo jets collided near Harlem, Montana, during a training flight and crashed, killing all 13 aboard.

1995: An Azeri Airlines Boeing 707 cargo plane crashed while approaching the Baku, Russia airport. One crew member was killed.

1996: An Air Canada DC-9 jetliner lost power in one engine as it was taking off from the Palm Beach International Airport in Florida. Passengers reported hearing two loud bangs before the plane was able to return to the airport and land safely. The engine probably sucked in a rock or bird, thus causing it to fail.

1997: An airline passenger who had jokingly claimed to have explosives in his carry-on bag pled guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft. During an October, 1996, USAir flight, Richard Josephson jokingly said, "Gee, be careful. That's where I keep my pipe bombs," while an attendant placed his bag in an overhead compartment. Later, when he fell asleep after taking sleeping pills and couldn't be awakened, the crew believed the bomb threat to be real and, thus, made an emergency landing at the Dayton, Ohio airport. Eight of the passengers were injured during the emergency evacuation. Federal prosecuters recommended that Josephson be sentenced to six months in prison, and the judge also considered ordering Josephson to pay for the expense of the emergency landing.

1998: A Northwest Airlines DC-9 on a flight from Minneapolis to Chicago had to make an emergency landing at Rochester, Minnesota when smoke began to fill the cockpit. The smoke was caused by an electrical fire.

1998: The TCAS computer responsible for helping airplanes to avoid collisions actually led to a near collision between a Northwest Airlines Airbus A-320 jet and an Air Ontario de Havilland Dash 8-100 commuter plane. The onboard TCAS of the Air Ontario flight warned the pilots to climb to avoid a US Airways Boeing 737 jet that was taking off from Albany, New York. At the same time, the TCAS of the Northwest Airlines jet ordered the pilots to dive. As a result, the planes came very close to each other, so close, in fact, that the targets merged on radar scopes at the Nashua, New Hampshire air traffic control center. Only the quick intervention of an air traffic controller prevented a possible collision.

December 2

1939: La Guardia Airport in New York officially opened when the first airplane from Chicago landed just after midnight. Some might think this an auspicious event; others, a disaster.

1988: Five gunmen who had hijacked a Russian Aeroflot jet surrendered in Israel.

1996: A Navy T-34 jet crashed on landing at the Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgomery, Alabama. Both crewmen were hurt in the crash but survived.

1997: A Cessna lost power 1200 feet above Union City, California, caught on some power lines as the pilot fought to glide the plane down, cartwheeled down a road, and landed on the front lawn of a house. Remarkably, the pilot escaped with only minor back injuries.

1997: When asbestos dust showered into an air traffic control center in Jacksonville, Florida, after workers knocked down a wall, controllers had to scramble to reroute flights away from Jacksonville until the dust settled. Air traffic over Jacksonville was disrupted for more than an hour.

1997: During an American Airliines flight between Manchester, England, and Chicago, Illinois, trouble began when the flight attendant objected to the amount of chocolates and nuts taken by one of the passengers, Dennis Gerber. The attendant and Gerber began to argue. According to Gerber's wife, the attendant then threw coffee on him. In return, Gerber punched the attendant. When the plane landed, Gerber was charged with one count of interfering with a flight crew.

1998: A US Airways Boeing 737 came within 50 feet of landing on top of a private twin-engine turbo prop at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. The near collision was due to an operational error made by an air traffic controller. No one was injured.

December 3

1902: Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who flew the lead plane in the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, was born in Japan.

1963: A PanAm Boeing 707 crashed in Maryland after lightning struck the wing tank and ignited it. 81 people died in the crash.

1972: 155 people died when a chartered Spanish Convair 990A airliner crashed on taking off from the Canary Islands.

1974: When a Dutch-chartered DC-8 crashed during a storm near Colombo, Sri Lanka, 191 people were killed.

1984: Shiite terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airways jet and forced it to land at Tehran, Iran, where they demanded that Kuwait free 17 people convicted of carrying out bombings in French and American facilities in Kuwait. During the stand-off they kill two Americans. The hijacking ended on December 8th when Iranian security forces disguised as cleaners stormed the jet and released the remaining hostages.

1990: On the ground at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in a heavy fog, a Northwest Airlines DC-9 heading for takeoff collided with a Northwest Boeing 727. The wingtip of the 727 tore the fuselage of the DC-9. The resulting fire claimed the lives of eight people.

1995: A Cameroon Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a mangrove swamp as it tried to land at the Douala, Cameroon airport. Only six of the 78 passengers and crew on board survived the crash.

1996: A Delta Airlines jet enroute from New York City to Portland, Oregon, had to make an emergency landing at the Bismarck, North Dakota airport after experiencing smoke in the cockpit due to an electrical problem. No one was hurt in the landing.

1997: A woman, whose body was found near a 20-story apartment building in Miami, Florida, may have fallen from an airplane. Since no one in the apartment building could identify her, police came to the conclusion that she had fallen from a passing airplane. It was later determined that the woman had fallen or been pushed from the apartment building.

1997: A single-engine Beechcraft plane crashed near the Petit Bois Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Two men were killed in the crash.

1998: A WNBC-TV news helicopter crashed into the Passaic River sending the pilot and a TV reporter to the hospital with minor injuries.

December 4

1942: U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time during World War II.

1950: Jesse Leroy Brown, the first black American naval aviator, became the first black naval officer to die in combat. He was shot down over Korea.

1974: A Dutch DC-8 charter plane crashed in Sri Lanka. 191 Moslem pilgrims were killed in the crash.

1977: A Malaysian Boeing 737 was hijacked. When it later exploded in mid-air over the Straits of Johore, 100 people were killed.

1983: U.S. jet fighters strike at Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon.

1984: Four armed men hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan. They killed Charles Hegna, an American passenger, after forcing the airliner to land in Tehran, Iran. The hijacking incident didn't end until six days later.

1991: Pan American World Airways ceased doing business.

1996: Rebels attacked a Russian military helicopter base at Dushanbe airport in Tajikistan. No one was hurt in the attack.

1996: A Delta Airlines Boeing 727 sheared a strut as it landed at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. No one was hurt in the landing, but because the airplane could not be moved, the airport was forced to use only one landing runway for several hours.

1996: A Marine Corps F-18 Hornet jet fighter crashed while attempting to make a night landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the north Pacific. The pilot was able to eject and landed on the flight deck with minor injuries.

1997: An open air-conditioning vent allowed exhaust smoke to fill the cabin of a US Airways DC-9 jetliner bound for Philadelphia. The plane had to return to the Columbus, Ohio airport.

1997: An army AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed and burned during a training flight near San Saba, Texas. The two crew members were killed in the crash.

December 5

1974: The roof of the airport terminal in Tehran, Iran, collapsed. 17 people were killed.

1988: The shuttle Atlantis launched the world's first nuclear-war fighting satellite. Scary!

1995: A utility lineman died when the helicopter which was holding up the platform he was working on hit one of the lines and crashed down upon him. The crash occurred near Thibodaux, Louisiana.

1995: A twin-engined TU-134 crashed shortly after it took off from an airport in the Azerbaijan enclave of Nahicevan. 49 people were killed and 33 injured.

1996: 16 people were injured when an American Airlines MD-80 ran into severe air turbulence while flying over Alamosa, Colorado. The two people most seriously injured were flight stewardesses.

1996: An hour later, another American Airlines flight hit turbulence over northeastern New Mexico. The plane had to make an unscheduled landing at Amarillo, Texas, in order to allow a flight attendant who was hurt in the turbulence to be taken to a hospital.

December 6

1956: 62 people died when a Trans-Canada Air Lines Northstar DC-4 on Mount Slesse near Chilliwack, outside Vancouver, British Columbia. The aircraft wasn't discovered until May 13, 1957.

1995: While doing acrobatics, two small planes collided in near Caddo Mills, Texas. Three people were killed in the collision.

1995: A Cessna 182 aircraft crashed shortly after circling the town of Kolan, Australia. Four people were killed.

1997: Forty-eight people were killed when an Antonov-124 cargo plane carrying two Sukhoi jet fighters ploughed into a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Irkutsk, Siberia. Most of the people who died lived in the apartment building demolished by the cargo plane. The plane, whose two left engines had failed, barely missed a children's home. Nonetheless, at least two children were killed when the home caught fire after the crash. Russian aviation officials reported that 219 people died in 1997 in 43 air accidents over Russian air space.

1997: Two Americans and an Austrian plunged to their deaths above the South Pole when their parachutes failed to open. Two of the dead were coordinators for the six-man jump team which was part of an adventure tour company.

1997: While flying his single-engine Piper Comanche, Rob Frayser, a Kansas doctor, blacked out from carbon monoxide fumes coming from a leaking exhaust system. Just prior to passing out, he had set the auto pilot on the plane, so even after he blacked out the plane continued to fly for another 300 miles until it ran out of fuel. Fortunately, the plane glided down to a near perfect landing in a snow-covered Missouri field, then skidded almost 500 feet before hitting a row of trees at the end of the field. The doctor woke up when the plane hit a tree.

1998: Two passenger jets travelling at 500 mph, a British Canadian L-1011 and a Delta Airlines Boeing 767, came within a little over a mile from each other before being alerted by their onboard collision avoidance systems. Both pilots took evasive action, thus avoiding a collision.

2005: A military plane carrying dozens of journalists and military personnel crashed into an apartment block in Tehran, Iran, and exploded, killing all 94 passengers and crew as well as people living in the apartment block and some on the street below. The Air Force plane was ferrying local journalists to cover military exercises at the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas.

December 7

1941: Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They sunk 21 American vessels and killed 2,338 military personnel and civilians.

1983: 93 people died when two jets collided at the Madrid Airport in Spain.

1987: After a gunman opened fire on a fellow passenger and the two pilots, a Pacific Southwest Airlines BAE-146 jet crashed near Paso Robles, California. 43 people died in the crash.

1995: Ninety-seven people died when a Tu-154 jet disappeared while enroute to Khabarovsk, Russia.

1996: Taliban jet fighters from Afghanistan forced a United Nations chartered jet to land in Afghanistan. The plane had been carrying Tajik rebel leaders on their way to peace talks in Pakistan. The plane flied on to Pakistan the next day, while the passengers flied on the day after that.

1996: A small Casa-100 plane crashed into a factory in northeastern Indonesia. Only one passenger of the 18 aboard survived the crash. In addition, one factory employee was killed and three injured. The crash was caused when one of the plane's engines caught fire.

1997: Two single-engine planes collided as one plane sheared off the tail section of the other just north of Bozeman, Montana. Both planes plummeted to the ground, where both pilots and one passenger were killed.

December 8

1903: Days before the Wright's successful flight, Samuel Pierpont Langley made a second attempt to put his plane into flight. Again, he failed. The plane once more plunged into the Potomac River.

1967: The first black astronaut, Maj. Robert Lawrence Jr., was killed in the crash of his F-104 fighter during a training exercise six months after he had been selected for astronaut training. The other pilot on board the fighter survived the crash.

1969: When an Olympia Airways DC-6B crashed in a storm near Athens, Greece, 93 people perished.

1972: Representative George Collins of Illinois was killed along with 44 others when a United Airlines Boeing 727 crashed after stalling on landing at Chicago's Midway Airport.

1993: A China Northern Airlines MD-82 was hijacked to Taiwan by clothes salesman Gao Jun who received a 10-year prison sentence for hijacking.

1996: A single-engine airplane crashed atop Newcomb's Market, a small grocery store in Port Norris, New Jersey. The pilot of the plane was killed, while a man inside the store was injured by flying debris.

1997: Police officers discovered 900 pounds of cocaine abandoned on a twin-engine Aztec plane that had landed in a remote area of western Palm Beach County.

December 9

1941: During World War II, the U.S. first began bombing in the Far East, at Luzon, Philippines.

1996: A Desert Air DC-3 cargo plane crashed into a muddy field shortly after taking off from the Boise, Idaho airport. The two crew members were killed in the fiery crash.

1997: Four people were killed but eleven survived when their Brazillian-made Embraer EMB-110 turboprop owned by Sowind Air crashed near Little Grand Rapids in northern Manitoba. The plane had been attempting to land in bad weather.

1998: San Francisco International Airport was shut down for three hours after electrical workers accidentally caused a city-wide blackout when they forgot to remove a grounding pipe after finishing up work at an electrical substation. Planes were able to land during the three hours, but no planes were permitted to take off until all systems were back online.

1999: Seven U.S. Marines were killed during a training flight when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed fifteen miles off San Diego, California.

December 10

1946: A Marine Corps C-46 transport plane crashed into Mt. Rainier in Washington, killing all 32 aboard in the single worst loss of life on the mountain.

1967: Rock 'n roll singer Otis Redding and members of his band were killed when his private plane crashed in an icy Wisconsin lake. Redding, 26, is best known for his hit, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," which was released after his death.

1997: A man claiming to be wired with explosives hijacked a Russian Magma Airlines Ilyushin-62 jet plane loaded with 155 people. Less than an hour after the plane landed at Sheremetyevo-1 Airport in Moscow, an elite Alpha Squad commando unit rushed the plane and captured the hijacker. All hostages were releases unharmed.

1998: When the pilot of an American Airlines Boeing 767 noticed a strong electrical smell in the cockpit, he turned back to the San Francisco International Airport, landing safely. Passengers continued on to New York in a different plane.

December 11

1978: Six bandits tied up employees at the Lufthansa cargo area at Kennedy Airport in New York City and stoll $5.8 million in jewelry and cash.

1996: A USAir jet made an emergency landing at the Terre Haute, Indiana airport after passengers smelled smoke and saw flames coming from the back of the airplane. The plane landed safely, and no one was hurt.

1997: When a civilian helicopter operated by a flying doctor service struck a military Antonov An-12 cargo plane as both were landing at Naryan Mar in Russia, eight people were killed. The crew of the cargo plane had decided to land without getting permission from ground controllers.

1997: Because of heavy tropical rainstorms, a plane carrying Madeleine Albright, American Secretary of State, was diverted to Angola after the plane circled the airport at Kinshasa twice but could not land.

1997: Felix Rolando Peterson-Coplin, a fugitive from justice since he hijacked an Eastern Airlines flight to Cuba in 1969, was arrested on December 7th as he tried to enter the United States. Today, he was arraigned on charges of that hijacking. He had been living as a Canadian citizen for many years before attempting to enter the United States at Alexandria Bay, about 100 miles north of Syracuse.

1998: 45 people out of 146 aboard a Thai Airways Airbus A310-200 survived when the jet crashed as it attempted to land at Surat Thani airport 330 miles south of Bangkok.

2005: A Sosoliso Airline plane carrying 110 passengers and crew missed the runway on landing, crashed, and burst into flames in the oil city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 103 people were killed, including 75 secondary school students.

December 12

1937: The Japanese bombed and sunk the U.S. gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China. Japan later apologized and paid the U.S. $2.2 million in reparations.

1985: An Arrow Air charter plane crashed just after taking off from the Gander, Newfoundland airport. 248 American soldiers and 8 crew members were killed in the crash.

1993: A Xiamen Airlines Boeing 737-200 was hijacked to Taiwan by salesman Qi Dachuan. Qi was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Taiwan for hijacking.

1995: The Food & Drug Administration banned the nightly laser light shows at Las Vegas casinos because the light shows were causing temporary blindness with pilots taking off and landing at the Las Vegas airport.

1996: A Mexican military helicopter got caught in a downdraft and crashed near the small port of Puerto de Gallo in south Mexico. An army general was killed and three others were injured.

1997: The Russian Air Force grounded all planes for all but military duties for one week after they had two fatal crashes within a week.

1997: London's Heathrow Airport, the world's busiest international airport, had to shut down some operations when a pre-dawn fire broke out in Terminal One. The fire took five hours to get under control. 307 flights were cancelled due to the shut down of Terminal One.

December 13

1944: 138 crewmen were killed when a Japanese kamikaze plane crashed into the U.S. Nashville during World War II.

1978: 29 people, including the University of Evansville basketball team, were killed when a U.S. DC-3 crashed just after taking off from Evansville, Indiana.

1994: Due to a pilot error, American Eagle Flight 3379 crashed on landing at the Raliegh-Durham International Airport. 15 of the 20 people on board died in the crash. The pilot had a long history of flying errors.

1995: A Romanian turboprop airliner crashed just moments after taking off from the Villafranca, Italy airport. 41 passengers died in the crash.

1997: When an unescorted illegal alien being deported from the United States started up a ruckus during a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit, Michigan, to Mexico City, the plane was forced to make an unscheduled stop at Dallas, Texas.

1998: An experienced parachutist dressed as a Santa Claus broke his legs when he caught the parapet of the soccer stand as he attempted to land in front of 40,000 soccer fans in Birmingham, England. In his 40-foot fall, he also fractured his pelvis and broke several ribs.

December 14

1996: Government safety officials issued urgent recommendations that all airliners be required to protect fuel tanks from heat sources (such as what might have caused the explosion of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996).

1997: A Royal Jordanian Airlines passenger jet had to make an emergency landing at the Nagpur airport in India when one of its engines failed. The plane had been flying from Bangkok to Amman, Jordan.

1997: A Columbia AirLife medical helicopter which had just picked up an injured motorist from a traffic accident hit high-voltage power lines as it lifted off and started flying toward the hospital in Denver, Colorado. All four people aboard the helicopter were killed in the crash. The accident also knocked out power for more than 15,000 people for two hours.

December 15

1944: Bandleader Glenn Miller and others were killed when their plane disappeared in a fog over the English Channel. At the time, Miller, 40, was serving in the army entertaining the troops during World War II. As a band leader, Miller was best known for such hits as "Moonlight Serenade."

1996: The pilot of a British Airways Boeing 767 tried to land in the wrong direction at Gatwick Airport in London, England, after his co-pilot collapsed in the plane's toilet after taking sleep-inducing medication. The pilot had to abort the landing and reprogram his computers before he could land safely -- from the right direction.

1997: A chartered TU-154 passenger jet from Tajikistan exploded and crashed into the desert sand nine miles before it was to land at the Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates. 85 people were killed in the crash. Miraculously, one person survived.

December 16

1960: When a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-8 collided over New York City, 134 people were killed.

1975: Two people were seriously injured when a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 skidded off the taxiway at the Anchorage, Alaska airport.

1996: Three people were killed when their small airplane crashed into a house just minutes after taking off from the Birmingham airport and then wobbling over downtown Birmingham, Alabama. The seven people in the house were uninjured.

December 17

1995: To make commuter airlines safer, the FAA unveiled new rules that required pilots to retire at 60 (to match the requirements for larger airlines), limited pilots' flight hours, and added more safety gear.

1996: A Russian AN-12 military transport plane crashed a few minutes after taking off from Andriapol Air Base near Pskov, Russia. All 17 people aboard the plane were killed, including Col. Gen. Sergei Seleznyov, commander of the Leningrad military district.

1997: A Russian Il-18 cargo plane went down in Johannesburg, South Africa.

1997: A Bellanca Super Viking single-engine plane hit a deer as it took off from the Wintersville, Ohio airport. As a result, the plane crashed in the woods just beyond the runway. The pilot and passenger were injured in the crash but able to crawl away from the plane and return to the runway. The deer was killed. The plane's right wing was torn off and debris was strewn over several hundred yards.

1998: A USAir Boeing 737 made an emergency landing at New York City after pilots reported an unusual odor in the cockpit. The plane had been on a flight form Providence, Rhode Island to Philadelphia. Passengers took other planes. No one was hurt in the incident.

December 18

1977: Due to a radar malfunction, a United Airlines cargo plane with three Chicago-based pilots crashed in the mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah. All three pilots were killed.

1995: A Trans Service Airlift chartered Electra plane flying from Zaire to Angola crashed in a remote region of Angola. 141 people died in the crash.

1995: On a Northwest Airlines flight form London to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group of 18 British tourists became out of control as they insisted on being served more liquor. A group of wrestlers, training for the U.S. Olympic team, had to help the flight crew to subdue the tourists.

1996: A Beechcraft Skipper piloted by a student pilot clipped a Cessna 182 in mid-air. Neither pilot knew that they had collided with the other's plane. The student pilot thought he had hit some turbulence and only discovered that his plane was missing a portion of the stabilizer after landing. The more experienced pilot thought he had been hit by a large bird. When he noticed one of his wheels was missing, he circled the airport for four hour before landing successful with out a right main landing gear or tire.

1997: Aggressive bees swarmed the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil airport. The takeoff of an American Airlines Boeing 767 was delayed because a swarm of European bees had settled on the plane's nose. Firefighters were able to disperse the bees by spraying the plane with water.

1997: A technician performing routine maintenance made a mistake while working on the power system of the Kansas City Air Route Traffic Control Center in Olathe, Kansas. As a result, power was knocked out for four minutes which, in turn, blacked out radarscopes at the center, knocked out computers and radio systems, and cut off contact with hundreds of planes throughout the Midwest. Flight schedules were thrown out of kilter for the rest of the day.

1997: A Ukrainian Aerosweet Airlines Yakovlev 42 passenger plane vanished from radar screens as it prepared to land at the Salonika, Greece airport. The plane with 70 people aboard was lost in the fog of the snow-covered mountains surrounding the town.

December 19

1994: American pilot David Hilemon was killed when his helicopter was shot down over North Korea.

1995: Two American pilots were killed as their light cargo plane crashed on the outskirts of Guatemala City, Guatemala. Short on fuel after attempting to land three times at the fog-shrodded La Aurora Airport, they crashed into a ravine north of town.

1997: Four men hijacked a Beechcraft airplane owned by Aerocondor, forced it to land in a field in northern Peru, and made off with $1 million in cash that was being transported by Hermes, an affiliate of Brinks.

1997: An Alaska Airlines pilot lost control of his plane while taxiing at the San Francisco International Airport and ran off the taxiway. Four passengers were injured when eeryone had to be evacuated via inflatable slides.

1997: David Schramm, a world-famous astrophysicist died when his twin-engine Swearingen SW-3 plane stalled in mid-flight and then crashed into a field near Byars, Colorado. He had been on his way from Chicago to Aspen.

1997: A Singapore SilkAir Boeing 737-300 passenger jet exploded in mid-air and crashed near Sungsang in southern Sumatra. All 104 people aboard the plane were killed. It was the first major air disaster to strike SilkAir or Singapore Airlines.

December 20

1953: 87 people died when a U.S. Air Force C-124 fell and burned near Moses Lake, Washington.

1972: 10 people died when a North Central DC-9 crashed on the runway of Chicago O'Hare Airport.

1995: An American Airlines flight from Miami, Florida, to Cali, Columbia, crashed as it was making its final descent into the Cali airport. 163 people were killed in the crash. Amazingly, four people survived the mountaintop crash. The crash was caused by an incorrect computer command entered by the airplane's captain. It caused the plane to steer in the wrong direction. Many parts from the crashed airliner were salvaged within hours by illegal salvagers and later sold on the black market.

1995: A Tower Air 747 jumbo jet veered off the runway at New York's Kennedy Airport and crashed into a concrete electrical tower as it tried to take off. 28 people were injured in the crash; no one died.

1997: A. Harold Bromley, the first person to attempt to fly across the Pacific in 1930, died at the age of 99.

1997: A Beechcraft Bonanza airplane crashed in a rural wooded area shortly after taking off from Findlay Airport in Ohio. All three people aboard the plane were killed. The plane had failed to clear the treetops. The crash started a small forest fire.

1997: An 8-year-old boy was killed when the experimental Long-Eze plane his father was piloting crashed at the Greenwood Lake Airport near West Milford, New Jersey. The father survived in serious condition.

1997: A Greek Air Force C-130 transport plane searching for the Ukrainian Aerosweet Airlines Yakovlev 42 passenger plane that had crashed several days earlier itself crashed, killing the crew of five. According to witnesses, the plane flew straight into a mountain shortly after taking off from a military airport.

1997: A small airplane crashed into the ocean off the Venezuela coast after the right engine failed while the plane was returning to Caracas from Maquetia. Of the ten people aboard the plane, two people were killed, seven were missing, and one survived.

December 21

1988: A terrorist bomb exploded on board a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying over Lockerbie, Scotland. As a result, 270 people were killed, including 11 on the ground. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history.

1995: A Cessna 421 private plane went into a flat spin and crashed into a hillside near Cleveland, Oklahoma. All 6 people on board, bound for a skiing vacation in Aspen, Colorado, died in the crash.

1995: An Air Force F-16 jet crashed southwest of Winslow, Arizona. The pilot was able to eject before the crash. There were 8 F-16 crashes during the 1996 fiscal year crash, 9 in 1995, and 17 in 1994.

1997: Two men were killed and the other seriously injured when their chartered twin-engine Beechcraft King Air plane crashed as they attempted to land in very dense fog at the Colorado Springs, Colorado airport. The three men, Northwest Airlines mechanics, were going to Colorado Springs to repair a Northwest 727 jetliner that had experience mechanical problems. The pilot, one of those killed, tried to rely on instruments alone to land the plane in the dense fog, but he failed to line up the plane with the runway.

1997: The pilot of a Cessna 150 and a 17-year-old neighbor out for a pleasure ride were killed when the plane's engine lost power and the plane crashed in a field near the East Vincent Elementary School. The plane had taken off from the Pottstown-Limerick Airport in Pennsylvania.

December 22

1990: An Israeli ferry capsized as it was returning sailors from shore leave to the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. 21 sailers drowned.

1992: 158 people were killed when a Libyan Boeing 727 collided in mid-air with a military plane.

1996: A Beechcraft Bonanza private plane crashed into a mountain in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. Six people were killed in the crash, including the pilot who was ferrying his daughter and her family to Christmas dinner in Arizona.

1996: A DC-8 cargo plane, operated by Airborne Express subsidiary ABX Air, crashed into Wolf Creek Mountain in southwest Virginia during a maintenance trip from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Wilmington, Ohio. Six people died in the crash. They had been testing the plane at low speeds and low altitude moments before the crash.

1996: Going into a tailspin after hitting some turbulence, a small Piper Aztec crashed into a dry lake bed near Lucerne Valley east of Los Angeles, California. All four people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

1997: A Delta Air Lines Boeing 727 our of Atlanta, Georgia, made an emergency landing at the Birmingham, Alabama airport after the pilot smelled a strange odor in the cockpit. No one was injured in the landing.

1997: 45 mph winds caused sporadic power outages in the Bay area and disrupted plane schedules at San Francisco International Airport in California.

1997: Four people died when ice collected on the wings of their Piper Saratoga and the plane crashed in a remote area of Kane County, Illinois. The co-pilot survived the crash but died of hypothermia when no help came for 13 hours. When an air traffic controller who had been tracking the plane went on break, he failed to notify his replacement, thus causing the delay in responding to the crash.

December 23

1972: 16 survivors of an airplane crash in the Andes were rescued after 70 days. They survived by cannibalism.

1973: 106 people died when a French Caravelle jet crashed in Morocco.

1997: A Libyan airplane crash-landed at the Tripoli International Airport as a result of mechanical problems brought on by a lack of spare parts in Libya. The five passengers and crew were injured in the crash landing.

1997: A military helicopter crashed near the Panamanian border shortly after taking off from Bahia Solano, Colombia. Seven people were killed, including a general and an admiral. The people had been visiting various military bases delivering Christmas presents.

1997: A Biman Airlines Fokker 28 airplane carrying 89 people made a belly flop landing in a Bangladesh rice field near Syhlet. While there were some injuries, no one was killed in the landing. 55 people were admitted to local hospitals.

1997: Two couples were killed when their small plane crashed in a field near Hampshire, Illinois. The couples had been returning home from a visit to Disney World in Florida. Heavy fog may have caused the crash.

1997: An unlicensed pilot hotwired a small 1955 Cessna plane and took off from the Salinas, California airport without clearance from the control tower. He flew to Arizona where he buzzed a military airbase before landing. He was arrested upon landing.

1997: One man was killed and the other injured when their marijuana-stuffed single-engine plane crashed through two high-voltage power lines and crashed into a field near the town of Monticello, Utah. The two smugglers were apparently lost and circling the area before crashing. 2,000 customers were left without power after the power lines were cut.

2002: A Ukrainian AN-140 airplane flew into a mountainside while getting ready to land at an airport near Isfahan, Iran. 46 aerospace experts were killed in the incident. They had been due to review an Iranian version of the same plane built under license.

December 24

1947: American airman Roger True Lane was shot down over Germany while flying his P-47 fighter plane Scrumptious Bette during a World War II air raid. Fifty years after he was shot down over Nazi Germany, the body of American airman Roger True Lane was returned home to be buried (after his bones were discovered by two young Germans looking for metal in a field).

1966: 129 people died when a U.S. military-chartered CL jet crashed into the village at Binh Thai, South Vietnam.

1970: Nine Jews were convicted of hijacking an airplane in Leningrad, Soviet Union.

1971: Everyone aboard but one were killed when a Peruvian Airlines Electra crashed near the headwaters of the Amazon River. The one survivor, Juliane Margaret Koepcke, was found ten days later.

1994: Islamic fundamentalists hijacked an Air France jetliner at the Algiers, Algeria airport. Three passengers out of the 227 aboard were killed during the siege.

1996: The tower at the Lebonon, New Hampshire airport lost contact with a Lear jet minutes after the jet had missed its first attempt at landing. Two people were aboard the leased jet when it disappeared. A year later, the plane had not yet been found, although the brother of one of the people aboard the plane continued the search.

1996: Two small planes collided while landing at an airport near San Diego, California. One plane crash-landed at a construction site, but the two people aboard were able to walk away with minor injuries. The other plane, however, crashed into a tree near a Navy golf course. The two people aboard that plane were killed.

1997: Due to a heavy snowstorm in Chicago, the Milwaukee airport experienced a logjam that resulted in the cancellation of several flights, thus stranding hundreds of holiday travelers. Also 250 people were stranded at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, but were put up in hotels courtesy of the city of Chicago and Mayor Richard Daley.

1997: Security scanners at the Manchester, England airport were fooled on Christmas Eve as hundreds of passengers were flying home with packages of Christmas pudding. The $23 million security system couldn't tell the difference between the puddings and Semtex plastic explosive. Many passengers were delayed as baggages had to be checked by hand.

1997: An Indian Airlines plane hit a jackal as it was landing at the airport in Calcutta, India. No one was hurt in the incident.

1997: Fifty Southwest Airlines were cancelled when flu grounded flight attendants in four states. 50 flights were cancelled on the 24th and 100 on the 23rd, leaving thousands of travelers temporarily stranded in airports form Los Angeles to Baltimore.

1997: A married couple were killed when their borrowed Piper Archer 2 plane crashed into power lines as they were attempting to land at the Tallahassee Regional Airport in Florida. Violent thunderstorms may have contributed to the crash.

1999: Five Indian hijackers seized an Indian Airlines plane after it departed Katmandu, Nepal, and force the plane to land in Afghanistan. During the early stages of the hijacking, they killed one passenger and released others among the 178 passengers and 11 crew members. On December 31st after India agreed to release three prisoners, the hijackers released the remaining 155 hostages and left the plane.

December 25

1996: A Mexicana Airlines jet had to be evacuated at the San Jose, California, airport after the plane received a bomb threat. No evidence of a bomb was found, and the plane, crew, and passengers continued on to Guadalajara, Mexico without incident.

1996: A pilot and his wife were only slightly injured when their rented Cessna 150M airplane crashed through the roof of a duplex after colliding with electrical lines during his attempt to land in a field. He tried to make an emergency landing when he thought he didn't have enough gas to make the Austin, Texas airport. He and his wife were flying from Dallas to Austin for Christmas dinner with relatives. None of the four people in the duplex were hurt in the crash.

1997: A Transavia Airlines Boeing 757 strayed off the runway as it was landing at the Schipol airport in the Netherlands. Several passengers were injured as they evacuated the plane via emergency chutes. A fire that broke out after evacuation was quickly put out.

1997: Rebel forces lay a landmine at Koh Kong in Cambodia that caused heavy damage to a Ukrainian-made Antonov 24 military aircraft.

2003: A Boeing 727 crashes after taking off from Benin in West Africa en route to Lebanon. At least 135 people were killed in the crash.

December 26

1993: At least thirty-five people died when their An-24 plane crashed in western Armenia.

1994: French commandos killed four Islamic hijackers who had taken over an Air France jumbo jet two days earlier. The commandos stormed the plane as it sat on the ground at the Marseille airport.

1996: Air 21, a Fresno, California airline, canceled all flights through Monday because its partner airlines would not longer do business with it unless they were paid. Over 2,000 passengers were affected by the shutdown. More than 6,000 passengers were affected in the previous month because of cancelations forced by financial problems.

1996: The Federal Aviation Administration announced that major airports would get 54 state-of-the-art bomb detection units during the next year. That may be good news.

1996: A U.S. District judge sentenced an airline passenger to four years in prison, 200 hours of community service, and a fine of $611.35 to repay USAir for the fuel it used to return the plane to the airport when the passenger became so drunk and unruly. During the incident of July 6, the passenger became belligerent, pushed a flight attendant, and had to be subdued by the flight crew.

1998: A Continental Airlines jetliner and a small private plane came within 30 seconds of colliding near Giants Stadium (just as a football game between the New York Jets and New England Patriots was ending). The planes came within 300 feet vertically and a quarter-mile laterally because the pilot of the small plane was lost. FAA regulations require a separation of 500 feet vertically and 3 miles laterally.

1998: A U.N. aircraft with 14 people aboard burst into flames and crashed shortly after taking off from Huambo, Angola, near an area where UNITA rebels and government troups had been fighting.

December 27

1985: 20 people were killed and 110 wounded when Palestinian guerrillas opened fire in the Rome and Vienna airports. Among the dead were five of the guerrillas who were killed by police and security personnel.

1991: A Scandinavian Airlines jetliner crashed and broke apart after taking off from the Stockholm airport. Amazingly, none of the 129 people aboard the plane were killed.

1992: Actor-singer Harry Connick Jr. was caught with a 9 millimeter gun in New York's JFK Airport.

1997: Heavy winds sweeping through Colorado caused blowing snow and poor visibility. Wind gusts also blew two small airplanes off runways at Centennial Airport, south of Denver.

December 28

1978: A United Airlines DC-8 crashed on approach to the Portland, Oregon airport. 10 people died in the crash as the pilot was distracted and the plane ran out of fuel.

1993: A Fujian Airlines propeller-driven Yun-7 was diverted to Taiwan by Luo Changhua and his wife Wang Yuying. Luo got an 11-year sentence in Taiwan, and his wife eight years, for hijacking an airplane.

1996: A Beechcraft Bonanza crashed near the golf course of the University of West Florida after it began experiencing engine trouble. The pilot and the wife of a family of three were killed in the crash. The father walked away with minor injuries while the daughter was hospitalized after suffering a gash to her head.

1996: All ten people aboard a private plane survived the crash of their plane in a heavily wooded area of northern Wisconsin. The plane had broken in half, missing its tail and wings, and yet the passengers survived with minor injuries.

1997: When the pilot ignored a warning not to take off from Mansfield Airport because of icy conditions, he and his wife and son were injured when their Cessna plane crashed shortly after taking off.

1997: Twenty-one people were injured when an Airbus belonging to Middle East Airlines ran into turbulence over the Lebanese Cedar mountains. A so-called mountain wave caused the plane to drop sharply.

1997: One the same day, a United Airlines Boeing 747 hit massive air turbulence over the Pacific Ocean, causing the jetliner to dive 1,000 feet. Passengers without seat belts on were thrown to the ceiling and then knocked back down to the floor. More than 100 people were injured and one 32-year-old woman was killed. After the incident, the plane returned to Japan where the injured were rushed to hospitals.

1998: Airports in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose were closed due to dense fog that cut visibility to less than 100 feet. It primarily disrupted flights into these airports.

December 29

1940: It's not even safe on the ground, part II. During World War II, the Germans began dropping incendiary bombs on London, England. These raids went on for years.

1972: When an Eastern Airlines Lockheed Tristar crashed into the Everglades on its approach to the Miami International Airport, 101 people out of 176 aboard died. The crew of Flight 401 aborted the landing after a landing gear indicator light failed to go on. While searching for the cause of the light failure, they put the aircraft on autopilot. Sometime during the search, the autopilot had been accidentally disengaged. Without the crew noticing, the plane gradually dropped until it crashed. A book about the crash, The Ghost of Flight 401 by John G. Fuller, was later made into a movie.

1975: It's not even safe on the ground, part III! 11 people were killed and dozens more injured when a bomb exploded in the main terminal of LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

1991: When an engine fell off an Air China Boeing 747, the plane crashed near Wanli, Taiwan. Five people were killed in the crash.

1997: The pilot and his wife were killed when their twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed into a small pond near Guyton, Georgia. The pilot, a 67-year-old man may have had a medical emergency since his wife had radioed for assistance in flying the plane shortly before the crash.

1997: A Comair plane flying from New York to Cincinnati, Ohio, had to make an emergency landing after an anonymous caller told airline officials that a bomb was on the plane. No bomb was found.

December 30

1935: Italian bombers destroyed a Swedish Red Cross unit in Ethiopia.

1972: 101 people were killed but 75 survived when an Eastern Airlines Lockheed 1011 TriStar Jumbo jet crashed into the Everglades near Miami, Florida.

1993: FAA inspectors noted that ValuJet pilots "could not find or reference any material concerning the carrier's de-icing program.... The company's de-ice program falls short of meeting the regulatory requirements." Later ValuJet retrained all pilots in the de-icing prodecure.

1998: A cross-country skier rescued three injured people whose small Piper 28 plane crashed near the Continental Divide (Rollins Pass in Colorado). Having heard the crash, Frank Marics battled 100 mph winds and a whiteout for several hours before finding the survivors. He helped direct rescuers to the crash site.

December 31

1972: Baseball great Roberto Clemente and three others were killed when their overloaded plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its way to providing relief supplies to the victims of a Nicaraguan earthquake.

1985: Rock 'n roll singer Rick Nelson and six companions were killed when a fire broke out on board a DC-3 taking them to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas, Texas. Nelson, 45, was first known as the son of Ozzie and Harriet in their TV show of the late 1950s. He later became famous as the singer of such hits as "Travelin' Man" and "I'm Walkin.'"

1995: A USAir commuter jet bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, had to make an unscheduled landing at the Charleston, West Virginia airport after experiencing trouble with one of its engines. No one was hurt.

1996: The government expanded the no-fly zones and imposed morning and evening curfews on airplane tour operators flying over the Grand Canyon. More than 800,000 people view the Grand Canyon by air every year.

Uncertain Date

2001: An engine breakup on a TAM Fokker 100 caused two cabin windows to shatter and one of 82 passengers aboard died as a result of the depressurization.