1888 – Birth of Jacques Victor Sabattier de Vignolle, French World War I flying ace.
1918 – First flight of the Handley Page V/1500, a British night-flying heavy bomber.
1957 – A U.S. Air Force Convair B-36J Peacemaker (shown above), ferrying a Mark 17 nuclear bomb from Biggs AFB, Texas to Kirtland AFB, N.M., accidentally drops it through closed bomb doors, impacting 4.5 miles south of Kirtland tower. Only the conventional trigger detonated, the bomb being unarmed, creating a large crater.
1962 – Continental Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 707, breaks up in mid-air near Unionville, Mo., after a passenger’s bomb exploded in the lavatory; all 45 people on board are killed.
1988 – Death of Edgar Charles Johnston, Australian World War I fighter ace and a leading member in civil aviation in Australia.
2007 – Skybus Airlines, an American low-cost carrier, begin operations; it went bankrupt in less than a year.