List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1925–1949)

The front section of the wreck of the USS Shenandoah, from gelatin silver print by R.S. Clements.

This is a list of notable accidents and incidents involving military aircraft grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred. For more exhaustive lists, see the Aircraft Crash Record Office or the Air Safety Network. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances.

Aircraft terminology

Information on aircraft gives the type, and if available, the serial number of the operator in italics, the constructors number, also known as the manufacturer's serial number (c/n), exterior codes in apostrophes, nicknames (if any) in quotation marks, flight callsign in italics, and operating units.

1925

• 10 February - The 1030 hrs. crash of a Curtiss JN-6H, AS-44806 , ~2 miles E of Brooks Field, Texas, kills instructor 1st Lt. Arthur L. Foster along with Maj. Lee O. Wright. Foster Field at Victoria, Texas is later dedicated to the pilot on 22 February 1942. Foster's widow, Mrs. Ruth Young Foster, of San Antonio, Texas, unveiled a plaque that read "Dedicated to the memory of Lieut. Arthur Lee Foster, a pioneer in aviation who gave his life teaching others to fly." Foster Field was designated Foster Air Force Base on an inactive status on 1 September 1952, by Department of the Air Force General Order No. 38, dated 29 August 1952.
• 31 August - U.S. Navy Naval Aircraft Factory PN-9, BuNo A-6878, '1', flying boat disappears on flight from San Francisco to Hawaii with reported loss of crew. The PN-9 was not actually lost, it was just overdue. After staying in the air for 25 hours and covering 1,841 of the 2,400 miles to Pearl Harbor, it landed safely at sea, the crew under command of Cmdr. John Rogers, Naval Aviator No. 2, rigged sails from fabric from the lower wing and sailed the final 450 miles, reaching Kaiui on 10 September. This stood as a seaplane distance flight record for several years. Aircraft is repaired and shipped to San Diego, California.

• 3 September - The USS Shenandoah airship, ZR-1, crashed after encountering thunderstorms near Ava, Ohio after an in flight break up due to cloud suck about 0445 hrs. Fourteen of 43 aboard are killed. The ship's commanding officer, Lt. Cdr. Zachery Lansdowne is killed on what was to have been his final flight before reassignment to sea duty.
• 23 September - The U.S. Navy flies 23 Curtiss CS-1 floatplanes to Bay Shore Park on the Chesapeake Bay, 14 miles SE of Baltimore, Maryland, on a Friday with intention of an airshow demonstration before the 1925 Schneider Cup Race on Saturday, but that night gale force winds break three-inch mooring and anchor ropes on 17 of the biplanes and they are blown onto shore or dashed against seawalls, destroying seven and damaging ten. The next afternoon's Baltimore Evening Sun runs headline "Plane Disaster in Harbor Called Hard Blow to Navy" and quotes the ever-outspoken General William "Billy" Mitchell calling the loss of the CS-1s "staggering", and blaming it on Navy mismanagement of its aviation program.
• 24 September - During the 1925 Schneider Trophy race, British entry Supermarine S.4 loses control, is seen to side-slip, then pancakes into the Chesapeake Bay, landing on the front of its floats and overturning. Pilot Henri Biard swims free of airframe and is rescued. British officials intimate that the pilot banked too steeply and stalled, but designer R.J. Mitchell suspected that the cantilever wing design may have been partially at fault. Another British entry, Gloster IIIA, suffers broken strut between float and fuselage during taxi after landing from first run which allows nose to drop, propeller cuts into duralumin float, making airframe unable to compete. Lt. Jimmy Doolittle in U.S. Army Curtiss R3C-2, BuNo A6979, '3', wins competition with top speed of 233 miles per hour.

1926

• 22 March - On its seventh test flight during tests at Taura Beach, Yokosuka, Japan, the Kaibo Gikai KB experimental flying boat is seen in a glide with both engines stopped, which steepens until it strikes the water in a near-vertical attitude, killing all four crew. Cause attributed to a malfunction of the flight control system.
• May 10 - Maj. Harold C. Geiger is slightly injured in a collision between two planes at Langley Field, near Hampton, Virginia. While attending the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, his Eberhart S.E.5e, 22-317, collides in mid-air during a flight formation with fellow student, Horace Meek Hickam's Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a, SO-8044. Hickam parachutes to safety, and narrowly escapes death. Hickam is initiated into the famed Caterpillar Club, a fraternal order with membership based on surviving an emergency parachute jump. Geiger was also a member of the Caterpillar Club.
• 11 August - Second Lieutenant Eugene Hoy Barksdale is killed when the Douglas O-2 observation plane, 25-350, McCook Field project number P-441, he was testing went into an uncontrollable spin over McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio. His parachute snagged on the wingstruts, preventing escape from the aircraft. Barksdale Field, later Barksdale Air Force Base, is named for him upon establishment at the Military Reservation, Bossier Parish, Louisiana on 2 February 1933.

1927

• 19 January - Second of two Naval Aircraft Factory PN-7 flying boats, BuNo A-6617, delivered 6 June 1924, is wrecked this date at San Diego, California, with total flight time of 423:32 hours.
• February - RAF Cierva C.6J autogyro, J8068, based on an Avro 504K fuselage, constructed by A.V. Roe at Hamble, Hampshire, flown by test pilot Frank T. Courtney, suffers spectacular crash at Hamble in which two opposing rotor blades come loose in flight after failure of tubular rivet fitted in the rotor blade spar root, coming down adjacent to rail line crossing the airfield. Pilot survives.
• 13 March - First of two Naval Aircraft Factory PN-8 flying boats, BuNo A-6799, delivered 8 May 1925, intended for a flight by the Navy from San Francisco to Hawaii, is wrecked while being transported fully assembled on the deck of the USS West Virginia. Hit by heavy seas, the plane is lifted against its tie-down cables, which cut through the hull, airframe written off with 32:48 flying hours.
• 21 March - U.S. Navy Naval Aircraft Factory PN-9, BuNo A-6878, flying boat which executed record trip from San Francisco to Hawaii in August-September 1925, repaired and shipped to San Diego, California, crashes and sinks in the ocean this date with total flight time of 190:28 hours.
• 17 May - Major Harold C. Geiger (7 October 1884 - 17 May 1927), born in East Orange, New Jersey, a pioneer in Army aviation and ballooning, and Commandant of Phillips Air Field, Aberdeen, Maryland, is killed in the crash of his DH.4B de Havilland plane, 25-078. Six mechanics and officers at the Middleton Air Station, at Olmsted Field, Pennsylvania told The New York Times Geiger's plane took a 50-foot nose dive. Geiger managed to jump out just as the plane struck and burst into flames. He made desperate efforts to get clear of the wreckage and, according to the onlookers, half crawled and ran as far as the tail of the machine before he was overcome. There he dropped and the flames prevented the watchers from getting near enough to rescue him. When the U.S. Army Air Corps purchases Sunset Field near Spokane, Washington in 1941, it is named Geiger Field in his honor. The Spokane International Airport is designated with the International Air Transport Association airport code GEG in his memory.
• 29 September - Georg Wulf, co-founder of Focke-Wulf, is killed in the crash of the first Focke-Wulf F 19 Ente ("Duck"). Second airframe is constructed, eventually put on display in Berlin air museum, destroyed in bombing raid in 1944.
• 4 November - US Army Air Corps Capt. Hawthorne C. Gray succeeds in setting new altitude record in a silk, rubberized, and aluminum-coated balloon out of Scott Field, Illinois, reaching 42,270 feet, but dies when he fails to keep track of his time on oxygen, and exhausts his supply. The record is recognized by National Aeronautical Association, but not by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale because the dead aeronaut "was not in possession of his instruments." Gray is posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his three ascents on 9 March, 4 May and 4 November.
• 8 December - Prototype Curtiss XB-2 Condor, 26-211, assigned to Wright Field, Ohio in October 1927, crashes at Buffalo, New York after having logged only 58 hours, 55 minutes flying time.

1928

• May: Sumitoshi Nakao becomes the first Japanese aviator to save his life by parachute when he bails out of one of two Mitsubishi 1MF2 Hayabusa-type fighter prototypes when it disintegrates during a diving test during official Army trials at Tokorozawa. Pilot uninjured. Because of the accident, further flight evaluations of the type are suspended and the other airframe is statically tested to destruction.

1929

• 24 January - Surplus RAF S.E.5a, (original serial unknown), presented to Aviación Naval (Argentine Naval arm), E-11/AC-21, written-off in crash landing at Campo Sarmiento, Argentina when pilot Alferez de Fragata Alberto Sautu Riestra approaches field too flat and lands short, collapsing undercarriage. Pilot uninjured. As the airframe was an obsolescent one-only on strength design, with no supporting plans or parts, it is scrapped.
• 25 February - Curtiss XP-6 (P-2, 25-423, converted with Curtiss V-1570-1 engine), is destroyed in crash with only 80 flying hours. This airframe had won the Pursuit Plane Race in the 1927 National Air Races with a speed of 189.608 mph.
• 18 May - During the 1929 U.S. Army maneuvers, two Boeing P-12s of the 95th Pursuit Squadron collide over the north side of Columbus, Ohio, the propeller of 2nd Lt. Andrew F. Solter's fighter cutting into the rear fuselage of 2nd Lt. Edward L. Meadow's P-12. Meadow is killed but Solter bails out and lands safely. Gen. Benjamin Foulois tells newsmen, "It's all in a day's work of the Air Corps. Although an unhappy occurrence, the accident will cause no change in the maneuver plans, which will be carried out as scheduled."
• 15 October - Martin XT5M-1 divebomber, BuNo A-8051, during terminal dive test at 350 IAS at 8,000 feet, lower starboard wing caves in, ripping extensive hole. Pilot Bill McAvoy staggers aircraft back to the Martin field north of Baltimore, Maryland, landing at 110 mph with full-left stick input. Aircraft will go into production as the BM-1.
• 14 November - U.S. Navy Naval Aircraft Factory PN-11, BuNo A-7527, delivered 26 October 1929, catches fire at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., and is destroyed after only 13:06 flight hours.
• 4 December - Curtiss B-2 Condor, 29-28, assigned to the 96th Bomb Squadron, Langley Field, Virginia, crashes at Goodwater, Alabama, with 69 total flight hours on airframe. Pilots 2nd Lt. James M. Gillespie and Ernest G. Schmidt KWF. This was the second of three crashes of the 13 total B-2s the USAAC acquired.

1930

• Mid-April - The prototype Hawker Hornet, J9682, crashes near Chichester while testing with No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron at RAF Tangmere when it loses its upper wing after a mid-air collision with a Siskin of No. 43 Squadron.
• 7 May - Curtiss B-2 Condor, 29-30, is wrecked at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, but is repaired and serves until it is surveyed in December 1933. This was third and final accident involving the 13 total B-2 Condors acquired by the Air Corps.
• 30 June - U.S. Navy Douglas PD-1 flying boat, BuNo A-7989, of VP-6 in the Hawaiian Islands, is lost in the Pacific off Hawaii, only six months after delivery. Airframe had only 42:40 hrs. flight time.
• 15 July - 1st Lt. Frank Benjamin Tyndall (1894–1930) is killed in a crash of a Curtiss P-1F Hawk, 28-61, near Mooresville, North Carolina. Lieutenant Tyndall was a World War I pilot, Silver Star recipient, and commander of the 22d Aero Squadron. Lieutenant Tyndall shot down four enemy airplanes in combat over France during World War I. Tyndall Field, Florida, opened on 13 January 1941 as a gunnery range, is named for him. With the establishment of the United States Air Force in 1947, the facility was renamed Tyndall Air Force Base on 13 January 1948. Tyndall was the second Air Service pilot to survive by parachuting, when his MB-3A broke up on 11 November 1922 over the Boeing factory, Seattle, Washington.
• 1 September - Curtiss XF6C-6 racer, A-7147, crashes during the Thompson Trophy race in Chicago, Illinois, killing U.S. Navy pilot Capt. Page.

The wreckage of R101.

• 7 September - Capt. John Owen Donaldson, World War I ace (eight victories), after winning two races at an American Legion air meet in Philadelphia, is killed when his plane crashes during a stunt-flying performance. He had won the MacKay Gold Medal for taking first place in the Army's transcontinental air race in October 1919. Greenville Army Air Field, South Carolina, is later renamed Donaldson Air Force Base for the Greenville native.
• 5 October - British rigid airship R101, G-FAAW, completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. After initial flights and two enlargements to the lifting volume, it crashed this date, in Beauvais, France, during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48. Amongst airship accidents of the 1930s, the loss of life surpassed the Hindenburg, LZ-129, disaster of 1937, and was second only to that of the USS Akron ZRS-4, crash of 1933. The demise of R101 effectively ended British employment of rigid airships; the girders of the comparatively successful R100 were destroyed by steamroller, and sold for scrap.

1931

• 7 February - Sole Boeing XP-15, private-venture Boeing Model 202, NX270V, c/n 1151, accepted by the U.S.Army for testing at Wright Field but never actually purchased, so no USAAC serial, suffers propeller blade failure during a high-speed dash, unbalanced engine tears from mounts.
• 10 March - Lockheed Y1C-17, 31-408, Vega Model DL1B Special, c/n 159, assigned at Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., cracks up during forced landing at Tolu, Kentucky during attempted transcontinental record flight by Capt. Ira C. Eaker, pilot unhurt. Specially rigged gas lines had leaked air which shut off fuel flow to engine. Wreckage taken to Wright Field, Ohio, scrapped 22 April 1931. Was the fastest USAAC aircraft of its time at 221 mph. Total airframe flight time 33 hours.
• 9 October - U.S. Navy Keystone PK-1 flying boat, BuNo A-8516, is forced down in heavy seas and sinks.
• 19 October - Sole Lockheed-Detroit YP-24, 32-320, crashes during tests at Wright Field, Ohio. During evaluation flight, landing gear extension system fails with gear only partly deployed when in-cockpit crank handle breaks off. Through a series of violent maneuvers, the pilot managed to get the gear retracted and was planning to attempt a belly-landing, but upon orders from the ground, pilot bails out. Four Y1P-24 pre-production models cancelled due to Detroit Aircraft's shaky financial situation. Two will be built as Consolidated Y1P-25s after Detroit's chief designer Robert Wood joins that firm. Second Y1P-25 completed with a supercharger as Y1A-11.
• 14 December - RAF pilot Douglas Bader (21 February 1910 – 5 September 1982), undertaking a low-level roll in Bristol Bulldog Mk. IIA, K1676, of 23 Squadron at Woodley, Great Britain, hooks a wingtip, rolls the biplane into a ball, and loses both his legs. Undeterred, he returns to the air and becomes a renowned World War II fighter pilot with 22 credited "kills" before being downed over France, 9 August 1941. As a POW, he has such determination to escape that he is eventually sent to Colditz Castle for recidivist escapees.

1932

Stills from the 11 May 1932 mooring incident: the two pictures on the left and picture at far right are of Seaman Cowart; the picture 2nd from right shows Henton and Edsall before their fatal fall.

• 11 May - The USS Akron, arriving at Camp Kearny, San Diego, California, after a cross-continent transit attempts to moor, but proves too buoyant. The mooring cable is cut to avert a catastrophic nose-stand by the airship and the Akron heads up. Most men of the mooring crew, predominantly "boot" seamen from the Naval Training Station San Diego, let go of their lines but three do not. One man was carried 15 feet (4.6 m) into the air before he let go and suffered a broken arm in the process while three others were carried up even farther. Two of these men — Aviation Carpenter's Mate 3d Class Robert H. Edsall and Apprentice Seaman Nigel M. Henton — lost their grips and fell to their deaths. The third, Apprentice Seaman C. M. "Bud" Cowart, clung desperately to his line and made himself fast to it before he was hoisted aboard the Akron one hour later. Akron managed to moor at Camp Kearny later that day. The stranded crewman provides the template for the very first rescue by George Reeves' portrayal of Superman in the first television episode of "Adventures of Superman", "Superman on Earth", first aired 19 September 1952.
• June - Lockheed Y1C-25, 32-393, Altair Model 8A c/n 153, NR119W. First Lockheed to be equipped with fully retractable landing gear. Struck off charge after belly landing at Wright Field, Ohio. Hulk destroyed in tests of bottled carbon dioxide fire extinguishers at Wright Field, 27 September 1932.
• 15 November - On first flight of United States Navy Hall XP2H-1 four-engine flying boat, BuNo A-8729, it noses straight up on take-off due to incorrectly rigged stabilizer, test pilot Bill McAvoy and aircraft's designer Charles Ward Hall, Sr., manage to chop throttles, plane settles back, suffering only minor damage. Incident occurred at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C.. This sole prototype was the largest four-engine biplane the U.S. Navy ever procured, with a wingspan of 112 feet.
• 26 November - One of two Nakajima Experimental 6-Shi Tokushu Bakugekiki [6-Shi (1931) Special Bomber] prototypes, the first carrier-based dive bomber design in Japan, crashes in a rural area, killing Nakajima test pilot Tsuneo Fujimaki. Observers reported that the pilot made several attempted recoveries but each time the nose pitched down to vertical. Impact is said have driven the airframe two metres into the ground. Further evaluation of the type is suspended. For security purposes, the term "dive-bomber" was not used, the design being described as a "special bomber".
• 16 December - During a routine practice flight, Capt. J. L. Grisham flying Fokker Y1O-27, 31-599, '2', of the 30th Bombardment Squadron, is unable to get the port main undercarriage leg to extend more than one-quarter down, makes emergency landing in San Diego Bay off of NAS San Diego, California. He and Sgt. Clarence J. King survive, aircraft salvaged, repaired and returned to service.

1933

• 8 January - Kawanishi H3K1 Navy Type 90-2 flying boat, the largest design in the Pacific at the time, crashes while alighting at night at Tateyama on a training flight, cause given as a slow-reading altimeter. Noted naval aviator Lt. Cmdr. Shinzo Shin killed, as are two more of nine crew.
• 3 April - United States Navy airship USS Akron, encounters severe weather and crashes into the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey. 73 passengers and crew, including Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, were killed. It did not have the Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks deployed aboard when it was lost. The new Naval Airship Station at Sunnyvale, California is named Moffett Field in honour of the lost admiral.
• 4 April - U.S. Navy airship J-3, A7382, sent out from NAS Lakehurst to search for USS Akron survivors, experiences engine failure, ditches in the surf of the New Jersey shore. Two crew lose their lives.
• 25 June - Boeing Y1B-9A, 32-307, '190', of the 49th Bomb Group, departs Logan Field, Baltimore, Maryland at 2020 hrs. on routine night training mission to Langley Field, Virginia, but experience difficulties at ~2200 hrs., attempts crash landing in the James River ~one mile from Rushmere Island. Bomber strikes water nose first, breaks in half, sinks, killing four crew including pilot 2nd Lt. Lewis Horvath and co-pilot H. W. Macklean. Joe Baugher cites crash date of 24 June.
• July - First prototype of two Mitsubishi 1MF10 Experimental 7-Shi carrier fighters, completed at the end of February 1933, crashes on test flight out of Kagamigahara due to structural failure of vertical fin. Mitsubishi test pilot Yoshitaka Kajima successfully bails out.
• 9 October - Prototype Martin XB-10, 33-157, assigned to Langley Field, Virginia, is lost when landing gear will not extend during routine flight, Lt. E.A. Hilary parachutes from bomber, which is destroyed with only 132 flight hours.
• 10 October - Fokker Y1O-27, 31-602, '3', of 30th Bombardment Squadron, Rockwell Field, California, en route from Burbank, California to Crissy Field, California, lands at Crissy with landing gear retracted. Both light and buzzer in cockpit that are supposed to activate when the throttles are retarded fail to function. Only serious damage is to the propellers but airframe is surveyed and dropped from inventory with 115 hours, 15 minutes flying time. Pilot 2nd Lt. Theodore B. Anderson uninjured.
• 19 October - Fokker Y1O-27, 31-601, '22', of the 32nd Bombardment Squadron, Rockwell Field, California, during ferry flight from Rockwell to Brooks Field, Texas, pilot Capt. Albert F. Hegenberger, on leg between Tucson, Arizona and Midland, Texas, loses Prestone coolant out of starboard engine, engine temperature rises so he shuts it down. Forced down five miles short of Midland Airport, pilot does not get the landing gear completely locked down, collapses on touch down. Aircraft repaired.
• 3 November - First fatal accident involving a Fokker YO-27 occurs when pilot Lt. Lloyd E. Hunting with Sgt. John J. Cunningham aboard, departs Olmsted Field, Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, in 31-589 of the 30th Bombardment Squadron at 6 p.m. after darkness had fallen. Pilot had apparently not observed a mountain ridge, 400 to 800 feet (120 to 240 m) high, one mile from the airfield, when he landed during the afternoon, and upon departure did not see it in the dark, crashing head-on into the ridge, aircraft burned, both crew KWF.

1934

• 16 February - Crash of Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-244, in bad weather at Oakley, Utah, kills two crew, 2nd Lt. Jean Donant Grenier and crewmate White, while flying an advance route to determine time and distance for carrying the mail between Salt Lake City and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Grenier Army Air Field, Massachusetts, later Grenier Air Force Base, is named in Lt. Grenier's honor on 22 February 1942.
• 15 April - While flying the U.S. Mail, 1st Lt. Arthur Lahman's engine on his Douglas O-38B, 31-435, '22', of Headquarters Command, Bolling Field, cuts out on approach to Newark, New Jersey, and crashes in a field. Pilot uninjured but airframe written off. Pilot name also reported spelt Arthur J. Lehman.
• 11 May - Sole prototype of U.S. Navy Douglas XO2D-1, BuNo 9412, noses over on water landing near NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., after starboard landing gear would not retract, nor support runway landing. Pilot survives. Aircraft salvaged, rebuilt, but no production contract let.
• June - Second prototype of two Mitsubishi 1MF10 Experimental 7-Shi carrier fighters, crashes when it enters irrecoverable flat spin. Test pilot Lt. Motoharu Okamura bails out, but loses four fingers in the accident, ending his career as a fighter pilot. As a Navy captain, he later commands the 341st (Tateyama) Kokutai for kamikaze attacks in June 1944.
• 14 June - United States Navy Curtiss XSBC-1, BuNo 9225, crashed at Lancaster, New York. Redesigned new-build airframe as XSBC-2 received same Navy serial.
• 27 July - First prototype Messerschmitt Bf 108A, D-LBUM, accepted by the Luftwaffe for competition flying, crashes, killing the pilot, a member of Erhard Milch's staff at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Ministry of Aviation).
• 3 September - Fokker Y1O-27, 31-599, of the 12th Observation Squadron, Brooks Field, Texas, crashes 5 miles W of Danville, Louisiana after starboard engine loses power. Pilot Cadet Neil M. Caldwell and passenger Pvt. Betz Baker die in crash and fire, passenger Pvt. Virgil K. Martin, riding in rear cockpit, survives with minor injuries. This aircraft has previously ditched in San Diego Bay, California on 16 December 1932.
• 3 October - Martin B-12A, 33-171, c/n 545, of the 11th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group, crashed into Inyo National Forest, California, 3 killed, one bailed out. Surveyed at March Field, California, 7 January 1935. This accident resulted in the grounding of all B-12s. Fault traced to wing and aileron flutter and a backlash developed by the props when the engine was shut down.
• 31 October - First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT suffers engine problems on flight test out of Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI), and pilot K. K. Popov makes gear-retracted forced landing of the twin-engine bomber at Moscow Central Airfield. Repairs will take until February 1935. It had made its first flight on 7 October.
• 5 November - Pioneer Air Service aviator Col. Horace Meek Hickam, (1885–1934), dies when his Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-250, strikes an obstruction during night landing practice on the unlighted field at Fort Crockett, Texas, overturns. Hickam Field, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, named for him 21 May 1935.
• 12 December - Fokker YO-27, 31-588, of the 12th Observation Squadron, Brooks Field, Texas, belly-lands at Brooks this date. Airframe surveyed and dropped from inventory, 7 March 1935, total flight time 296 hours.

1935

• 1935 - During training, Adolf Galland crashes in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44 biplane and is in a coma for three days, suffering serious skull fractures, a broken nose, and a partially blinded left eye from glass fragments. His commander, Major Rheitel, an aviator from the First World War, assists him during his recovery and getting back into flying.
• 12 February - The US Navy's last rigid airship, the USS Macon, loses its upper fin off Point Sur, California, sinks to the surface of the Pacific Ocean in a controlled crash, and is lost, although the inclusion of lifevests on board allows the saving of 81 of 83 crew. It takes with it the four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawks, BuNos. A-9058/9061 carried aboard for fleet scouting. The airship's remains lie unfound until 1990 when a fisherman brings up a girder. Wreck is subsequently found by manned Navy submersible Sea Cliff.

F9C Sparrowhawk BuNo 9058 in flight over Moffett Field, California in 1934. This aircraft was lost with the USS Macon. Pilot in this photo is Lt. Harold B. Miller, commander of the Heavier-Than-Air Unit.

• 22 March - Prototype Grumman XF3F-1, BuNo 9727 (1st), c/n 257, company model G.11, disintegrates when pulled sharply out of a terminal velocity dive, the tenth and final such test in six flights, killing pilot Jimmy Collins. G-forces in this dive estimated at 12-13, wrenching wings off, engine torn from mount. 9727 serial applied to three Grumman prototypes, two of which crashed.
• April - Yugoslavian Air Force Ikarus IK-1, high-wing monoplane fighter, first prototype crashes on third flight at Zemun airfield when it fails to recover from power dive, pilot Capt. Leonid Bajdak, parachuting to safety. Examination of wreck revealed that fabric covering of the port wing had failed due to negligence in sewing the seams. Second prototype ordered as IK-2, wings metal-skinned.
• 16 April - Flying Officer Clive Newton Edgerton takes off from Laverton in RAAF Westland Wapiti, A5-31, but after entering a steep dive from 15,000 feet is unable to recover. "The structure of the aircraft failed during the test flight and the aircraft crashed at Werribee." Witnesses reported that the wings failed and folded back along the fuselage. The lower starboard wing landed in a paddock 1½ miles from the fuselage. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee (AAIC) reported that "The tailplane actuating gear was in full forward position...the aircraft had five ballast weights in the tail...when there should have been six, and in addition another four in the passenger's cockpit, so that the aircraft was obviously tail light and nose heavy. Apparently the pilot had his tail actuating gear into the full forward, giving maximum lift to the tail to enable him to go into a dive." The speed of Edgerton's dive was so great that the blades of the airscrew were pulled from the boss by the centrifugal force.
• 17 May - Second of three Grumman XF3F-1 prototypes, BuNo 9727 (2nd), crashes on the first day it arrives at NAS Anacostia. Pilot Lee Gelbach is unable to recover from a flat spin which develops during a ten-turn right-hand spin demonstration - bails out safely. A third XF3F-1 prototype will be built, using some parts salvaged from second prototype, also with BuNo 9727 (3rd), but pilot Bill McAvoy will be luckier than his two fellow test pilots, and NOT have to evacuate the Flying Barrel during testing.
• 20 June - Douglas Y1O-35, 32-319, c/n 1119, of the 88th Observation Squadron, suffers loss of power on right engine during takeoff from Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California for flight to Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, at ~1000 hrs. Pilot, Cadet Tracy R. Walsh, manages to hop over soldiers breaking camp alongside runway but does not have sufficient flying speed. Airplane crashes through a tent, a fence, and into an automobile, demolishing itself, the vehicle, and killing three civilians in the car. Three crew on plane unhurt. O-35 surveyed and dropped from records at March Field, 15 October 1935.
• Circa July - Within three weeks of arriving at the Erprobungstelle at Rechlin, Germany for testing, both the Henschel Hs 123V1 and V2 (D-ILUA) prototype dive bombers crash after failing to pull out of terminal velocity dives when wing centre-sections fail, both pilots killed.

Crashed Model 299 at Wright Field, Ohio.

• 12 September - Prototype Gloster Gladiator, KS200, suffers bad landing at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, ending up on nose, starboard lower wingtip crushed. Repaired, it will survive until late 1942.
• 30 October - Prototype Boeing Model 299, NX13372, 'X13372', c/n 1963, the future B-17, crashes on take-off from Wright Field, Ohio, due to locked control surfaces, killing early military aviator and test pilot Maj. Ployer Peter Hill. Other engineers taken to hospital with injuries. Boeing test pilot and observer Les Tower died later. Ogden Air Depot, Utah, renamed Hill Field, (later Hill Air Force Base), on 1 December 1939. As the prototype was owned by Boeing, it had no USAAC serial.

1936

• 1936 - Adolf Galland is seriously injured in his second crash in a year, this time in an Arado Ar 68, ultimately losing all vision in his left eye, but returns to flying after memorizing the eye chart.
• 24 January - Prototype Junkers Ju 87 V1, Wrke Nr. 4921, fitted with a pair of vertical fins, suffers tail section oscillation during medium-angle test dive, loses starboard fin during attempted recovery, goes into inverted spin, crashes at Dessau, Germany. All subsequent Ju 87s have single fin tail unit. Pilot Willy Neuenhofen and his observer are killed.
• 2 March - During spin testing, the Heinkel He 112 V2 prototype crashes.
• 25 May - Maj. Hezekiah ("Hez") McClellan, (1894–1936), was killed while flight-testing Consolidated TPB-2A, 35-1, which crashed near Centerville, Ohio. Posthumously awarded the DFC, McClellan prepared early charts and records while pioneering Alaskan air routes. Sacramento Air Depot renamed McClellan Field on 1 December 1939.
• 3 June - In a crash that closely parallels the loss of the Boeing 299, General Walther Wever, Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, is killed at Dresden, Germany on take-off in a Heinkel He 70 when he fails to activate a lever in the cockpit that unlocks the control services. Wever, a supporter of four-engine long-range bomber design, had been developing a strategic bombing capability for the Luftwaffe, but following his death, Hermann Goering cancels these projects and the German Air Force never fields a viable strategic bomber.
• 17 July - French Bloch 150.01 fighter prototype suffers damage to tailwheel as it taxies from the hangar at Villacoublay to inaugurate its flight test program. Returned to the factory at Courbevoie for repairs which, inexplicably, take ten months to accomplish. Poor ground handling of design, as well as unsuitability for mass-production, forces total reworking of the type, the new version being designated the Bloch 151, and developmentally, the Bloch 152.
• 21 July - Northrop XFT-2, BuNo 9400, (XFT-1 modified with engine change and smaller fuel capacity), to NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C. in April 1936 for tests. Finding the design to be non-airworthy, the Navy orders that it be returned to Northrop. Ignoring instructions to ship it to Northrop's El Segundo factory, a test pilot attempts to fly the XFT-2 back to California, the aircraft entering a spin and crashing while crossing the Allegheny Mountains this date. Contract closed out in November 1936. Joe Baugher cites crash date of July 1937.
• 20 August - Prototype Vought XSB2U-1 Vindicator, BuNo 9725, accepted by the U.S. Navy on 2 July 1936, crashes this date.
• 7 November - Polish Lotnictwo Wojskowe PZL.30 Żubr ("Bison") prototype, a hideously ugly twin-engine bomber design modified from a transport rejected in favour of Douglas DC-2s by LOT, the Polish airline, disintegrates in mid-air when wing structure fails. First flown in March 1936, the uninspired composite design of metal, wood and fabric was the first twin-engined bomber of home design to leave the ground, powered by 680 hp (510 kW) P.Z.L. (Bristol) Pegasus radials, but only 16 Żubrs were completed, most relegated to training, none seeing combat. The Romanian Air Force had shown an interest in the Żubr prototype in 1936, and wanted to buy 24 planes. However, after the prototype crash over Michałowice with two Romanian officers onboard, they ordered the PZL.37 Łoś instead. (It should be noted, that the factory published a cover-up story, that the crash was caused by one of Romanians opening the door during flight).
• 7 December - First Y1B-17, 36-149, c/n 1973, first flown 2 December, makes rough landing at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, on third flight, when Army pilot Stanley Umstead touches down with locked brakes, airframe ends up on nose after short skid. Repaired, Flying Fortress departs for Wright Field on 11 January 1937.
• Post-21 December - Prototype Junker Ju 88V1, D-AQEN, first flown at Dessau, Germany on 21 December 1936, crashes after only a few test flights, but is ordered into production.

1937

• January 1 - Lt. Col. Frederick Irving Eglin (1891–1937), first rated as a military aviator in 1917 and helped train other flyers during World War I, is killed while assigned to General Headquarters, Air Force, Langley Field, Virginia, in the crash of his Northrop A-17 pursuit aircraft, 35-97, at Chesa Mountain, Alabama in bad weather during flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama. The Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base renamed Eglin Field 4 August 1937, later Eglin Air Force Base on 24 June 1948.
• May 19 - Prototype Sud-Est LeO H-47 flying boat sustains fatigue failure damage to hull bottom on take-off and, upon landing at Antibes at 19,000 kg (42,000 lb), took in water that displaced the centre of gravity, sinking the aircraft.
• Early July - Blohm & Voss Ha 137 V6 dive bomber, D-IDTE, destroyed in crash. No production contract awarded for the type.
• 23 July-1 August - During the International Flying Meet at Zurich, German ace Ernst Udet crash lands Bf 109V10, D-ISLU, a Bf 109B equipped with early production 950 hp (710 kW) Daimler Benz Db.600 engine, when it suffers power loss during Alps circuit race. Udet attempts to land, walks away from wrecked airframe.
• 18 August - Col. William Caldwell McChord, (1881–1937), rated a junior military aviator in 1918, was killed while trying to force-land his Northrop A-17, 35-105, near Maidens, Virginia. At the time of his death, he was Chief of the Training and Operations Division in HQ Army Air Corps. Tacoma Field, Washington, was renamed McChord Field, 17 December 1937.
• 19 September - Junkers EF 61 V1, first prototype of pressurized bomber, suffered control surface flutter, crashed at Dessau, Germany, killing both crew.
• 24 October - During engine start at an airfield on Saishuto Island (now Cheju Do) off of the southern coast of South Korea, a Hirosho G2H1 Navy Type 95 attack aircraft catches fire and soon explodes. Fire spreads to other G2Hs, armed with bombs, destroying four and damaging a fifth. Only eight G2H1s were built, six by Hirosho and two by Mitsubishi, the Imperial Japanese Navy deciding to standardize on the slightly smaller Mitsubishi G3M Navy Type 96 twin-engined land-based bomber, Allied codename "Nell".
• December - Having set a speed record of 504.988 km/h (313.78 mph) on 22 November 1937, only to have it eclipsed one week later by the Italian Breda Ba 88 at 525.1 km/h (326.3 mph), the Heinkel He 119 V4, D-AUTE, attempts a second run from Hamburg for an out-and-back trip to Stolp (now known as Slupsk). After reaching Stolp at an average speed of just under 595 km/h (370 mph), with a new record apparently in reach, the engine begins to misfire just after course reversal and the fuel gauges fall to zero. Crew feathers propeller and glides to forced landing at Travemünde airfield, but belatedly sees ditches dug across landing area for routine maintenance. Having committed to their approach, they can do nothing, and shear off the undercarriage on the ditches, airframe coming to rest alongside a pumping station with starboard wing torn off by the structure, pilot Gerhard Nitschke seriously injured, co-pilot Hans Dieterle less so. Cause was faulty fuel transfer switch. Following the first record run, Germany described aircraft as an "He 111U" bomber for propaganda purposes, and as the "He 606" to the FAI, an obfuscation that only becomes clear to the Allies after World War II.
• December - Junkers EF 61 V2, second prototype of pressurized bomber, crashes at Dessau, Germany, before high-altitude trials can be conducted. Program is abandoned.
• 11 December - Consolidated PB-2A, 35-50, crashes at Langley Field, Virginia, killing Army Air Corps Major Alfred J. Waller, a distinguished World War I combat pilot. Waller Army Airfield, activated in Trinidad on 1 September 1941, (later Waller Air Force Base), is named in his honor.

1938

• 6 February - Junkers Ju 90 V1, D-AALU, "Der Grosse Dessauer", combination of wings, engines, undercarriage and tail assembly of Junkers Ju 89 V3, Werknummer 4913, mated to a new transport fuselage, broke up in flight while undergoing flutter tests out of Dessau, Germany.
• April - Prototype of the Belgian Renard R-35, one of the first pressurized transports in the world, designed by Albert Renard, crashes on its first take-off, killing Renard chief test pilot George Van Damme.
• 4 April - Les Ateliers de Constructions Aéronautiques Belges LACAB GR.8, dubbed unofficially the Doryphore by its pilots, "a singularly ugly multi-rôle combat aircraft intended for long-range bombing, and reconnaissance missions, and also as a heavy fighter," crashes during landing, writing off the undercarriage, both starboard wings, and suffering damage to the aft fuselage. The two-bay unequal-span staggered biplane of mixed construction, powered by two Gnôme-Rhône 14Kdrs radial engines, had first flown 14 May 1936, and was taken over by Belgium's Aéronautique Militaire on 2 June 1936 for testing and evaluation. Surprisingly, SABCA was contracted to repair the airframe, although no further testing appears to have been done. The airframe was found in a hangar at Evere in May 1940 by German troops who subsequently scrapped it.
• 14 May - First prototype Focke Wulf Fw 187 V1, D-AANA, crashes at Bremen, Germany, when test pilot Bauer, having completed test series, makes high-speed run across airfield, pulls up too sharply, stalls, spins in next to the control tower.
• 24 July - In the airfield Mars in Santa Ana, Usaquén, Colombia, during an airshow, a F11C Goshawk crashed into the audience and killed 75 people.
• 21 September - USAAC Chief Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover is killed in crash of Northrop A-17AS, 36-349, c/n 289, '1', out of Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., in a crosswind short of the runway at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, California, now known as Bob Hope Airport. The single-engined attack design used as a high-speed staff transport, crashed into a house at 1007 Scott Road in Burbank. Also KWF is his mechanic S/Sgt Samuel Hymes. Another source identifies him as Sgt. Samuel Hyne. Northeast Air Base, Massachusetts, renamed Westover Field on 1 December 1939, later Westover AFB on 13 January 1948.
• 22 September - RAF De Havilland DH. 93 Don, L2391, of the A&AEE, crashes while landing at RAF Martlesham Heath. An overheating engine cuts out on approach and aircraft overshoots, demolishing airframe.
• 5 October - Blohm & Voss BV 141 V3 asymmetric reconnaissance design, D-OLGA, plagued with hydraulic problems, makes forced landing in ploughed field with mainwheel undercarriage legs only partly extended, suffers extensive damage to starboard wing.
• November - First prototype Dornier Do 217V1, first flown 4 October 1938, crashes one month into test programme, killing both crew members.
• 8 November - Col. Leslie MacDill, commissioned in the Coast Artillery in 1912, became a military pilot in 1914, and commanded an aerial gunnery school in St. Jean de Monte, France in World War I, is killed this date in the crash of his North American BC-1, 37-670, at Anacostia, D.C. after take-off from Bolling Field. Southeast Air Base, Tampa, Florida, is renamed MacDill Field on 1 December 1939.
• Post-November: First prototype Dewoitine D.520 fighter, tested from November 1938, is written off when pilot neglects to lower undercarriage.
• 8 December - Fourth prototype Arado Ar 196 V4, D-OVMB, the second Ar 196B, with a single main float and two outrigger floats, suffers failure of engine mounts during taxi testing at Travemünde for seaworthiness trials. Engine drops down towards centreline float, fire breaks out, crew of two with Helmut Schuster at the controls goes over the side to avoid flames. This test sealed the fate of the center float Ar 196.

1939

• Bf 109V17, D-IWKU, prototype of the Bf 109E-3, crashes during test flight.
• 17 January - Prototype Belgian Renard R-36 fighter, OO-ARW, crashes near Nivelles, killing pilot Lt. Visconte Eric de Spoelberg. Official investigation is inconclusive, no evidence of material failure being discovered. Most probable causes are concluded to be either that radio equipment came loose during a high-G manoeuver, jamming the controls, or that the pilot became incapacitated. Development programme suspended after this accident. Airframe had accumulated 75:30 hours flight time.
• 19 January - Yugoslav Rogožarski IK-3 prototype, piloted by Capt. Pokorni, fails to recover from terminal velocity dive out of Zemun airfield, destroying airframe. Subsequent investigation exonerates the design and production order for twelve placed.
• 23 January - Sole prototype Douglas 7B twin-engine attack bomber, designed and built as a company project, suffers loss of vertical fin and rudder during demonstration flight over Mines Field (now Los Angeles International Airport, California), flat spins into parking lot of North American Aviation, burns. Douglas test pilot Johnny Cable bails out at 300 feet, chute unfurls but does not have time to deploy, killed on impact, flight engineer John Parks rides airframe in and dies, but 33-year old French Air Force Capt. Paul Chemidlin, riding in aft fuselage near top turret, survives with broken leg, severe back injuries, slight concussion. Presence of Frenchman, a representative of foreign purchasing mission, causes furor in Congress by isolationists over neutrality and export laws. Type will be developed as Douglas DB-7.
• 11 February: After cross-country speed flight, Lockheed XP-38 Lightning prototype, 37-457, c/n 022-2201, crashlands on Cold Stream Golf Course on approach to Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York when engines fail due to icing. Pilot Ben Kelsey survives. Attempts by authorities to shield "secret" design from local photographers fail miserably.
• 11 April - The North American NA-40B, NX14221, is destroyed in a crash during USAAC testing at Wright Field, Ohio, when it loses one engine and spins into the ground. Crew escapes. The type is revised into the Model NA-62 and is ordered into production as the B-25 Mitchell.
• 29 April - An attempted Great Circle Route long-distance flight by Red Air Force crew V.K. Kokkinaki, pilot, and Mikhail Gordienko, navigator/radio operator, from Tchelkovo Airport near Moscow to New York City, in Ilyushin TsKB-30 prototype twin-engined bomber, "Moskva", ends in crash-landing on Miscou Island off New Brunswick, Canada, after battling head winds and bad weather, as well as bitter cold, having achieved 4,970 miles in 22 hours, 56 minutes. Crew is uninjured in wheels-up landing, and receives hero's welcome in New York City.
• 14 May - Following first flight of the prototype Short S.29 Stirling four-engine bomber, L7600, out of Rochester, Kent, one of the brakes locks, causing it to slew off the runway and collapse the undercarriage, airframe damaged beyond repair.
• 25 May - Sole Grumman XSBF-1, BuNo. 9996, (the XSF-2 airframe modified with a triangular frame beneath the engine mounting to carry one 500 lb (227 kg) or two 100 lb (45 kg) bombs, flown 18 February 1936), crash lands near Leonardtown, Maryland, killing one crew.
• 15 August - Thirteen Junkers Ju 87s of the Stukageschwader 76 crash during an demonstration on training area Neuhammer (now Świętoszów, Poland). All 26 crew members were killed.
• 1 September - Second prototype Saro S.36 Lerwick twin-engine flying boat, L7249, sinks at pierside mooring at Felixstowe, Suffolk, when, after flight test at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE), a hatch is left improperly secured; attempt by crew to save it fails as it had already shipped too much water - salvaged for static tests only.
• 4 September - Supermarine Type 300, F.37/34, the prototype Spitfire, K5054, is wrecked when Flt. Lt. "Spinner" White misjudges his landing approach at Farnborough, bouncing several times before fighter noses over onto its back. Pilot dies in hospital four days later. Spitfire is not repaired.
• Post 31 October - Focke-Wulf Fw 190 V2, first armed prototype, first flown 31 October, suffers crankshaft failure of BMW-139 engine after only 50 hours of test flying, crashes at Rechlin, Germany.
• Circa 30 November - On second test flight of first Bell Aircraft Corporation YFM-1 Airacuda, 38-486, disaster narrowly avoided when supercharger turbine buckets on starboard engine disintegrate, throwing shrapnel through fuselage, resulting in considerable damage. Pilot shuts down engine and lands safely at Bell plant, Buffalo, New York, using only port powerplant.
• 10 December - Second production Sud-Est LeO H-470 flying boat written off when pilot alighted in error in shallow water on Lake Urbino, Corsica, airframe too badly damaged to permit repairs.

1940

• 6 January - XP-39B Airacobra, 38-326, modified from prototype XP-39, on test flight out of Buffalo, New York, suffers failure of main gear legs to retract fully, stopping 18 inches short of flush stowage. Pilot, Wright Field P-39 project officer George Price, saves prototype with deft belly-landing, damage mostly limited to the propeller.
• 3 February - US Army Air Corps Chief of Staff Gen. Henry H. Arnold's personal staff transport, Northrop A-17AS, 36-350, c/n 290, 3-seat command transport, written off in accident this date.
• 3 February - RAF pilot Peter Townsend, flying a Hawker Hurricane of 43 Squadron, downs Heinkel He 111, Werke Nummer 3232, of KG 26, piloted by Hermann Wilms, which crashlands near Bannial Flat farm, Whitby, the first German aircraft downed on English soil since a Gotha bomber at Harrietsham, Kent, on 18 May 1918. (Previous German aircraft had been downed during World War II, but in Scotland.) Luftwaffe observer Peter Leushake on the He 111 killed by gunnery, gunner and flight engineer Johann Meyer, gunner Unteroffizier Karl Missy both wounded.
• 20 February - First fatal accident involving a Saro Lerwick flying boat occurs when Flt. Sgt. Corby attempts landing of L7253 of 209 Squadron off Lismore Island near Oban in poor visibility. Aircraft stalls, bounces on water several times, starboard wingtip float breaks off, airframe capsizes. Water pours into hull through open windows, pilot Corby drowns but body recovered, three crew missing, two survive. Salvaged, becomes instructional airframe, later sinks in gale at Wig Bay.
• 11 March - Second prototype 12Si carrier-borne naval fighter, built by the Nagoya Aircraft Works of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, equipped with a Mitsubishi Zusei 13 engine, disintegrates at ~1030 hrs. during dive test out of Oppama Airfield, Japan. Pilot Masumi Okuyama of the flight test division of the Aeronautical Establishment is seen to deploy his chute, but then, inexplicably, releases harness and is killed by fall from height of 300 meters. Crash is determined to have been caused by tail flutter due to missing mass balance weight on elevator. The new design enters service named after the end of the year Kigen 2600 as the type Rei (Zero) carrier-borne fighter Model 11.
• 5 April - Prototype Sud-Est SE 100-01 crashes at Marignane France returning from test flight. Approaching field, gear down, flaps up, it is seen to execute a flat turn at 1000 feet (300 m), sink abruptly and crash. Unprotected fuel tanks in fuselage belly rupture, pilot Rouland and his mechanic perish in fire. Starboard propeller pitch mechanism inadvertently went into reverse on power increase causing loss of control.
• 7 April - Blackburn B-20, experimental flying-boat with retractable lower-hull, lost after suffering severe aileron flutter - 3 crew killed, 2 rescued.
• 11 April - The XF4F-2 Wildcat prototype, BuNo 0383, c/n 356, suffers engine failure during test flight out of NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., force lands causing considerable damage. Aircraft grounded for several weeks for repairs.
• 27 April - Prototype Yakovlev I-26, first of what became the Yak-1 fighter, crashes, killing pilot.
• 9 May - First prototype Hawker Tornado, P5219, suffers a failure in the monocoque structure just forward of the cockpit while in flight. Test pilot Philip G. Lucas manages to land damaged fighter safely, is awarded the George Medal. Airframe repaired, flying again a month later.
• 1 June - First Douglas R3D-1 for the U.S. Navy, BuNo 1901, c/n 606, crashes at Mines Field, Los Angeles, California before delivery. The Navy later acquires a privately-owned DC-5 as a replacement.
• June - Seventh (of 13 ordered) Bell Aircraft Corporation YFM-1 Airacuda, 38-492, crash lands in farmer's field at East Aurora, New York, before acceptance by U.S. Army Air Corps when aircraft will not recover from spin, rudder locks, pilot cuts power prior to bail-out. After Bell test pilot Brian Sparks departs airframe, suffering severe injuries (two broken legs) when he strikes vertical fin and horizontal stabilizer, fellow Bell pilot John Strickler regains rudder control, dead-sticks the pusher twin into field ~15 SE of Buffalo. Sparks parachutes down, Strickler uninjured, airframe written-off.
• 29 June - RAF 209 Squadron loses second Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7261, when Flg. Off. Pain returns to Oban from escort mission due to severe weather. While taxying cross wind to the moorings, the starboard float breaks loose, flying boat capsizes, sinking within 30 minutes in Ardantrive Bay. Airframe is beached four days later and salvage operations begin, but L7261 never flies again.
• 9 July - During shakedown cruise of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), one of her Vought SB2U-2 Vindicators crashes two miles (3 km) from the ship. Wasp goes to flank speed to close, as does the plane-guarding destroyer USS Morris. The latter's boats recover items from the plane's baggage compartment, but the plane sinks with its two crew.
• 11 July - On its fifth test flight, the prototype Vought XF4U-1 Corsair, BuNo 1443, runs low on fuel, Vought test pilot Boone Guyton attempts landing on rain-slicked fairway of the Norwich, Connecticut golf course, crashes into woods, flips over, slides into tree stump, comes to rest in ravine with wing and empennage torn off, propeller damage, but pilot unhurt. Vought rebuilds wreck to airborne condition in two months.
• 6 August - XP-39B Airacobra, 38-326, suffers second landing accident when pilot Capt. Ernest Warburton, chief of the Wright Field test unit, on his third landing attempt, pulls back power as he approaches Wright Field, Ohio, at ~106 mph, stalls, and hits ground harder than intended. "The wing structure yielded where the main gear attached, damaging the wing and integral fuel tanks. Damage proved more substantial than first thought. As it turned out, this was the last flight of the XP-39B. Paper work was submitted to survey the airframe 11 days later and final approval was received 27 December 1940. (Air Corps record card for XP-39B, serial number 38-326.) The prototype Airacobra was scrapped."
• 13 August - Three members of the Australian cabinet, the Chief of the Australian Army's General Staff and six other passengers and aircrew were killed when the Lockheed Hudson they were travelling in crashed near Canberra.
• 29 August - A Grumman F3F-2 ditches off the coast of San Diego while attempting a landing on the USS Saratoga (CV-3). The fighter is rediscovered by a navy submarine in June 1988, and recovered on 5 April 1991. It was restored at the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
• 5 September - Flugkapitän Fritz Wendel, Messerschmitt's chief test pilot, performing series of diving trials on Me 210 V2, Werknummer 0002, WL-ABEO, loses starboard tailplane in final dive, bails out, twin-engined fighter crashing at Siebentíschwald, Germany. This was the first of many losses of the type.
• 13 September - Friday the 13th flight of Fairey Battle, L5343, of 98 Squadron, first RAF aircraft to deploy to Iceland on 27 August 1940, on inspection flight from Kaldadarnes, Iceland to Akureyri, Iceland, comes to unexpected end when engine quits over remote area, wheels down emergency landing results in gear collapse, but pilot Fg. Off. "Willie" Wilcox and passenger Lt. Col. H. Davies of the Royal Engineers okay. Airframe is finally retrieved in 1972, restored, and is now displayed at the RAF Museum at Hendon, UK.
• 20 September - Svenske Flygvapnet (Swedish Air Force) Seversky 2-PA Guardsman B6, 7203, '16', of Flotilla 6 (F6), written off during landing at Karlsborg at 1025 hrs. by neophyte pilot who attempts go-around, but only lifts nose without applying power, stalls. Pilot G.B.H. Lindstrom killed, flight cadet A.G. Nystrom in backseat severely injured. Aircraft stricken 22 October 1940.
• 18 October - First Bell YP-39 Airacobra, 40-027, crashes near Buffalo, New York on eighth flight when only one main landing gear extends. Bell test pilot Bob Stanley bails out at 7,000 feet rather than try a wheels-up landing, suffering only minor injuries when he lands in a tree. Examination of the wreckage shows that universal joints attached to the torque tubes driving the main gear struts had failed, as had limit switches placed in the retraction mechanism to shut off the electrical motors.
• 19 November - First Republic YP-43 Lancer, 39-704, caught fire in air over Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, pilot bailed out.
• 20 November - Prototype NA-73X Mustang, NX19998, first flown 26 October 1940 by test pilot Vance Breese, crashes this date. According to P-51 designer Edgar Schmued, the NA-73 was lost because test pilot Paul Balfour refused, before a high-speed test run, to go through the takeoff and flight test procedure with Schmued while the aircraft was on the ground, claiming "one airplane was like another." After making two high speed passes over Mines Field, he forgot to put the fuel valve on "reserve" and during third pass ran out of fuel. Emergency landing in a freshly plowed field caused wheels to dig in, aircraft flipped over, airframe was not rebuilt, the second aircraft being used for subsequent testing.
• 21 November - Saro Lerwick, L7251, of RAF 209 Squadron, is caught in a gale while moored on Loch Ryan, entrance hatches and front turret apparently not properly secured allow water to pour in, flying boat sinks.
• 6 December - Saro Lerwick, L7255, of RAF 209 Squadron, moored at Stranraer, is caught in a gale, one wingtip float breaks off, flying boat capsizes, sinks.
• 16 December - The XF4F-3 Wildcat prototype, BuNo 0383, c/n 356, modified from XF4F-2, is lost under circumstances that suggested that the pilot may have been confused by poor lay-out of fuel valves and flap controls and inadvertently turned the fuel valve to "off" immediately after takeoff rather than selecting flaps "up". This was the first fatality in the type.
• 18 December - Boeing Y1B-17 Flying Fortress, 36-157, c/n 1981, of the 2nd Bomb Group, Langley Field, Virginia, crashed E of San Jacinto, California, en route to March Field, California.

1941

• Sole Kellett XR-2, 37-378, modified from a Kellett YG-1C gyrocopter, is destroyed in ground test by rotor-ground resonance problem - never flew. Funding transferred to Kellett XR-3.
• 5 January - Renowned aviatrix Amy Johnson takes off from an overnight stopover at Squire's Gate, Blackpool in Airspeed Oxford V3540 on an ATA delivery flight from RAF Prestwick, Scotland to RAF Kidlington, in Oxfordshire. The weather is foggy and foul, and, ATA crews flying without radio, Johnson becomes lost. When next seen more than three hours later over the Thames Estuary, Johnson is parachuting into the water, where the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Hazlemere spotting her descent hurries to pick her up. By the time the vessel reaches Johnson she is exhausted and unable to grab the line thrown to her. An officer from the destroyer, Lt Cmdr Walter Fletcher, dives into the sea to help, but numbed by the cold Johnson sinks beneath the surface. Johnson's body is never recovered. Fletcher succumbs to the cold and also dies. Johnson had made headlines in 1930 when she had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
• 7 January - Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7262, of No. 209 Squadron RAF is lost when pilot Flt. Lt. Spotswood is unable to take off near Stranraer, Scotland. After a long take off run, the hull strikes a floating obstacle and rapidly takes on water, sinks. Two crew are trapped and drown.
• 29 January - Brewster F2A-2 Buffalo of VF-2, assigned to the USS Lexington, is lost prior to embarkation when a squadron pilot engaged in dive-bombing practice out of Pearl Harbor, H.I., loses both ailerons during 6G pull-out from what was claimed to be a 400 mph (643 km/hr) 45-degree angle dive. With little control remaining, pilot successfully bails out.
• Post-January - Prototype Tupolev ANT-58, also known as samolet ("aircraft") 103, first of what became the Tupolev Tu-2, crashes after uncontrollable fire in problematic starboard Mikulin AM-37 engine. Pilot Mikhail A. Nyutikov and observer A. Akopyan bail out, but Akopyan's parachute lines entangle in tail structure and he is killed.
• 4 February - Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle prototype, P1360, written off in crash landing on test flight out of RAF Boscombe Down when six-foot square panel is lost from port wing surface. Norman Sharp bails out successfully, but John Hayhurst's parachute entangles with tail structure and he releases his chute just before touchdown on a flat ridge on top of a quarry SE of Crewkerne, Somerset, landing at ~150 mph in snow and bushes, surviving with serious injuries. Pilot Brian Huxtable survives crash landing.g
• 5 February - Focke Achgelis Fa 223 V1 crashes when right rotor pylon breaks off in flight. Test pilot Carl Bode (25 February 1911 - 16 November 2002) successfully parachutes from the stricken helicopter (quite possibly the first helicopter parachute attempt ever), but passenger Dr. Ing. Heinz Baer is killed in the crash.
• 6 February - B-17B Flying Fortress, 38-216, c/n 2009 , crashes near Lovelock, Nevada while en route to Wright Field, Ohio, killing all eight on board. Pilot Capt. Richard S. Freeman had shared the 1939 MacKay Trophy for the Boeing B-15 flight from Langley Field, Virginia via Panama and Lima, Peru at the request of the American Red Cross, for delivering urgently needed vaccines and other medical supplies in areas of Chile devastated by an earthquake. General Order Number 10, dated 3 March 1943, announces that the advanced flying school being constructed near Seymour, Indiana is to be named Freeman Field in honor of the Hoosier native.
• 22 February - Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7263, of 209 Squadron, piloted by Plt. Off. Fyfe, goes missing. Extensive air and sea searches turn up no trace, nor any of 14 on board, including Wing Commander Bainbridge. A new C.O., Wing Commander MacDermott, is appointed a few days later.
• 24 March - Final Saro Lerwick flying boat loss for 209 Squadron before transition to Consolidated Catalina IIs and IIIs occurs this date when L7252 strikes a powerful wave in bad sea conditions whilst landing at Pembroke Dock, throwing aircraft up, sinks rapidly, but all crew escapes. Other Lerwicks are transferred to 4 OTU for training purposes.
• 16 April - Lt. j.g. Yasushi Nikaido, fighter squadron leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Kaga, survives close call when Mitsubishi Zero, number 140, loses both port and starboard ailerons as well as part of the upper wing surface while performing dive of 550 kph at 2,300 rpm, but pilot makes skillful emergency landing at Kisarazu Air Field. Accident is reported to Naval Aeronautical Headquarters, the Naval Aeronautical Technical Establishment, and the Yokosuka Air Corps.
• 17 April - During dive tests to determine why wrinkles are appearing on the surface plates of the wings, Lt. Manbei Shimokawa, squadron leader at Yokosuka Naval Air Corps, is killed in Mitsubishi Zero Model 21, number 135, equipped with balance tabs, when, during pull-out at 1,500 meters from dive from 4,000 meters, parts are seen by ground observers to depart from the port wing, fighter drops nose, plunges into ten fathoms of water off Natsu Island. Pilot found in recovered wreckage with head injuries from striking instrument panel on impact. Aeronautical Technical Establishment investigation reveals that flutter and vibration tests had not simulated the stiffness distribution of actual airframes and that the ailerons and horizontal stabilizers had been torn out. Fighter had previously been assigned to the carrier Akagi.

Wreckage of Hess' Bf 110D, Bonnyton Moor, Scotland

• 10 May - At 2305 hrs. Messerschmitt Bf 110D, Werknr 3868, 'VJ+OQ', appears over Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. Pilot bails out and when challenged by David McLean, Head Ploughman of a local farm, as to whether he is German, the man replies in good English; "Yes, I am Hauptmann Alfred Horn. I have an important message for the Duke of Hamilton". Horn is taken to McLean's cottage where McLean's wife makes a pot of tea, but the German requests only a glass of water. Horn has hurt his back and help is summoned. Local Home Guard soldiers arrive and Horn is taken to their headquarters at the Drill Hall, Busby, near Glasgow. Upon questioning by a visiting Royal Observer Corps officer, Major Graham Donald, Horn repeats his request to see the Duke. Donald recognises "Hauptmann Horn" to be none other than Rudolph Hess. The remains of Hess' Messerschmitt Bf 110 are now in the Imperial War Museum.
• 14 May - Grumman XP-50 Skyrocket, 40-3057, crashed into Long Island Sound during first test flight when the starboard turbo-supercharger exploded. Pilot Bob Hall bailed out. Built as a company project, it was allocated a USAAF serial, but was destroyed before being taken on charge.
• Early summer - Junkers Ju 288 V4, D-AACS, during one of its first test flights out of Dessau, Germany, fire starts in port BMW 801MA radial engine nacelle during landing approach at Dessau, burns so fiercely that it cuts through the main longerons, virtually severing the forward fuselage from the center fuselage. Despite severe damage, airframe is rebuilt and resumes flight test programme in late November.
• 16 June - USAAF Douglas O-38F, 33-324, c/n 1177, first aircraft to land at Ladd Field, Alaska, in October 1940, this aircraft flew various missions until it crashed on 16 June 1941, due to engine failure about 70 miles SE of Fairbanks. Uninjured, the pilot, Lt. Milton H. Ashkins, and his mechanic, Sgt. R.A. Roberts, hiked to safety after supplies were dropped to them. The abandoned aircraft remained in the Alaskan wilderness until the National Museum of the United States Air Force arranged for its recovery by helicopter in June 1968. Despite being exposed to the Alaskan weather for 27 years, the aircraft remained in remarkable condition. Only the wings required extensive restoration.
• 21 June - Lieutant Colonel Elmer D. Perrin, a native Texan, is killed in a crash during an acceptance test of a B-26 Marauder bomber near the Glenn L. Martin aircraft plant near Baltimore, Maryland. In January 1942, Grayson Basic Flying School, Grayson County, Texas, is renamed Perrin Field in his honor, later Perrin Air Force Base.
• 22 June - Royal Air Force Boeing Fortress I, AN522, of No. 90 Squadron, RAF Great Massingham, flown by F/O J. C. Hawley, breaks up in mid-air over Yorkshire during a training flight. Single survivor, a medical officer from RAE Farnborough, reports that the bomber entered a cumulo-nimbus cloud at 33,000 feet (10,100 m), became heavily iced-up with hailstones entering through open gunports, after which control was lost, the port wing detached, and the fuselage broke in two at 25,000 feet (7,600 m). Survivor, who was in the aft fuselage, was able to bail out at 12,000 feet (3,700 m).
• 29 June - Curtiss XSO2C-1 Seagull, BuNo 0950, crashed at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C.. To mechanics school at NAS Jacksonville, Florida.
• 3 July - Royal Air Force Boeing Fortress I, AN528, of No. 90 Squadron, RAF Polebrook, is destroyed when a troublesome engine catches fire during a late-night ground run.
• 7 August - Bruno Mussolini, the son of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and commander of the 274th squadron, was piloting one of the prototypes of the "secret" Piaggio P.108B bomber. He flew too low and crashed into a house. The cockpit section separated from the rest of the aircraft and although the aircraft did not catch fire, it was nevertheless totally destroyed in the impact. Mussolini died of his injuries.
• 27 August - Four Boulton Paul Defiants of 256 Squadron on practise formation flight, on NE heading a little W of Blackpool at 2,000 feet, break formation - right into a trio of Blackburn Bothas of 3 School of General Reconnaissance, flying NW at 1,500 feet. First two Defiants avoid Bothas, but third off the break, N1745, 'J-TP', strikes one Botha, L6509, cutting it in two, and losing one of its own wings. Botha comes down on ticket office of the Central Railway Station, setting large petrol-fed fire. Defiant impacts on private home at No. 97 Reads Avenue. Thirteen killed outright, including all four aircrew, 39 others injured. Of 17 detained in hospital, five later died. All civilian casualties were visitors to the seaside resort, except for one occupant of the house on Reads Avenue. This accident caused more casualties than all the enemy air raids on Blackpool and Fylde during the entire war.
• 14 October - First accident involving Saro Lerwick flying boat assigned to No. 4 OTU occurs when L7268 dives into the sea near Tarbat Ness following failure of the port engine. Type could not maintain altitude on single powerplant. Six crew killed, three recovered alive.
• 21 October - First prototype Saro Lerwick, L7248, on strength with the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, crashes into hill at Faslane, probably as a result of engine failure, seven crew killed.
• 2 November - Wisconsin-native Lieutenant Thomas L. Truax is killed, along with his wingman, Lt. Speckman, in a P-40 training accident during poor weather in San Anselmo, California. Madison Army Air Field, Wisconsin, is named Truax Field in his honor in 1942.
• 4 November - Tail section of YP-38 Lightning, 39-689, separates in flight over Glendale, California, Lightning crashes inverted on house at 1147 Elm Street, killing Lockheed test pilot Ralph Virden. Home owner survives, indeed, sleeps right through the crash.
• 11 November - Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7257, of No. 4 OTU, sinks at mooring, Invergordon, when caught in a gale.
• 19 November - North American P-64, 41-19086, assigned to Luke Field, Arizona, crashes and burns.
• 26 November - Japanese A6M2 Zero, c/n 3372, coded 'V-172', of the 22nd Air Flotilla Fighter Unit, forced-lands on a beach at Leichou Pantao, China, as lost flight of two runs low on fuel. Discovered mostly intact, dismantled and shipped to United States for testing, this was the first of the type to fall into Allied hands. Later test-flown at Eglin Field, then put on tour as war bond exhibit. Disposition unknown following end of hostilities.
• 28 November - First prototype Grumman XTBF-1 Avenger, BuNo 2539, suffers fire in bomb bay during test flight out of Long Island, New York factory airfield, forcing pilot Hobart Cook and engineer Gordon Israel to bail out. (Joe Mizrahi source cites date of accident as 28 August 1941.)
• 11 December - American John Gillespie Magee, Jr., serving with newly formed No 412 (Fighter) Squadron, RCAF, activated at RAF Digby, England, on 30 June 1941, is killed at the age of 19 whilst flying Spitfire, AD291, 'VZ-H', in a mid-air collision with an Airspeed Oxford trainer from RAF Cranwell, flown by Leading Aircraftman Ernest Aubrey. The aircraft collided in cloud cover at about 400 feet AGL, at 1130 hrs. over the village of Roxholm which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in Lincolnshire. Magee was descending at the time. At the inquiry afterwards a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggling to push back the canopy. The pilot stood up to jump from the plane but was too close to the ground for his parachute to open, and died on impact. Magee is buried at Holy Cross, Scopwick Cemetery in Lincolnshire, England. On his grave are inscribed the first and last lines from his poem High Flight.
• 12 December - Major General Herbert A. Dargue, the first recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, en route to Hawaii to assume command of the Hawaiian Department from Lieutenant General Walter Short, is killed when his B-18 Bolo, 36-306, of the 31st ABG, crashes in the Sierra Mountains, S of Bishop, California, in worsening weather conditions. Wreckage not found until March 1942. (Joe Baugher cites discovery date of 5 July 1942.) Besides the general, seven are KWF including his staff, and crew chiefs, critically needed in the Pacific.
• 21 December - Curtiss XSB2C-1 Helldiver, BuNo 1758, destroyed after suffering inflight wing failure. Pilot Baron T. Hulse bails out. Airframe had previously crashed on 8 February 1941 due to engine failure during approach. Sustained damage to fuselage but was repaired.
• 21 December - RAF No. 4 Operational Training Unit (OTU) loses third Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7265, when Flg. Off. Armstrong hits water hard near Invergordon whilst practising landings, wing distortion leads to total loss of control, all crew escape.

1942

• January - Lt. Ivan Chisov of the Red Air Force survives miraculous fall from 22,000 feet without a parachute after departing a heavily damaged Ilyushin Il-4 twin-engined medium bomber. After achieving a terminal velocity of about 150 mph, he is decelerated when he hits the lip of a snow-covered ravine, sliding down with decreasing speed until he stops at the bottom, suffering a broken pelvis and severe spinal injuries.
• 13 January - Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat after the control surfaces of the first prototype He 280 V1, DL+AS, ice up and become inoperable. The fighter, being used in tests of the Argus As 014 impulse jets for Fieseler Fi 103 missile development, had its regular HeS 8A turbojets removed, and was towed aloft from Rechlin, Germany by a pair of Bf 110C tugs in a heavy snow-shower. At 7,875 feet, Schenk found he had no control, jettisoned his towline, and ejected.
• 14 January - A Douglas B-18A Bolo bomber, 37-619, of the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, returning from submarine patrol duties went off course due to high winds, darkness and poor radio contact. Instead of landing at Westover Field, later Westover AFB, in Massachusetts they crashed into Mount Waternomee in New Hampshire's White Mountains. 5 of the 7 crew members survived.
• 8 February - Prototype XSB2C Helldiver, BuNo 1758, suffers engine failure just prior to landing and fuselage is heavily damaged. Repaired.
• 23 March - B-25B Mitchell, 40-2291, piloted by 1st Lt. James P. Bates, crashes on take-off from Auxiliary Field No. 3, Eglin Field, Florida, during training for the planned Doolittle Raid on Japan. This aircraft did not participate in the mission. Bates deployed with the Raiders aboard the USS Hornet but did not fly the mission.
• 25 March - Test pilot Fritz Wendel takes Me 262V1, PC+UA, on its first jet-powered flight but experimental BMW 003 gas turbine engines both fail and he has to limp the prototype airframe back to Augsburg on the nose-mounted Jumo 210 piston engine installed for initial airframe testing.
• 26 March - The first XP-39E Airacobra (of three), 41-19501, with lengthened fuselage to accommodate the Allison V-1710-E9 engine, and used for determining handling qualities, armament tests, and maneuvers, crashes on its 36th test flight during a spin test out of Wright Field, Ohio.
• 26 March - The fifth P-47B Thunderbolt, 41-5899, is lost when pilot George Burrell is forced to bail out after fabric-covered tail surfaces balloon and rupture. Future P-47s have enlarged all-metal surfaces.
• 3 April - The 303rd Bomb Group, activated at Pendleton Field, Oregon, on 3 February 1942, suffers its first fatal aircraft accident when three flying officers and five enlisted crew are killed in the crash of a B-17E Flying Fortress, 41-9053, six miles N of Strevell, Idaho during a training mission.
• 23 April - US Navy SB2U Vindicator of VS-71, assigned to the USS Wasp, but flown ashore to clear deckspace for Spitfires bound for Malta, crashes in peat bog near Invergordon, Great Britain, killing Ens. Jackson and Aviation Machinist's Mate Atchison. Atchison's body recovered, but squadron diary records that Jackson's body and bulk of airframe were buried too deeply, so remains and wreckage were covered over.
• 29 April - A Curtiss P-40 of the 49th Fighter Group, piloted by Lt. Bob Hazard, taking off as second of two P-40s from Twenty-Seven Mile Field, SE of Darwin, Australia, loses directional control in propwash of lead fighter, strikes recently-arrived Lockheed C-40 parked next to airstrip, killing General Harold H. George, Time-Life reporter Melvin Jacoby, and base personnel 2nd Lt. Robert D. Jasper, who were standing next to the Lockheed. A number of others receive injuries, but P-40 pilot survives. Victorville Air Force Base, California, is renamed for the late general in June 1950.
• May (?) - Reggiane Re 2001, MM8071, (third one built), downed in the Sardinian Sea apparently by engine failure, pilot recovered, possibly during ferry flight to Sardinian-based 2nd Gruppo. Airframe recovered 23 November 1991 by Sardinian chapter of the Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici (GAVS), the Italian national aircraft preservation society for the Italian Air Force Museum. This is the only example of a Daimler-Benz inline engine equipped fighter to survive in Italy.

The Akutan Zero is inspected by US Navy personnel on Akutan Island on 11 July 1942.

• 3 June - The Akutan Zero - During a Japanese raid on Dutch Harbor, eastern Aleutians, Alaska, the Mitsubishi Zero Model 21, 4593, flown by Flying Petty Officer 1st Class Tadayoshi Koga (10 September 1922 - 3 June 1942) takes hit to oil line in a brush with a U.S. Navy PBY Catalina. Pilot realizes he cannot make return flight to carrier Ryujo so he attempts emergency landing on what appears to be grassy terrain on Akutan Island but turns out to be soft muskeg, fighter overturning as undercarriage makes contact, pilot killed by a broken neck. Attempt by Japanese submarine crew to rescue pilot is unsuccessful. U.S. Navy search team discovers nearly undamaged Zero with dead pilot still under the canopy, retrieves it and in August 1942 ships it to the Assembly and Repair Department at NAS North Island, San Diego, California for repair and evaluation, the second intact example to fall into American hands. Airframe had been built by Mitsubishi at Nagoya in February 1942.
• Post-4 June - Second prototype Fairey Firefly, Z1827, first flown 4 June 1942, of the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), Boscombe Down, is lost shortly thereafter in a crash that kills chief test-pilot Flt. Lt. Chris Staniland. Investigation of wreckage reveals few clues, and loss is initially attributed to failure of the tailplane following failure of the fabric-covered ailerons. Later, it is suspected that the cockpit hood detached in flight and lodged itself in the tailplane, disabling the elevators.
• 7 June - The Handley Page Halifax, V9977, carrying a secret H2S radar system crashes at Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire, killing the crew and several Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) personnel on board, including Alan Blumlein, pioneer of television and stereo audio recording. A fire in the starboard outer engine burns through the outer main spar at low altitude whilst attempting to reach an open area to put down, causing the outer wing to fold and detach, whereupon the aircraft rolls almost inverted and impacts the ground. The aircraft's highly-secret cavity magnetron is recovered the next day by a TRE team from RAF Defford led by Bernard Lovell. An investigation into the cause of the fire by Rolls-Royce concludes that an insufficiently tightened inlet valve tappet locknut during maintenance caused the inlet valve to drop, allowing burning fuel to enter the rocker cover whereupon it quickly spread.

The Halifax V9977, which crashed killing Alan Blumlein and several other key British radar technicians 7 June 1942.

• 16 June - B-17E-BO converted to XB-38-VE, 41-2401, with Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engines. Wrecked near Tipton, California after engine fire. The pilots bailed out after pointing the aircraft to an uninhabited area. The pilot was killed when his parachute did not deploy, and the other crewmember was seriously injured when his parachute did not deploy properly.
• 15 July - During Operation Bolero, the ferrying of combat aircraft from the U.S. to England by air, a flight of two B-17E-BO Flying Fortresses, 41-9101, c/n 2573, "Big Stoop", and 41-9105, c/n 2577, "Do-Do", of the 97th Bomb Group and six P-38F Lightnings of the 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, on the 845-mile leg between Bluie West 8 airfield and Reykjavik, Iceland, run out of fuel after being held up by bad weather, and all force-land on the Greenland icecap. All safely belly in except for the first P-38 which attempts a wheels-down landing, flipping over as nosewheel catches a crevasse, but pilot Lt. Brad McManus unhurt. All crews rescued on 19 July, but aircraft are abandoned in place. One P-38F-1-LO, 41-7630, c/n 222-5757, now known as "Glacier Girl", recovered in 1992 from under 200 feet of accumulated snow and ice and rebuilt to flying status, registered N17630. One B-17 ("Big Stoop") also found, but it is too badly crushed for recovery. Although the USAAF had expected to lose 10 percent of the 920 planes that made the North Atlantic transit during Bolero, losses were only 5.2 percent, the majority being involved in this single incident.
• 30 July - The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 V13, Werke Nummer 0036, unarmed prototype for the Fw 190C-1, with a 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Daimler-Benz DB 603A engine, crashes shortly after beginning testing.
• 8 August - The sole XP-47B Thunderbolt, 40-3051, operating out of the Republic plant at Farmingdale, New York, is lost when the pilot interrupted wheel retraction, leaving the tailwheel in the superchargers' exhaust gases. This set the tire alight which ignited the magnesium hub. When the burning unit retracted into the fuselage, it severed the tail unit control rods, forcing the pilot, Fillmore "Fil" Gilmer, a former naval aviator, to bail out with the airframe crashing in the waters of Long Island Sound. Loss of prototype went unpublicized at this early stage of the war. Nothing is ever found of the wreckage.
• 8 August - 1st Lt. Edward Joseph Peterson dies in hospital from injuries suffered in the crash this date of Lockheed F-4 Lightning, 41-2202 , a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, when it suffers engine failure on take-off from Air Support Command Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Field is renamed Peterson Army Air Field on 3 March 1943, later Peterson Air Force Base on 1 March 1976.
• 16 August - U.S. Navy airship L-8, a former Goodyear advertising blimp, of ZP-32, departed Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, with crew of two officer-pilots. Five hours later the partially-deflated L-8 is sighted drifting over Daly City, California where it touches down sans crew. Nothing is ever found of Lt. Ernest D. Cody and Ensign Charles E. Adams. It is assumed that they were lost over water but were never found. The control car from this blimp is now in the National Museum of Naval Aviation, NAS Pensacola, Florida.http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/L-8_crash_site.htm
• 17 August - Grumman XF6F-3 Hellcat, BuNo 02982, first flown 30 July 1942, suffers engine failure of Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10 on test flight out of Bethpage, New York, Grumman test pilot Bob Hall dead-sticks into a farmer's field on Long Island, survives unpowered landing but airframe heavily damaged.
• 17 August - First crash of a Me 262 occurs when pilot Heinrich Beauvais, of the Rechlin test center, fails to achieve flying speed on his first take-off in the type from Leipheim air field, overruns runway, wipes out in adjacent potato field. Both engines of the Me 262 V3 prototype are torn from the nacelles, both wings damaged, starboard wheel shorn off, but airframe is deemed repairable. Pilot uninjured.
• 23 August - B-17E Flying Fortress of the 303rd Bomb Group, operating out of Biggs Field, El Paso, Texas, suffers center fuselage failure in extremely bad weather near Las Cruces, New Mexico, only the radio operator and the engineering officer for the 427th Bomb Squadron, both in the radio room, survive by parachuting. The 303rd BG was due to deploy overseas from Biggs on 24 August.
• 25 August - The Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 - 25 August 1942) is killed while a passenger on a Short Sunderland Mk. III flying boat, W4026, 'DQ-M', of 228 Squadron. Thirteen of 14 on board killed including the Duke of Kent, three members of his staff, pilot Flt. Lt. Frank Goyen, Wing Cmdr. Moseley, and six other crew. Tail gunner Sgt. Andrew Jack was thrown clear of the wreckage in his turret, suffering burns and other injuries. The plane was en route from Evanton, Rosshire to Iceland, and then on to Newfoundland. The four-engined Sunderland struck Wolf Rock on Ben Morven after take off from Loch More, but the accident was never fully explained and several conspiracy theories have been circulated regarding the accident and Prince George's mission. Sole survivor Jack refused to discuss the accident throughout his life, fuelling the conspiracies.
• 30 August - One-off General Aircraft G.A.L.45 Owlet, DP240, ex-G-AGBK, a tandem, two-seat primary trainer with tricycle undercarriage, impressed by the RAF 1 May 1941 to train Douglas Boston pilots with tricycle techniques, of 605 Squadron at Ford, crashed this date near Arundel, Sussex.
• 4 September - On the night of 4-5th, Handley Page Hampden, AE436, of No. 44 Squadron RAF crashes on the remote Tsatsa Mountain in Sweden while en route from Sumburgh in Shetland to Afrikanda, Northern Russia, after being forced down to lower altitude by overheating engine. Pilot Officer D.I. Evans and passenger Cpl B.J. Sowerby survive with only slight injuries, three other members of crew die. Evans and Sowerby take three days to cross mountains and reach the village of Kvikkvokk, ~20 miles to the south east. Wreckage of Hampden is re-discovered by three girl hikers at 5,000 ft in August 1976, with remains of dead crew still in wreckage.
• 10 September - No. 422 Squadron RCAF, temporarily operating Saro Lerwick flying boats cast off from RAF No. 4 OTU whilst awaiting arrival of Short Sunderlands, suffers loss of L7267 this date when Plt. Off. Hoare crashes on landing at Lough Erne in good weather, airframe breaks up, sinks, but crew escapes safely. This is the final Lerwick write-off as the type is withdrawn from operation, remaining airframes sent to Scottish Aviation in November 1942 for reduction to salvage. Type had been an utter failure, contributions to U-boat war were negligible. None now exist.
• 12 September - Martin-Baker MB 3, R2492, prototype fighter crashes after engine failure while trying to land. Captain Valentine Baker (Company manager, aircraft-designer and test pilot) killed.
• 15 September - Vultee XA-31B-VU Vengeance, 42-35824, overturns in a tobacco field while making forced landing in Connecticut after engine failure. Initially built as a non-flying XA-31A engine-test airframe but later upgraded for operation.
• October - Bulgarian Darzhavna Aeroplanna Rabotilnica (literally 'State Airplane Workshop') DAR-10A Bekas (Bulgarian: "snipe") (ДАР-10) light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, one of only two prototypes, crashes this month. In spite of good flight reviews, the type was not chosen for production. The high-wing KB-11 Fazan was selected for production instead.
• October - Early production Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet being test flown by renowned pre-war glider and test pilot Hanna Reitsch, from Obertraubling, near Regensburg, while on unpowered flight towed by Messerschmitt Bf 110, jettisoning of take-off dolley at 30 ft altitude fails, causing severe juddering of airframe. Bf 110 tows Reitsch to height of 10,500 ft and Reitsch casts off. Despite violent maneuvering to try and shake off dolly, which also fails, Reitsch decides to attempt landing in order to save aircraft. On approach to field, sideslipping to lose height, the unfuelled Me 163 stalls at a higher than normal airspeed, due to disturbed airflow caused by wheels of dolly. Komet impacts ground and somersaults. Although conscious immediately after the crash, Reitsch passes out as rescuers arrive. She is taken to the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy, Regensburg, where she is discovered to be suffering from skull fractures in four places, compression of the brain, displacement of the upper jaw-bones, and separation of the bones of the nose. Regaining consciousness in hospital, she makes a slow recovery, being well enough to be discharged form hospital in March 1943. Shortly after the accident, Reitsch is awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.
• 15 October - Douglas C-49E-DO, 42-43619, DST-114, c/n 1494, first DC-3, ex-American Airlines Douglas Sleeper Transport NC14988, A115 "Texas", first flown as X14988 on 17 December 1935; sold to TWA, 14 March 1942, as line number 361; commandeered by USAAF, 31 March 1942; crashed this date in bad weather at Knobnoster, Missouri.
• 16 October - Martin B-26 Marauder operated by the USAAF 5th Ferrying Group, Air Transport Command is on a routine flight to Dallas Love Field when bad weather closes airfield and controllers advise crew to divert to Fort Worth. Plane is en route below 500 ft (152 m) altitude to stay in visual conditions under low cloud deck when wingtip is sliced off by a guy-wire of WFAA radio tower near Grapevine, Texas; all 6 crewmembers die in subsequent crash.
• 21 October - B-17D, 40-3089, of the 5th Bomb Group/11th Bomb Group, with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, America's top-scoring World War I ace (26 kills), aboard on a secret mission, is lost at sea in the central Pacific Ocean when the bomber goes off-course. After 24 days afloat, he and surviving crew are rescued by the U.S. Navy after having been given up for lost, discovered by OS2U Kingfisher crew.
• 23 October - Mid-air collision at 9,000 feet altitude between American Airlines DC-3, NC16017, "Flagship Connecticut," Flight 28 out of Lockheed Air Terminal (now Burbank Airport) en route to Phoenix, Arizona and New York City, and USAAF Lockheed B-34 Ventura II bomber, 41-38116, on ferry flight from Long Beach Army Air Base to Palm Springs Army Air Field. Pilot of B-34, Lt. William N. Wilson and copilot Staff Sergeant Robert Leicht, were able to make emergency landing at Palm Springs, but DC-3, carrying nine passengers and a crew of three, its tail splintered and its rudder shorn off by B-34's right engine, went into a flat spin, clipped a rocky ledge in Chino Canyon below Mount San Jacinto, and exploded in desert, killing all on board. Among the passengers killed was Academy Award-winning Hollywood composer Ralph Rainger, 41, who had written or collaborated on such hit songs as "Louise," "Love in Bloom" (comedian Jack Benny's theme song), "Faithful Forever," "June in January," "Blue Hawaii" and "Thanks for the Memory," which entertainer Bob Hope adopted as his signature song. Initial report by Ventura crew was that they had lost sight of the airliner due to smoke from a forest fire, but closed-door Congressional investigation revealed that bomber pilot knew the first officer on the DC-3, Louis Frederick Reppert, and had attempted to wave to him in mid-air rendezvous. However, Wilson misjudged the distance between the two aircraft and triggered the fatal collision when, in pulling his B-34 up and away from the DC-3, its right propeller sliced through the airliner's tail. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) placed the blame directly on the "reckless and irresponsible conduct of Lieutenant William N. Wilson in deliberately maneuvering a bomber in dangerous proximity to an airliner in an unjustifiable attempt to attract the attention of the first officer (copilot) of the latter plane." Lt. Wilson subsequently faced manslaughter charges by the U.S. Army but about a month after the accident a court martial trial board acquitted him of blame. In a separate legal development, a lawsuit seeking $227,637 was filed against American Airlines on behalf of crash victim Ralph Rainger's wife, Elizabeth, who was left widowed with three small children. In June 1943 a jury awarded her $77,637.

• Late October - Second prototype Me 262V2, PC+UB, first flown 1 October 1942, is damaged when pilot strikes ground vehicle with starboard wing during flight preparations, due to restricted visibility from cockpit in tail-dragger configuration of early 262s. Aircraft repaired.
• 6 November - Grumman UC-103, 42-97044, former civilian Grumman G-32 Gulfhawk III, ex-NC1051, built for the Gulf Oil Refining Company, delivered 6 May 1938 and impressed by the USAAF in November 1942, used as VIP ferry aircraft, 427th Air Base Squadron, Homestead Army Air Field, force-lands in the southern Florida Everglades with engine failure - written off.
• 27 November - Douglas O-46A, 35-179, lands downwind at Brooks Field, Harlingen, Texas, runs out of runway, overturns. Written off, it is abandoned in place. More than twenty years later it is discovered by the Antique Airplane Association with trees growing through its wings, and in 1967 it is rescued and hauled to Ottumwa, Iowa. Restoration turns out to beyond the organization's capability, and in September 1970 it is traded to the National Museum of the United States Air Force for a flyable C-47. The (then) Air Force Museum has it restored at Perdue University and places it on display in 1974, the sole survivor of the 91 O-46s built.

1943

• Early 1943 - Grumman UC-103, 42-97044, former civilian Grumman G-32 Gulfhawk III, ex-NC1051, built for the Gulf Oil Refining Company, delivered 6 May 1938 and impressed by the USAAF in November 1942, used as VIP ferry aircraft, force-lands in the southern Florida Everglades after only a few months' service - written off.
• 3 January - B-17F-27-BO Flying Fortress, 41-24620, "snap! crackle! pop!", of the 360th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb Group, on daylight raid over Saint-Nazaire, France, loses wing due to flak, goes into spiral. Ball turret gunner Alan Eugene Magee (13 January 1919-20 December 2003), though suffering 27 shrapnel wounds, bails out (or is thrown from wreckage) without his chute at ~20,000 feet, loses consciousness due to altitude, freefall plunges through glass roof of Saint-Nazaire railroad station and is found alive but with serious injuries on floor of depot - saved by German medical care, spends rest of war in prison camp.
• 13 January - Junkers Ju 290 V1, (Ju 90 V11), modified from Ju 90B-1, Werknummer 90 0007, D-AFHG, "Oldenberg", crashed on takeoff evacuating load of wounded troops from German 6th Army at Stalingrad. The need for large capacity transports was so dire at this point that the Luftwaffe was taking Ju 290As straight from the assembly line into operation.
• 15 January - Prototype Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA-4 Wackett Bomber, A23-1001, crashes on test flight to assess powerplant performance and evaluate aerodynamic effects of a new fixed leading edge slat. During return to CAC airfield at Fisherman's Bend, Australia, pilot Sqn. Leader Jim Harper detects fuel leak in port Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engine; as problem worsens he attempts shut-down and feathering of propeller but actuation of feathering switch causes explosion and uncontrollable fire. Crew of three attempts evacuation at 1000 feet (300 m), but only pilot Harper succeeds in parachuting, CAC test pilot Jim Carter and CAC power plant group engineer Lionel Dudgeon KWF. Airframe impacts ~three miles SW of Kilmore, Victoria. Wreckage recovered by No. 26 Repair and Salvage Unit on 18 January, delivered to No. 1 Aircraft Depot, RAAF Laverton, on the 19th. Final action taken on 26 January when the Air Member for Supply and Equipment approves "conversion to components" for what remains of the CA-4.
• 8 February - The second XP-39E Airacobra (of three), 41-19502, is damaged during a forced landing when a Wright Field test pilot runs out of fuel short of Niagara Falls Airport, New York, where the Bell Aircraft plant is located.
• 18 February - Second prototype XB-29 Superfortress, 41-003, crashes into Frye meat packing plant at Seattle, Washington after R-3350 engine catches fire, killing all 10 crew including chief test pilot Eddie Allen along with 20 on the ground.
• 22 February - Boeing 314, Pan American "Yankee Clipper", NC18603, c/n 1990, (U.S. Navy BuNo 48224), crashes into the Tagus River near Lisbon, while on approach to Portugal by way of the Azores. Caught in a storm, the flying boat hooked a wingtip in a turn while attempting an emergency landing. 25 of 39 on board die. Among those killed are actress Tamara Drasin and international journalist Ben Robertson, en route to his new job, chief of the New York Herald-Tribune's London bureau. Actress Jane Froman is seriously injured. Her story of survival will be made into the 1952 film "With a Song in My Heart" starring Susan Hayward.
• 23 March - A P-47C-2-RE Thunderbolt, 41-6292, crashes into Barnard Hall at Hofstra College shortly after take-off from Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York early this date, hitting the west side near the roof, setting the building afire, police announced. Pilot Earl Hayward died. The blaze was brought under control within 45 minutes by firemen from Hempstead, East Hempstead and Uniondale. No students were in the vicinity at the time. The Eastern Defense Command in New York City announced that the pilot was killed. He had taken off from Mitchel Field on a training mission shortly before the crash.
• 4 April - B-25C Mitchell, 41-12634, of the 376th Bomb Squadron, 309th Bomb Group (M), ditches in Lake Murray, South Carolina, during skip-bombing practice, after starboard engine failure. Crew of five escapes before Mitchell sinks after seven minutes afloat, about two miles west of the Lake Murray Dam in 150 feet of water. On 19 September 2005, the bomber was raised to the surface by aircraft recoverer Gary Larkins for preservation (not restoration) at the Southern Museum of Flight, Birmingham, Alabama.
• 9 April - P-38G-10-LO Lightning, 42-12937, flown by Col. Ben Kelsey, gets into inverted spin during dive flap test, loses one wing and entire tail section. Kelsey bails out, suffers broken ankle, while P-38 hits flat on hillside near Calabasas, California.
• 30 April - Republic P-43 Lancer, 41-6718, converted to P-43D. To RAAF as A56-7. Missing in flight from Wagga, Australia, this date. Aircraft found in Hursville hills in 1958.

U.S. Army personnel remove bodies from the wreckage of General Frank Maxwell Andrews' B-24D after it struck a mountain side in Iceland, 3 May 1943.

• 3 May - During an inspection tour, Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews (1884–1943) is killed in crash of B-24D-1-CO Liberator, 41-23728, of the 8th Air Force out of RAF Bovingdon, England, on Mt. Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes peninsula after an aborted attempt to land at the Royal Air Force station at Kaldadarnes, Iceland. Andrews and thirteen others died in the crash; only the tail gunner, S/Sgt. George A. Eisel, survived. Others KWF included pilot Capt. Robert H. Shannon, of the 330th BS, 93rd BG; six members of Andrews' staff, including Maj. Ted Trotman, B/Gen. Charlie Barth, Col. Marlow Krum, and the general's aide, Maj. Fred A. Chapman; and Capt. J. H. Gott, navigator. Andrews was the highest-ranking Allied officer to die in the line of duty to that point in the war. At the time of his death, he was Commanding General, United States Forces, European Theatre of Operations. Camp Springs Army Air Field, Maryland, is renamed Andrews Field (later Andrews Air Force Base), for him on 7 February 1945.
• 6 May - Curtiss XP-60D, 41-19508, crashed at Rome Air Depot, New York. Was second XP-53 - later redesignated XP-60D.
• Circa 7 May - The first developmental prototype Finnish Valtion Lentokonetehdas VL Myrsky (State Aircraft Factory Storm), a low-wing single-seat cantilever monoplane fighter, completed on 30 April 1943, crashes "a week later."
• 10 May - First Consolidated XB-32 Dominator, 41-141, crashes on take-off at Lindbergh Field, San Diego, probably from flap failure. Although bomber does not burn when it piles up at end of runway, Consolidated's senior test pilot Dick McMakin is killed. Six others on board injured. This one of only two twin-finned B-32s (41-142 was the other) - all subsequent had a PB4Y-style single tail.
• 10 May - First Curtiss YC-76 Caravan constructed at the Louisville, Kentucky plant, 42-86918, loses tail unit at 1729 hrs. due to lack of "forgotten" securing bolts during test flight, crashes at Okalona, Kentucky, killing three Curtiss test crew, pilot Ed Schubinger, co-pilot John L. "Duke" Trowbridge, and engineer Robert G. Scudder. Miserable attempt at building all-wood cargo design is cancelled by the USAAF on 3 August with only nineteen completed, all grounded by 12 September 1944. Four C-76s at the St. Louis, Missouri plant are granted one-time flight clearance and flown directly to Air Training Command bases for use as instructional airframes.
• 19 May - Northrop N-9M-1, one-third scale flying testbed for XB-35 flying wing design, crashes approximately 12 mi (19 km) W of Muroc Army Air Base, California, killing pilot Max Constant. First flown 27 December 1942, airframe had only logged 22.5 hours, and little data was accumulated before the loss. Post-crash investigation suggested that: "...while Constant was conducting stalls and aft centre of gravity stability tests, aerodynamic forces developed full aft, which were too strong for Constant to overcome, trapping him in the cockpit. To prevent this happening on future flights, a one-shot hydraulic boost device was installed to push the controls forward in an emergency."
• June - Second production Mitsubishi J2M2 Raiden (Thunderbolt), Allied codename "Jack", noses over shortly after take-off and crashes for unknown reasons. When pilot of tenth production J2M2 experiences same phenomenon just after gear-retraction on test flight, he has enough altitude to drop gear and recover. It is discovered that retractable tailwheel shock strut can press against elevator torque tube during retraction, forcing control stick full-forward. This is modified and fighter production resumes.
• 2 June - An hour into a routine training flight from the USS Lexington (CV-16) over the Gulf of Paria off Venezuela, 1939 Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick develops severe oil leak, cannot recover to either the carrier or land, and ditches his F4F Wildcat. Although rescue forces arrive at the scene in eight minutes, neither he nor his plane are found, only an oil slick. Kinnick was the first Heisman winner to die. The University of Iowa renames their football stadium "Kinnick Stadium" in 1972.
• 3 June - A B-17F-100-BO Flying Fortress, 42-30431, flying to Grand Island, Nebraska from Pendleton Army Air Base in Oregon crashes on Bomber Mountain in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. 10 crew members were killed.
• 14 June - B-17C Flying Fortress, 40-2072, "Miss E.M.F." (Every Morning Fixing), of the 19th Bomb Group, heavily damaged on Davao mission 25 December 1941 and converted into transport. With 46th Troop Carrier Squadron, 317th Transport Group, crashed Bakers Creek, Queensland, Australia, this date while ferrying troops to New Guinea. Six crew and 34 GIs killed. One survived. (see Bakers Creek air crash) A memorial to the victims of this crash was installed at the Selfridge Gate of Arlington National Cemetery on 11 June 2009, donated by the Bakers Creek Memorial Association. The gate is named for Lt. Thomas Selfridge, killed in a 1908 crash at Fort Meyer, Virginia, the first victim of a powered air accident.
• 1 August - During a demonstration flight of an "all St. Louis-built glider", a WACO CG-4A-RO, 42-78839, built by sub-contractor Robertson Aircraft Company, loses its starboard wing due to a defective wing strut support, plummets vertically to the ground at Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, killing all on board, including St. Louis Mayor William D. Becker, Maj. William B. Robertson and Harold Krueger, both of Robertson Aircraft, Thomas Dysart, president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, Max Doyne, director of public utilities, Charles Cunningham, department comptroller, Henry Mueller, St. Louis Court presiding judge, Lt. Col. Paul Hazleton, pilot Milton Kiugh, and mechanic J. M. Davis.
• 2 August - B-17E Flying Fortress, 41-2463, "Yankee Doodle", of the 19th BG, then to 394th BS, 5th BG, crashes on takeoff due mechanical failure at Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, Bombardier Sgt. John P. Kruger and navigator Lt. Talbert H. Woolam are killed. Pilot was Gene Roddenberry, future creator of Star Trek. The airframe was stricken on 13 August 1943.
• 4 August - North American XB-28A-NA, 40-3058, c/n 67-3417, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off California after the crew bails out. Project not proceeded with.
• 14 August - Curtiss XP-60E-CU, 42-79425, is damaged in a forced landing just before being released to the USAAF for official trials. Becomes XP-60C when it is retrofit with wings, undercarriage, and other items from the XP-60A-CU, 42-79423. Meanwhile, original XP-60C-CU, 42-79424, becomes second XP-60E with removal of 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) R-2800-53 engine and contraprops, replaced with R-2800-10 engine and four-blade prop. Whole P-60 project is essentially a dead-end, being nothing more than Curtiss' attempt to stretch pre-war design that started out as the P-36, and the company's unwillingness or inability to start fresh with a new fighter design will force them out of the airframe business a few short years after the war.
• 18 August - Following a Royal Air Force bombing raid on the test facilities at Peenemünde on 17 August, the Me 163B Komets of training unit EK 16 are moved to a new airfield at Anklam. The airframes are towed to the new location, with one Komet, suffering malfunctioning flap hydraulics, ferried by test pilot Paul Rudolf Opitz. After casting-off from the tow plane, the rocket fighter's landing skid fails to function, the airframe decelerates over a patch of rough and rutted ground at the end of the landing run following an otherwise normal approach. Pilot suffers two damaged vertebrae due to hard landing, spends three months in hospital. Investigation reveals that a force of 15 to 30Gs were required to cause this injury, and Me 163Bs are subsequently fitted with a torsion sprung seat for the pilot, eliminating this type of injury.
• 9 September - During carrier compatibility trials, test pilot Capt. Eric "Winkle" Brown crashlands Fairey Firefly Mk. I, Z1844, on the deck of HMS Pretoria Castle when arrestor hook indicator light falsely shows "down" position. Fighter hits crash barrier, shears off undercarriage, shreds propeller, but pilot unhurt.
• 2 October - Second prototype Arado Ar 234 V2 crashes at Rheine near Munster after suffering fire in port wing, failure of both engines, and various instrumentation failure, the airframe diving into the ground from 4,000 feet (1,200 m), killing pilot Flugkapitän Selle.
• 8 October - First (of two) Northrop XP-56 tailless flying wing fighters, 42-1786, suffers blown left main tire during ~130 mph taxi across Muroc Dry Lake, Muroc Air Base, California. Aircraft tumbles, goes airborne, throws pilot John Myers clear before crashing inverted, airframe destroyed. Pilot, wearing a polo helmet for protection, suffers only minor injuries.
• 15 November - First of three prototypes of the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, 42-78845, on test flight out of Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, crashes when pilot is unable to recover from a stall, engine then quits, Curtiss test pilot Harvey Gray divorces airframe after 16,000 foot plummet, landing safely, fighter impacts inverted in an open field.
• 23 December - Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess (1916–1943) is killed when the P-38G-10-LO Lightning, 42-13441, he is undergoing retraining in catches fire in flight near Burbank, California. He refuses to bail out over a populated area and dies when his Lightning impacts in a vacant lot. Dyess had been captured on Bataan in April 1942 by the Japanese, but escaped in April 1943 and fought with guerilla forces on Mindanao until evacuated by submarine in July 1943. Abilene Air Force Base, Texas, is named for him on 1 December 1956.
• 29 December - 1st Lt Robert L. Duke is killed in the crash of Curtiss A-25A-20-CS Shrike, 42-79823, near Spencer, Tennessee, this date. He was assigned as Assistant A-3 of Eglin Field. Eglin Auxiliary Field 3 is later named Duke Field in his honor.
• 30 December - Luftwaffe pilot Lt. Joschi Pöhs is killed when, upon takeoff in a Me 163A Komet of training unit EK 16 from Bad Zwischenahn, near Oldenburg, he releases the takeoff dolly too soon. The bouncing dolly strikes the airframe, apparently damaging a T-Stoff line, and the engine loses power. The pilot banks the Komet round for an attempted landing but just prior to lining up for touchdown a wingtip grazes a flak tower, all control is lost, and the rocket fighter crashes just outside the airfield perimeter. It was felt that if Pōhs had begun his turn back to the airfield immediately after the power loss he would have made a safe return; however, he lowered the landing skid and dropped flaps before beginning the turn and ate up precious altitude.

1944

• January - Thirtieth Mitsubishi J2M2 Raiden (Thunderbolt) disintegrates over Toyohashi airfield. Cause never satisfactorily explained but believed to have been either violent engine shaking due to failed attachment point causing secondary airframe failure, or, possibly, engine cowling detaching and striking tail assembly. Both power attachment points and cowling fasteners strengthened, but Raidens continue to be lost after these modifications.
• 8 January - 1st Lt. Andrew Biancur, a test pilot of the Medium Bombardment Section of the 1st Proving Ground Group, is killed in crash of YP-61-NO Black Widow, 41-18883, c/n 711, at Eglin Field this date. Eglin Auxiliary Field 6 is later named in his honor.
• 12 January - U.S. Navy F6F-3 Hellcat, BuNo 66237, c/n A-1257, 'Z 11', suffers engine failure on functional check flight out of NAS San Diego, North Island, California, pilot Ens. Robert F. Thomas ditches in the Pacific Ocean ~12 miles from the base, gets clear of sinking airframe and survives to become an ace in the Pacific theatre. Hellcat is discovered in 3,400 feet of water by Lockheed research submarine RV Deep Quest on 17 March 1970. Recovered by USN on 9 October 1970. Displayed as of 1974 at Pima County Air Museum, Tucson, Arizona, now at the National Museum of Naval Aviation, NAS Pensacola, Florida.
• 28 January – Col. Robin E. Epler, deputy commander (Technical) of the Air Proving Ground Command, Eglin Field, Florida, is killed this date in crash of A-20G-10-DO Havoc, 42-54016, one mile NE of Crestview, Florida. Eglin Auxiliary Field No. 7 is named in his honor.
• 16 February - Focke-Wulf Ta 152 V19, Werke Nummer 110019, prototype for the Ta 152B-5/R11 (Ta 152C-3/R11) with 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213A engine, is written off this date in a crash during test flight out of Langenhagen. Airframe had been damaged in 1943 wheels-up landing during testing but was repaired.
• 18 February - C-46A-10-CU Commando, 41-12339, c/n 26466, departs McClellan Field at 0045 hrs. on a flight to Reno Army Air Base, Nevada. Some 15 minutes after takeoff arcing wiring ignites hydraulic fluid. The fire burns though oxygen lines and de-icer lines, airframe impacting in American River Canyon, California. Five crew members bailed out, ~0100 hrs., but two died when exiting the plane.
• 18 February - SBD-2 Dauntless, BuNo 2173, of the Carrier Qualification Training Unit, NAS Glenview, Illinois, piloted by LTJG. John Lendo, suffers engine failure, probably due to caburetor icing, while on approach to a Type IX training carrier on Lake Michigan. Pilot ditches dive bomber and is rescued. On 19 June 2009, the airframe was retrieved from the lake bottom and will go to the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island, Oahu, Hawaii.
• 24 March - British Major-General Orde Charles Wingate flies to assess the situations in three Chindit-held bases in Burma. On his return, flying from Imphal to Lalaghat, the USAAF B-25H-1-NA Mitchell bomber, 43-4242, of the 1st Air Commando Group in which he is traveling crashes into jungle-covered hills near Bishenpur (Bishnupur), in the present-day state of Manipur in Northeast India. He is killed along with nine others. Local thunderstorms with extreme turbulence have been suggested as the cause of the crash.
• 24 March - RAF tailgunner Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade jumps without a parachute from a burning Avro Lancaster II, 'S for Sugar', of No. 115 Squadron RAF, E of Schmallenberg, flying at 18,000 ft during a raid on Germany. Alkemade falls into a forest and is decelerated by fall through tree branches before landing in deep snowdrift. Alkemade survives fall with severe bruising and a sprained leg. Captured and unable to show them his parachute, his captors disbelieve his story and suspect him of being a spy until he shows them bruising and indentation in snowdrift. Alkemade finishes war in Stalag Luft III and dies in 1987.
• 8 April - Fifth Fisher XP-75 Eagle, 44-32163, crashes after pilot engaged in low-level aerobatics that reportedly exceeded the placarded limitations. Pilot killed.
• 9 April - Royal Air Force Fairey Albacore, X9117, of 415 Squadron, engaged in a fighter affiliation exercise, crashes near Bosham, Hants. while making a low turn. All four crew KWF.
• 11 April - Short Stirling III, EH947, of 75 Squadron, suffers engine failure during non-operational flight, force-landed at Icklingham, Suffolk.
• 13 April - After downing 3 planes on 8 April, Don Gentile was the top scoring 8th Air Force ace when he crashed his personal P-51B-7-NA Mustang, 43-6913, 'VF-T', named "Shangri La", this date while stunting over the 4th FG's airfield at Debden for a group of assembled press reporters and movie cameras. He buzzed the airfield too low, struck the ground, and broke the back of his fighter. Col. Donald Blakeslee immediately grounded Major Gentile as a result, and he was sent back to the US for a tour selling War Bonds.
• 13 April - During a Naval Air Training Command (NATC) evaluation flight of Budd RB-1 Conestoga prototype, U.S. Navy NX37097, at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, the aircraft crashed, killing one of the crew.. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and written off, but the pilot reported that the stainless steel construction of the plane contributed to saving his life.
• 15 April - Second prototype Dornier Do 335 V-2, Werkenummer 230002, CP+UB, suffers rear engine fire while undergoing testing at Rechlin, Germany, written off.
• 19 April - U.S. Navy airship K-133, of ZP-22, operating out of Naval Air Station Houma, Louisiana, is caught in a thunderstorm while patrolling over the Gulf of Mexico. Ship goes down and twelve of thirteen crew are lost. Sole survivor is recovered after spending 21 hours in the water.
• 21 April - Southeast door of blimp hanger at Naval Air Station Houma, Louisiana, goes inoperable, is chained open. A gust of wind carries three Goodyear ZNP-K airships, all of ZP-22, out into the night; K-56, BuNo 30178, travels 4.5 miles, crashes into trees, K-57, BuNo 30179, explodes and burns 4 miles from the air station, K-62, BuNo 30184, fetches up against high-tension powerlines a quarter mile away, burns. K-56 is salvaged, sent to Goodyear at Akron, Ohio, repaired and returned to service.
• 8 May - Vought OS2U-2 Kingfisher, BuNo 3092, suffers midair collision with OS2U-3 Kingfisher, BuNo 5422, 1/2 mile S of NAS Pensacola, Florida.
• 15 May - Ex-RAF de Havilland Mosquito B.IV, DK296, formerly flown by 105 Squadron as 'GB-G', delivered to the Soviet Union for testing on 19 April 1944 by Soviet flight crew, is written off this date in landing accident at Sverdlovsk when pilot A. I. Kabanov loses control with engines at low power setting, turns to port, runs off runway, shears off undercarriage and skids to a stop on its belly. Pilot and navigator P. I. Perevalov unhurt. This was the ninth flight of DK296 (which never received a Soviet serial) since it arrived in Russia and was the only Mosquito delivered to Russia. Kabanov was the Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Institute of the Air Force at this time, and had much experience flying foreign types.
• 28 May - Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6, 'Red 3', formerly carrying RQ+DR, werke nummer 163306, crashes into Lake Trzebun in Pomerania, northwest Poland in 0831 hrs. takeoff accident from airfield at Gebbert (now Jaworze), killing pilot Feldwebel Ernst Pleines of 2 Staffel, Jagdgruppe West. (Luftwaffe Verlustmeldung 174 - Casualty Report 174.) He was buried 15 June at Gebbert. Wreck discovered June 1999 in 56 feet (17 m) of water, subsequently recovered by Gdansk-based Klub Pletwonurków Rekin (Shark Divers' Club) for the Polish Eagles Aviation Foundation for restoration and display.
• 29 June - P-47D-1-RA Thunderbolt, 42-22331, c/n 82, accepted March 30, 1943, of C Flight, 1st AF / 1st FG / E Section / 124th BU(Ftr), "A-362", from Bluethenthal AAF, piloted by 2nd Lt.Robert B Boyd, Jr., makes gear-up crash landing on Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Abandoned in place, the hulk of the wings and lower fuselage is uncovered by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Now stored at the Carolinas Aviation Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 11 July - U.S. Army Lt. Phillip "Phee" Russell was attempting to land his Douglas A-26B-5-DT Invader, 43-22253, at the Portland-Westbrook Municipal Airport at 1645 hrs. this date. For reasons that were never fully determined, Russell lost control of the plane and crashed into a trailer park in a nearby neighborhood. 19 people were killed and 20 people were injured — mostly women and children — making it the worst aviation accident in Maine history.
• 13 July - a Luftwaffe Ju 88 G-1 night fighter of 7 Staffel/NJG 2, bearing aircraft code 4R+UR, on North Sea night patrol lands at RAF Woodbridge. This aircraft carries recent versions of the FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 radar, Naxos-Z and FuG 227 Flensburg homer which are being successfully used to intercept RAF night bombers. The German crew had only just completed 100 hours of flight training, and have flown by compass heading, but have proceeded on a reciprocal (opposite) course to that intended and thought they were over their own airfield. Within days, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) has analysed the radar equipment and devised countermeasures.
• 18 July - Hauptman Werner Thierfelder, unit commander of Erprobungskommando 262, out of Lechfeld, is lost in crash of Me 262A-1a under unclear circumstances. Luftwaffe records indicate that he was shot down but U.S. and British records show no comparable engagement. A possible cause is that Thierfelder exceeded the airframe's limiting Mach number in a dive, perhaps while pursuing an Allied reconnaissance aircraft, leading to an irrecoverable dive.
• 23 July - Two Curtiss RA-25A Shrikes collide in flight while participating in a flypast for an air show near Spokane, Washington. Part of a three-plane formation, the left-hand aircraft collided with the middle plane during a turn, both crashing into a valley. Pilot 2nd Lt. George E. Chrep and engineer-rated passenger Sgt. Joseph M. Revinskas were killed in the crash of 42-79804, while pilot 2nd Lt. William R. Scott and passenger Captain Ford K. Sayre, a noted snow skier on the east coast, were killed in the crash of 42-79826. A Paramount Pictures newsreel crew caught the accident on film, which was examined by the crash investigation board for clues to the accident. This footage was later incorporated into the 1956 film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
• 23 July - Focke-Wulf Fw 190C V33 prototype, Werke Nummer 0058, modified to Fw 190 V33/U1 as prototype for Ta 152H-0 with 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213E-1 engine and new wing fuel tanks of the definitive Ta 152H-1, comprising three tanks in each inner portion, located just aft of the truncated mainspar, first flown 12 July 1944, crashes this date out of Langenhagen, setting back the flight test programme.
• 31 July - Noted aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanishes without a trace while flying a Free French Forces Lockheed F-5B-1-LO, 42-68223, c/n 2734, of II/33 Squadron, out of Borgo-Porreta, Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38 Lightning, over the Mediterranean; his fate remains a mystery until 2004 when the wreckage of his plane is discovered. While the cause of the crash is unknown, analysis of the wreckage and enemy wartime records suggests that the crash was an accident unrelated to enemy action. A former Luftwaffe pilot has published a volume in which he claims to have shot down a French-marked Lightning, but his claim is largely discounted.
• August - Test program of Lavochkin La-7TK, fitted with turbo-supercharged M-82FN engine in July-August 1944 comes to sudden end when one TK-3 supercharger explodes and airframe is destroyed.
• 5 August - During test flight out of the Fisher plant at Cleveland, Ohio, third Fisher XP-75 Eagle, 44-32161, crashes at Fairfield Village, Ohio, three miles N of Cleveland, after an explosion and fire at 23,000 feet - pilot Russell Stuart Weeks bailed out at 4,000 feet.
• 13 August - Focke-Wulf Fw 190C V30 prototype, Werke Nummer 0055, modified to Fw 190 V30/U1 as prototype for Ta 152H-0, rebuilt with Fw 190D 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213A-1 power egg, but without new wingtanks, crashes this date on flight out of Langenhagen after only one week of testing. First flown in new guise on 6 August.
• 23 August - Freckleton Air Disaster - A United States Army Air Force B-24H-20-CF Liberator, 42-50291, "Classy Chassis II", crashes into a school at Freckleton, Lancashire, England at 1047 hrs. whilst on approach to Warton Aerodrome. Twenty adults, 38 children and the three-man crew are killed. In addition to a memorial in the village churchyard, a marker was placed at the site of the accident in 2007.
• 23 August - Maj. Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia, one of Italy's most noted aviators, crashes this date in a Martin Baltimore light bomber. After the armistice of 8 September 1943, Buscaglia was asked to fight alongside the Allies, as a member of the newly-formed Aeronautica Cobelligerante del Sud. In the meantime, in the northern part of Italy still occupied by Germany, a wing of the Aeronautica Nazionale Reppublicana (the Air Force of the puppet Italian Social Republic) had also been named after him. On 15 July 1944 Buscaglia assumed command of the 28th Bomber Wing, equipped with Baltimores, based on Campo Vesuvio airport, near Naples. On 23 August, while attempting to fly one of the new planes during the early transition training phase, without an instructor, Buscaglia crashes on take-off, dying in hospital in Naples the following day.
• Redesigned Me 155, Blohm & Voss BV 155 V1, first flown 1 September 1944, crashes on later test flight for unknown reasons. Second prototype, BV 155B (V2), completed just before war's end, is recovered by Allies in hangar at Hamburg-Finkenwärder and taken to RAE Farnborough, England for examination.
• September - First two attempted test flights of the Fieseler Fi 103R (Reichenberg) at Larz on consecutive days results in both pilots killed.
• 4 September - Douglas A-26B-15-DL Invader, 41-39158, first assigned to Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Station, Boscombe Down on 11 July 1944 for six weeks' testing (but no RAF serial assigned), then to 2 Group for further evaluation, crashes this date when the upper turret cover left airframe, striking the vertical tail.
• 6 September - First prototype (and only one completed) McDonnell XP-67 Moonbat, 42-11677, suffers fire in starboard engine during functional test flight at 10,000 feet. Pilot E.E. Elliot manages to bring stricken airframe into Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, flames gut the fuselage, engine nacelle and wheelwell before firefighters halt blaze. As jet engined project that will become the FD-1 Phantom is already on the horizon, project is cancelled.
• 13 September - The first Supermarine Spiteful prototype, NN660, a converted Spitfire XIV, first flown 30 June 1944, returning from flight from the A&AEE, Boscombe Down, crashes this date while in unplanned mock combat with a Spitfire at low altitude, killing test pilot Frank Furlong. No reason for the loss is officially established, although after an incident that happened to him, Jeffrey Quill suggests it may have been due to the Spiteful's aileron control rods sticking - previous Sptifires had used cables. Control rods are checked for binding in all future Spitefuls and the problem does not re-occur. Quill had chosen Furlong for his test team after thay had flown together during the Battle of Britain.
• 18 September - Second Folland Fo.108, P1775, 'P', one of only twelve built by newly-founded Folland company, as dedicated engine-testbed type, specification 43/37, crashes this date. Of the twelve, five were lost in accidents, including three in a 21 day period in August and September 1944, giving rise to the nickname, the Folland "Frightener".
• 19 September - RAF Douglas Dakota Mk. III, KG374, c/n 12383, (ex-USAAF C-47A-DK, 42-92568), 'YS-DM', of 271 Squadron, RAF Down Ampney, Gloucester, piloted by F/Lt. David S. Lord, is hit by AAA in starboard engine while on resupply mission for beleaguered troops at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. Despite fire spreading to whole of starboard wing, pilot spends ten minutes making two passes over very small dropzone (which, unbeknownst to the crew, had been overrun by German forces) to drop eight ammunition panniers. Just after last one has been dropped, fuel tank explodes, tearing off wing, only navigator F/O Harry A. King escaping from stricken aircraft and descending by parachute to be captured as a POW the following morning, spending the rest of the war in Stalag Luft I at Barth. KWF are pilot Lord, second pilot P/O R. E. H. "Dickie" Medhurst (son of Air Chief Marshall Sir Charles Medhurst), wireless operator F/O Alec F. Ballantyne, and four air despatchers of 223 Company RASC, Cpl. P. Nixon, Dvr. A. Rowbotham, Dvr. J. Ricketts and Dvr. L. Harper. Following release of King from prison camp, full details of the action become known and pilot Lord receives posthumous Victoria Cross on 13 November 1945, the only VC awarded to any member of Transport Command during the Second World War. In May 1949 the Dutch Government awards Harry King the Netherlands Bronze Cross.
• 19 September - Consolidated B-32-1-CF Dominator, 42-108472, first B-32 delivered, on this date, written off the very same day when nosewheel collapsed on landing.
• 30 September - Hellcat F6F-3, BuNo. 42782, lost 125 miles SE of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts during carrier qualifications. Pilot's name/fate unknown. Located by submarine DSV Alvin, 24 September 1968.
• October - The Lavochkin La-7, which entered combat testing in September, suffers from a batch of flawed wings and causes six accidents, four of them fatal, which causes the fighter to be grounded until the cause is determined to be a defect in the wing spar.
• October - First prototype of two Lavochkin La-7R (Raketny - 'Rocket') conversions from standard production La-7 with rear fuselage and lower rudder cut-away to accommodate RD-1 kHz auxiliary rocket motor designed by S. P. Korolev and V. P. Glushko, to counter threat of high-altitude Luftwaffe attacks against the Soviet capital, attempts first test flight after protracted ground trials. During the take-off run, however, a fuel pipe fails, the rocket motor explodes, and the airframe catches fire, test pilot Georgi M. Shiyanov bailing out. Shiyanov continues test programme with second prototype, and experiences close call on another flight when the nitric acid and kerosene-fuelled rocket explodes during a relight, destroying almost all the elevator surface, and 75 percent of the rudder, but he skillfully lands the damaged airframe, and it is repaired.
• 6 October - Junkers Ju 90, G6+AY, blows two tires and crashes on landing at Athens-Tatoi, Greece, after flight from from Iraklion, Crete. Repairs prove impossible and the aircraft is set on fire by the crew to prevent capture by the British, who were about to occupy Greece.
• 8 October - Focke-Wulf Fw 190 V18/U1, Werke Nummer 0040, originally Fw 190A-0, (utilized by Daimler-Benz for engine tests with Hirth exhaust turbine), is rebuilt a second time to Fw 190C standard as Fw 190 V18/U2 with 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Daimler-Benz DB 603A engine replaced by 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213E. Aircraft, prototype for Ta 152H-1, crashes this date on test flight out of Langenhagen after just a few days in its new configuration.
• 10 October - First Fisher P-75A-GC Eagle, 44-44549, crashes on flight test out of Eglin Field, Florida, when propellers apparently run out of oil, pilot Maj. Bolster attempts dead-stick landing but crashes short on approach, dies.
• 18 October - A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator, 42-50347 broke up in mid air over the town of Birkenhead, England . The aircraft was on a flight from New York to Liverpool and the accident killed all 24 airmen on board the aircraft. 1944 Birkenhead B-24 accident
• 20 October - Lockheed YP-80A-LO Shooting Star, 44-83025, c/n 080-1004, crashes at Burbank, California after main fuel pump failure, killing Lockheed test pilot Milo Burcham.
• 22 October - Second of only two Bell XP-77-BE lightweight fighters completed out of a contract for six, 43-34916, crashes when pilot attempts an Immelmann turn resulting in an inverted spin during testing at the Air Proving Ground, Eglin Field, Florida. Pilot Barney E. Turner bails out.
• 14 November - RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his wife Dora, and eight aircrew are killed when Avro 685 York Mk. C.I, MW126, strikes ridge at the 6,300 foot level in the French Alps between Belledonne and Seven Lakes Mountains, 30 miles S of Grenoble, France, in a blizzard. Wreckage found by a villager in June 1945. Leigh-Mallory, originator of the "Big Wing" concept during the Battle of Britain, and younger brother of Everest mountaineer George Mallory, was en route to his new posting in Ceylon where he was to take over command of Allied air operations in South East Asia Command.
• 22 November - Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer, BuNo 59544, on pre-delivery test flight by company crew out of Lindbergh Field, San Diego, California, takes off at 1223 hrs., loses port outer wing on climb-out, crashes one quarter mile further on in ravine in undeveloped area of Loma Portal near the Navy Training Center, less than two miles from point of lift-off. All crew killed, including pilot Marvin R. Weller, co-pilot Conrad C. Cappe, flight engineers Frank D. Sands and Clifford P. Bengston, radio operator Robert B. Skala, and Consolidated Vultee field operations employee Ray Estes. Wing panel comes down on home at 3121 Kingsley Street in Loma Portal. Cause is found to be 98 missing bolts, wing only attached with four spar bolts. Four employees who either were responsible for installation, or who had been inspectors who signed off on the undone work, are fired two days later. San Diego coroner's jury finds Consolidated Vultee guilty of "gross negligence" by vote of 11-1 on 5 January 1945, Bureau of Aeronautics reduces contract by one at a cost to firm of $155,000. Consolidated Vultee pays out $130,484 to families of six dead crew.
• 6 December - Lockheed XF-14 Shooting Star, 44-83024, c/n 080-1003, originally YP-80A No 2, redesignated during production. Destroyed in mid-air collision with B-25J-20-NC, 44-29120, near Muroc Army Air Base, California. All crew on both planes killed.
• 6 December - First prototype Heinkel He 162 V1 Salamander, or "Volksjager" ("Peoples' Fighter"), loses wheel-well doors on first flight due to improper bonding. Nonetheless, flight testing is not delayed for a thorough inspection, and on another flight in front of German high brass on 10 December, V1 starboard wing comes apart in high-speed, low-level pass, killing pilot, Kapitan Peter. Starboard aileron breaks away, taking part of wingtip with it, followed by failure of wing's leading edge. Aircraft corkscrews down and crashes on the perimeter of the airfield. Cause was defective wing bonding.
• 15 December - Noorduyn UC-64A Norseman, 44-70285, c/n 550, disappears over the English Channel with Maj. Glenn Miller and two others on board. Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) 10770. It is believed that the plane was lost by straying into a forbidden zone in mid-channel which was designated for the jettisoning of surplus ordnance. On that day, a squadron of RAF Lancasters had aborted a mission and were salvoing their bombloads in this zone. One crewman, a navigator, claims to have looked down and seen a Norseman flying low over the water. Before he could draw any attention to this, the Norseman was apparently overwhelmed by bomb splashes and disappeared.

1945

• 1 January - Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9, '12', of 10./JG. 54, flown by Leutnant Theo Nibel of the Grimbergen force, is downed during Unternehmen Bodenplatte when he strikes a partridge which holes his coolant radiator, makes forced gear-up landing near Brussels.

A Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9 of 10./JG54 (Leutnant Theo Nibel), downed by a partridge which flew into the radiator near Brussels on 1 January 1945.

• 10 January - P-61B-1-NO Black Widow, 42-39445, of 550th Night Fighter Squadron based at Hollandia, New Guinea, on a supposed proficiency flight (but pilot took along three passengers, including a 20-year old WAAC nurse), ends badly with aircraft coming down largely intact at the 5,000 foot level (1,500 m) of Mount Cyclops just a few miles from its airfield. All aboard survive with only minor injuries. Airframe recovered in 1989 by helicopter and is undergoing restoration at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
• February - The Akutan Zero is destroyed during a training accident. While the Zero is taxiing for a take-off, a SB2C Helldiver loses control and rams into it. The Helldiver's propeller slices the Zero to pieces. From the wreckage, William N. Leonard salvages several gauges, which he donates to the U.S. Navy Museum. The Alaska Heritage Museum and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum also have small pieces of the Zero.
• 18 February - Luftwaffe pilot Leutnant Erwing Ziller runs into problems 45 minutes into the third flight of Horten IX V2 when he suffers an failure of one of the jet engines, aircraft spins to starboard and crashes just outside the airfield perimeter. The pilot dies in hospital a fortnight later. This was the only powered Horten IX. The incomplete V3 prototype was shipped to the U.S. and is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
• 26 February - Brigadier General James Roy Andersen (1904–1945), is lost with the B-24 Liberator he was travelling on between Kwajalein and Johnston Island while en route to Hawaii. General Andersen graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1926, served at various Army installations, and obtained his wings at Kelly Field, Texas, in 1936. During 1943–1944 he served on the War Department General Staff. In January 1945, General Andersen was assigned to HQ AAF, Pacific Ocean Area. Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, is subsequently named in his honor.
• 1 March - First manned flight test, launched from the Lager Heuberg military training area near Stetten am kalten Markt, of Bachem Ba 349 Natter, 'M23', a vertically-launched bomber interceptor, fails when Oberleutnant Lothar Sieber, 22, a volunteer, is killed as rocket-powered aircraft reaches ~1,650 feet, cockpit canopy detaches, Ba 349 noses over onto back, then falls from ~4,800 feet, killing pilot. No cause for crash determined but it was thought that improperly latched canopy may have knocked Siebert unconscious. Three successful manned flights subsequently flown and a group of the fighters readied for intercept mission, but advancing U.S. 8th Army armoured units overrun launchsite before Natters can be used.
• 4 March - At precisely 0151 hrs., Junkers Ju 88G-6, Werknummer 620028, D5+AX, piloted by Hauptman J. Dreher, with a crew of three from night fighter unit 13/Nachtjagdgeschwader 3, becomes the last Axis aircraft to crash on British soil during World War II. Confused by auto headlights, fighter hits tree while attacking the airfield at Elvington, crashing at Sutton upon Derwent, Yorkshire, all four KWF. Two other Ju 88s had crashed in separate incidents at 0137 and 0145 hrs.
• 20 March - Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier is forced to bail out of first XP-80A prototype, 44-83021, c/n 080-1001, '01', "Gray Ghost", after catastrophic turbine blade failure slices off tail, pilot coming down on Highway 99 near Rosamond, California, breaking his back and side-lining him for six months.
• 5 April - Ryan XFR-1 Fireball, BuNo 48234, piloted by Ryan test pilot Dean Lake, on test flight over Lindbergh Field, San Diego, California, loses skin between the front and rear spars of the starboard wing, interrupted airflow over the wing causes it to disintegrate. Pilot bails out, airframe breaks up, wreckage strikes brand new PB4Y-2 Privateer, BuNo 59836, just accepted by the Navy and preparing to depart for the modification center at Litchfield Park, Arizona. Bomber burns, Navy crew of pilot Lt. D. W. Rietz, Lt. J. E. Creed, and Aviation Machinists Mates G. R. Brown and J. H. Randall, evacuate burning PB4Y, only Randall suffering injuries, first, second, and third degree burns and minor lacerations.
• 8 April - First prototype Rikugun Ki-93, '1', twin-engine fighter makes first and only flight from Tachikawa airfield, a successful 20 minute test of its low-speed handling characteristics, piloted by Lt. Moriya of the Koku Shinsa-bu (Air Examination Department) with 2nd Lt. Ikebayashi in the second seat. Unfortunately, pilot undershot the runway and touched down in soft soil, ground-looping airframe and tearing off port undercarriage leg, engine mount, and bending six-blade propeller. Repairs completed in four weeks, but the night before the scheduled second test flight, a B-29 bombing raid on Tachikawa destroyed the hangar housing the airframe.
• 8 April - U.S. Navy PB4Y-2, BuNo 59442, '442', "Zebra 442", of VPB-108, based at Tinian, Northern Marianas Islands, is lost on aircrew search mission over the Pacific Ocean, crew becomes disoriented, ditches at 1800 hrs. Spotted by two PB4Ys on 11 April, crew is rescued from rafts by submarine USS Queenfish on 12 April.
• 11 April - Second of two XP-61E Black Widows, 42-39557, modified from P-61B with cut-down fuselage and bubble canopy, is written off when over-eager pilot tries P-38 Lightning trick of retracting landing gear on take-off while still on runway, but heavier Widow settles onto runway, hollow steel props shatter, airframe strikes tool shack on side of runway, airframe written-off, pilot survives. First XP-61E, 42-39549, is modified into sole XF-15 photo-reconnaissance prototype, 36 of which will be built as F-15A Reporter.
• 19 April - During an Eighth Air Force raid on a rail marshaling yard at Aussig, Czechoslavakia, Luftwaffe Me 262s shoot down five B-17s. The fifth, named "Dead Man's Hand", of the 447th Bomb Group, piloted by Lt. Robert F. Glazener, on its 111th combat mission, becomes the last heavy bomber of the 8th Air Force lost to enemy fighters in the European theatre. Seven of eight crew escape the falling bomber, although no chutes were reported being seen (by this point, the two waist gunners were not being carried.)
• 21 April - Lufthansa Focke-Wulf Fw 200B-2, D-ASHH, "Hessen", hastily loaded with baggage of the Berlin Headquarters Staff, departs for Barcelona, Spain via Munich, piloted by Flugkapitän Künstle. Condor reaches Munich safely, but never appears in Spain. Extensive inquiries in Germany, Switzerland and Spain turn up no clues to fate. In 1954, evidence finally is discovered that the overloaded transport crashed and burned with no survivors near Piesenkofen Kreis Mühlberg, Bavaria.
• 23 April - A U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) Boeing B-17G-95-BO Flying Fortress 43-38856, 'GD-M', of the 381st Bombardment Group (Heavy), crashes on the east facing slope of North Barrule in the Isle of Man killing 31 US service personnel (including ground crew) en route to Belfast for memorial service for President Roosevelt.
• 28 April - A-26C-25-DT Invader, 43-22644, assigned at Wright Field, Ohio, crashes into the Choctawhatchee Bay, 3 Miles NE of Fort Walton, Florida after being struck by a bouncing bomb. It had taken off from Eglin Field, Florida, on a low level bombing exercise at AAF water range Number 60.
• 30 April - Just before midnight this date, first production PB4Y-2 Privateer, BuNo 59359, is being prepared on the ramp at Lindbergh Field, San Diego, California, for a flight to NAS Minneapolis, Minnesota, a mechanic attempts to remove the port battery solenoid, located 14 inches below the cockpit floor, but does so without disconnecting the battery. Ratchet wrench accidentally punctures hydraulic line three inches above the battery and fluid ignites, setting entire aircraft alight, mechanic suffering severe burns. Only number four (starboard outer) engine deemed salvageable. Cause was unqualified mechanic attempting task that only a qualified electrician should undertake.
• 6 May - 1st Lt. Vincent J. Rudnick, on local training and acrobatics flight out of King's Cliffe, Great Britain, in P-51D-5-NA Mustang, 44-13720, 'MC-X', "Mine 3 Express", of the 20th Fighter Group, loses control at top of a loop at ~1445 hrs. near Stoke Ferry, aircraft goes into irrecoverable spin, pilot bails out, airframe impacting near cottage of Springside. In June 1985, crash site excavated and some wreckage located.
• 8 May - First prototype (of three) Curtiss XF15C-1, BuNo 01213, crashes on a landing approach to Buffalo, New York due to fuel starvation, killing test pilot Charles Cox. Two other prototypes modified with a T-tail to correct problems, but this last Curtiss design for the U.S. Navy never enters production. Second prototype was scrapped but the third and final airframe is preserved at the New England Air Museum in Connecticut.
• 27 May - The third prototype Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, 42-78847, is destroyed in a crash during an air show at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, killing the pilot Glasgow and two civilians on the ground. Pilot attempted a slow roll after a low pass in formation with a P-38 and a P-51 on each wing, impacted at end of runway and plowed through line of cars on U.S. Alternate Highway 4. Dick Bong was flying the Lightning and Don Gentile was the Mustang pilot. Bong will die in a P-80 crash on 6 August. Gentile will be killed in air crash in 1951.
• 4 June - Aichi E13A "Jake" floatplane, c/n 41116, of 634 Kokutai-Teisatsu, 302 Hikotai, crashed into the sea during night time search mission. Salvaged from waters off Kaseda city, Kagoshima prefecture on 22 August 1992, it is displayed in unrestored condition at the Kasedo Peace Museum, Kyūshū, Japan.
• 13 June - A USAAF B-24H-25-FO Liberator bomber, 42-95095, of the 66th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, returning home to the USA from Prestwick Airfield crashed in the remote Fairy Lochs in Wester Ross, Scotland, killing its entire crew of nine from 66th Bomber Squadron; also on board were six crewmen from Air Transport Command.
• Circa 29 June - Messerschmitt test pilot Ludwig "Willie" Hofman ("Hoffman" in American source) attempts to ferry captured Me 262A1a/U4, Werke Nummer 170083, originally coded V-083, named Happy Hunter/Wilma Jeanne II, from Lager Lechfield, near Augsburg, Germany, to Airfield A-55 near Cherbourg, France on behalf of the USAAF Air Technical Intelligence ("Watson's Whizzers") for loading aboard the HMS Reaper, suffers catastrophic failure of starboard engine at ~9,000 feet altitude and is forced to bail out over Normandy, suffering massive bruising as he deploys parachute at high speed. Aircraft was one of two conversions carrying Rheinmetall BK-5 50 mm anti-tank gun in nose for bomber attack, although it was never used operationally. American sergeant admits a year later that he had failed to inspect this aircraft's engines before the flight.
• 7 July - On the first flight of the prototype Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui, Japanese derivative of the Me 163B, aircraft reaches 1,300 feet in a steep climb, then the rocket motor cut out, airframe crashing at Yokosuka Naval Aeronautical Engineering Arsenal. Cause believed either hydrogen peroxide shifting to rear of partially-empty tank, or air leak in fuel line causing blockage. Pilot Lt. Cdr. Toyohiko Inuzuka dies in hospital the next day. A redesign of the fuel system follows, but no additional flights made before Japanese capitulation in August.
• 12 July - A US Army Air Forces A-26C-35-DT Invader, 44-35553, on a training flight has mid-air collision with Eastern Airlines Flight 45 from Washington, D.C. to Columbia, S.C., a DC-3-201C, NC25647, c/n 2235, at ~3100 feet, 11.9 miles WNW of Florence, South Carolina at 1436 hrs. A-26 vertical fin strikes port wing of airliner, displaces engine of DC-3 which cuts into fuselage; A-26 tail sheared off, two crew parachute, one KWF. DC-3 pilot belly lands in cornfield, one passenger of 24 total on board killed.
• 18 July - Consolidated TBY-2 Seawolf, BuNo 30414, overshoots runway while landing at Convair Field, Fort Worth, Texas. Two KWF.
• 28 July – A US Army Air Forces B-25D-20-NC Mitchell bomber, 41-30577, "Old John Feather Merchant", crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in fog at 0949 hrs., killing 3 on aircraft plus 11 on ground and causing over $1 million in damage. See B-25 Empire State Building crash.
• 5 August - First production Martin JRM-1 Mars flying boat, BuNo 76819, c/n 9263, "Hawaii Mars", crashes on test flight in the Chesapeake Bay after porpoising during landing - never delivered to the US Navy.
• 6 August - All-time highest-scoring American flying ace (40 credited kills) Richard Bong is killed trying to bail out of a Lockheed P-80A-1-LO Shooting Star jet fighter, 44-85048, after a fuel pump failure during a test flight at Burbank Airport, Burbank, California, USA. News of Bong's death is overshadowed by the dropping of the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima the same day. The never completed Richard I. Bong Air Force Base in Wisconsin was named for him.
• 11 August - First of only two Nakajima Kikka twin-jet fighters, completed on 25 June, first flown 7 August for eleven minutes by Lt. Cdr. Sasumu Tanaoka out of Kisarazu Naval Air Base, crashes on second flight this date. Second unflown Kikka is shipped to the U.S. after the Japanese capitulation.
• 17 August - During Operation Dodge, the RAF airlift of troops home from Italian deployment, Avro Lancaster, ME834, 'K-OG', of 115 Squadron, based at RAF Graveley, struck HK798, 'K-OH', of the same squadron, and PB754, 'TL-A', of Graveley-based 35 Squadron when it swerves off runway while taking off from Bari, Italy.
• 17 August - Two B-29 Superfortress bombers collide over Weatherford, Texas during a bomber training exercise. Eight crew members were killed, 2 managed to escape from the falling wreckage and parachute to safety. B-29A-10-BN, 42-93895, of the 234th Combat Crew Training Squadron, Clovis Army Air Field, New Mexico, and B-29-40-MO, 44-86276, of the 231st CCTS, Alamagordo Army Air Field, New Mexico, involved.
• 18 August - Last U.S. air combat casualty occurs during mission 230 A-8, when two B-32 Dominators of the 386th Bomb Squadron, 312th Bomb Group, launch from Yontan Airfield, Okinawa, for a photo reconnaissance run over Tokyo, Japan. Both bombers are attacked by several Japanese fighters of both the 302nd Air Group at Atsugi and the Yokosuka Air Group that make 10 gunnery passes. Japanese aces Sadamu Komachi and Saburo Sakai are part of this attack. B-32 piloted by 1st Lt. John R. Anderson, is hit at 20,000 feet, cannon fire knocks out number two (port inner) engine, and three crew are injured, including Sgt. Anthony J. Marchione, 19, of the 20th Reconnaissance Squadron, who takes 20 mm hit to the chest, dying 30 minutes later. Tail gunner Sgt. John Houston destroys one attacker. Lead bomber, B-32-20-CF, 42-108532, "Hobo Queen II", piloted by 1st Lt. James Klein, is not seriously damaged but second B-32-35-CF, 42-108578, loses engine, has upper turret knocked out of action, and loses partial rudder control. Both bombers land at Yontan Airfield just past ~1800 hrs. after surviving the last air combat of the Pacific war. The following day, propellers are removed from Japanese aircraft as part of surrender agreement. Marchione is buried on Okinawa on 19 August, his body being returned to his Pottstown, Pennsylvania home on 18 March 1949. He is interred in St. Aloysius Old Cemetery with full military honors. B-32, 42-108578, will be scrapped at Kingman, Arizona after the war.
• 19 August - Pilot 1st Lt. James K. Holt ferries captured Me 262A, 500098, "Cookie VII", FE-4011, from Newark Army Air Base, New Jersey to Freeman Field, Indiana, with a refuelling stop at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at ~ 1600 hrs, as one of two Messerschmitts being sent for testing after arriving in the U.S. aboard the HMS Reaper. Upon landing at Pittsburgh, he experiences complete brake failure, overruns the runway, goes down steep incline, hits opposite side of ditch, tearing engines and undercarriage off of the jet and breaking the fuselage in half. Pilot is unhurt but airframe is a total loss.
• 24 August - Second (of two prototypes) XFD-1 Phantom, BuNo 48236, crashes due to stability/aileron problems, killing pilot.
• 28 August - Consolidated B-32-20-CF Dominator, 42-108528, of the 386th BS, 312th BG, crashed east of Amaro-O-Shima in the Ryukus after engine failure. 11 of 13 aboard survived. One of the last operational missions of World War II. Also, this date, B-32-20-CF Dominator, 42-108544, written off when it lost an engine on takeoff from Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. Skidded off runway, exploded, and burned. 13 KIA.
• 9 September - B-32-20-CF Dominator, 42-108532, "Hobo Queen II", is damaged when the nose wheel accidentally retracts on the ground at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. Two days later, a hoist lifting the B-32 drops it twice. Since the war has ended, it is not repaired but is disassembled at the airfield.
• 12 September - On first flight of Northrop XP-79B, 43-52437, out of Muroc Army Air Base, California, aircraft behaves normally for ~15 minutes, then at an altitude of ~7,000 feet begins a slow roll from which it fails to recover. Pilot Harry Crosby bails out at 2,000 feet but is struck by revolving aircraft and his chute does not deploy. Largely magnesium airframe is totally consumed by fire after impact on desert floor.
• 12 September - Pilot 1st Lt. Robert J. Anspach attempts to ferry captured Focke Wulf Fw 190F, FE-113, coded '10', from Newark Army Air Base, New Jersey, where it had been offloaded from the HMS Reaper, to Freeman Field, Indiana for testing. While letting down for refuelling stop at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a faulty electrical horizontal trim adjustment switch goes to full-up position, cannot be manually overridden. Pilot spots small dirt strip, the Hollidaysburg Airport, S of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and makes emergency landing. Upon applying brakes, right one fails immediately, fighter pivots left, landing gear collapses, propeller rips away. Pilot uninjured, but Fw 190 is hauled to Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, and scrapped. Prop ends up on wall of local flying club. The press never gets wind of the accident, nor of the 19 August Me 262 crash landing at Pittsburgh.
• 14 September - Hurricane destroys three wooden blimp hangars at NAS Richmond, Florida, southwest of Miami, with 140 mph winds. Rooves collapse, ruptured fuel tanks are ignited by shorted electrical lines, fire consumes twenty-five blimps (eleven deflated), 31 non-Navy U.S. government aircraft, 125 privately-owned aircraft, and 212 Navy aircraft. Thirty-eight Navy personnel injured, civilian fire chief killed. Air operations are reduced to a minimum following this storm, and NAS Richmond is closed two months later.
• 22 September - On first day of planned two-day exhibition of captured German aircraft at Freeman Field, Indiana, pilot Lt. William V. Haynes, 20, completes his flying routine in one of the eight remaining Focke Wulf Fw 190s at the base, (this being the same Fw 190D-9, Werke Nummer 211016, coded FE-119 , that he had ferried from Newark, New Jersey to Freeman on 13 September) , when, as he prepares to land, at ~300 feet AGL, the aircraft pitches up and rolls over, bellying into the ground nose up. Aircraft destroyed, pilot killed. Although investigation cites "pilot error" (it was thought he may have attempted a wing-over at too low an altitude for recovery), this may well have been another example of the faulty electrical horizontal trim switch problem that caused the loss of the Fw 190 at Hollidaysburg Airport, Pennsylvania on 12 September. Recent excavations at the former Freeman Field have uncovered various aircraft components that were apparently buried to dispose of them when the base was being shut down in 1947-1948.
• 29 September - Silverplate B-29-36-MO Superfortress, 44-27303, "Jabit III", of the 509th Composite Group, Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, on cross-country training mission, strikes several objects on landing at Chicago Municipal Airport, Illinois, never flies again. Assigned to the 4200th Base Unit at the airport pending disposition decision, it is salvaged there in April 1946.
• November - Disregarding advice from Eric "Winkle" Brown of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), to treat the rudder of the Heinkel He 162 with suspicion due to a number of in-flight failures, RAF pilot, Flt. Lt. R. A. Marks, starts a low-level roll during the Farnborough Air Show, one of the fin and rudder assemblies breaks off, the aircraft crashes before the ejection seat could be employed, killing Marks.
• 1 November - First prototype McDonnell XFD-1 Phantom, BuNo 48235 crashes, killing McDonnell's chief test pilot Woodward Burke.
• 17 November - A USAAF P-47N-15-RE Thunderbolt, 44-88938 , crashes between two houses on Windsor Parkway in Hempstead, New York shortly after take-off from Mitchel Field, setting both structures on fire. Morning accident kills pilot, 1st Lt. Daniel D. A. Duncan, 24, of New Iberia, Louisiana.
• 5 December – Flight 19, a training flight of 5 TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, manned by 14 US Navy and Marine personnel from Ft Lauderdale Naval Air Station, Florida, USA, vanishes over the Bermuda Triangle under mysterious circumstances. Avengers were four TBM-1Cs, BuNo 45714, 'FT3', BuNo 46094, 'FT36', BuNo 46325, 'FT81', BuNo 73209, 'FT117', and TBM-3, BuNo 23307, 'FT28'. A US Navy PBM-5 Mariner, BuNo 59225, carrying 13 sailors departs NAS Banana River, Florida, to search for the missing planes, also disappears after a large mid-air explosion is seen near its last reported position.
• 16 December - Second of two prototypes of the Douglas XB-42 "Mixmaster", 43-50225, on routine flight out of Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., suffers in short order, a landing gear extension problem, failure of the port engine, and as coolant temperatures rose, failure of starboard engine. Maj. Hayduck bails out at 1,200 feet, Lt. Col. Haney at 800 feet, and pilot Lt. Col. (later Major General) Fred J. Ascani, after crawling aft to jettison pusher propellers, at 400 feet - all three survive. Aircraft impacts at Oxen Hill, Maryland. Secret jettisonable props caused a problem for authorities in explaining what witnesses on ground thought was the aircraft exploding. Possible fuel management problem speculated, but no proof.

1946

• 28 January - First prototype Short Shetland I, DX166, the largest British-built flying boat, burns out at its mooring from fire in galley before flight testing can be completed.
• 1 March - Two Silverplate B-29s written off in taxi accident at Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico. Pilot of B-29-60-MO Superfortress, 44-86473, of the 509th Composite Group, assigned to Roswell AAF, New Mexico, attempts to taxi without energizing the hydraulic brake system, cannot stop bomber which collides with B-29-36-MO, 44-27296, "Some Punkins", also of the 509th. "Some Punkins" stricken in August 1946 and destroyed in fire-fighting training. 44-86473 dropped from inventory, April 1946, after salvage.
• 7 March - Silverplate B-29-30-MO Superfortress, 42-65387, from Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico, on practice mission to Los Lunas bombing range, releases 10,150 pound Fat Man shape, and then disintegrates for unknown reasons and spins in from 32,000 feet. Ten crew die, wreckage strewn up to 16 miles from main portion. B-29 that drops the weapon in Operation Crossroads test Able on 1 July 1946, is named "Dave's Dream" for bombardier Dave Semple, killed in this accident.
• 19 March - Col. George Vernon Holloman, (1902–1946), a native of Rich Square, North Carolina, aviation instrument inventor and early experimenter with guided missiles, is killed in a B-17 accident on Formosa, while en route from China to the Philippines. Holloman had received the DFC for conducting the first instrument-only landing of an aircraft. Alamogordo Army Air Base, New Mexico, renamed Holloman AFB, 13 January 1948.
• May - First of three MiG I-300 prototypes (I for Istrebitel, or interceptor), a twin-engined tricycle-geared jet-powered design first flown 24 April 1946, develops uncontrollable pitch during high-speed run and dives into ground, killing pilot Alexei Grinchik. Replacement test pilot Mark Gallai subsequently has two close calls in I-300, with tailplane and elevator suffering distortion, probably the same condition that killed Grinchik.
• 7 July - Eccentric, iconoclastic millionaire and aviator Howard Hughes is gravely injured when he mishandles a propeller pitch control failure and crashes his controversial XF-11 reconnaissance plane, 44-70155, during its maiden flight. Aircraft impacts homes in the Beverly Hills neighborhood near the Los Angeles Country Club golf course where Hughes was attempting an emergency landing.
• 8 July - First of two XF4U-5 Corsairs, created by mating F4U-4 BuNo 97296 with Pratt & Whitney R-2800-32W radial engine, first flown 3 July 1946, lost during routine test flight when pilot Bill Horan attempts dead-stick landing at Stratford, Connecticut. Airframe destroyed, pilot killed.
• 26 July - The crash of an L-5E Sentinel, 44-17844, during a routine flight out of Eglin Field, Florida, kills Capt. Russell H. Rothman, originally of Chicago, Illinois, when the liaison aircraft crashes 17 miles NW of Valparaiso, Florida. Rothman, who entered the service 16 September 1941 and had flown 800 hours in C-46 Commando and C-47 Skytrain transports in the European Theatre of Operations, had only recently been appointed to a regular commission in the Regular Army. He held the Unit Citation, the Air Medal with three clusters, the European and Middle East Theatre of Operations Ribbon, the American Defense Ribbon and the World War II Victory Medal. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Eleanor E. Rothman, of 26 Shalimar Court, Shalimar, Florida, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Rothman of Chicago.
• 29 July - First Swedish pilot to use an ejection seat to escape a crippled aircraft, Lt. Bengt Johansson (who later changes it to Järkenstedt), saves himself this date when the Saab J 21A-1, of 2 Divisionen, F9 Wing, out of Säve, collides with FFVS J 22 of another F9 Divisionen whilst engaged in naval gunnery attack practice. While climbing out from a gunnery pass, the J 21 is struck by the pursuing J 22, shearing off one of the J 21's twin tails. With control lost, Johansson jettisons canopy and ejects, other pilot also bails out of crippled J 22, both parachute into the sea where they are rescued by a Swedish navy destroyer. At the time the Swedish press describes the incident as a "first", the 1942 ejection by German Helmut Schenk from a Heinkel He 280 being little known at this point.
• 5 August - Second (of only 14 built) C-74 Globemaster, 42-65403, c/n 13914, crashes at Torrance, California when it loses a wing during an overload dive test. All four crew bail out successfully.
• 20 August - A captured Me 262A, Wrknr. 111711, FE-0107, 711, crashed Tuesday afternoon ~two miles S of Xenia, Ohio near Route 68, test pilot Walter J. McAuley, Jr., of the Flight Performance Section, Flight Test Division, Wright Field, Ohio, successfully parachuting to safety.
• 4 September - First prototype Bell XP-83, 44-84990, bailed back to Bell Aircraft Company by the USAAF as a ramjet testbed, and modified with an engineer's station in the fuselage in lieu of the rear fuel tank and pylon for test ramjet under starboard wing, suffers fire in ramjet on flight out of Niagara Falls Airport, New York. Flames spread to wing, forcing Bell test pilot "Slick" Goodlin and engineer Charles Fay to bail out, twin-jet fighter impacting at ~1020 hrs. on farm in Amhurst, New York, ~13 miles from Niagara Airport, creating ~25 foot crater.
• 6 September - First prototype of the Avia S-92.1 Turbina, a Czechoslavakian version of the Me 262A-1a, (essentially standard Me 262s built from already extant parts) crash lands on its sixth test flight out of a former Luftwaffe base NE of Praha (Prague). During high-speed runs at 13,125 feet (4000 meters), the port engine flames out, pilot Antonin Kraus is unable to get a relight, and he opts for a wheels-up landing in a field. The aircraft breaks in two on landing, and although Kraus is uninjured, it is a total write-off. For reasons of propaganda, the second prototype, S-92.2, is alleged to be the first true prototype, the first one having been an experimental ship, and the first two-seater, the CS-92.3, is declared the first series production aircraft.
• 13 September - Major General Paul Bernard Wurtsmith (9 August 1906 – 13 September 1946), of Strategic Air Command, is killed when his TB-25J-27-NC Mitchell, 44-30227, crashes into Cold Mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. In February 1953, the United States Air Force named Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda Township, Michigan, in his honor.
• 27 September - Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., is killed when DH 108, TG306, second prototype, breaks up in flight, coming down in the Thames near Egypt Bay.
• 1 October - RAF Bristol Brigand TF.1, RH744, failed to develop sufficient power on takeoff from RAE Farnborough, overran into soft ground and flipped over, without injuries to crew. This was the first Brigand written off.
• 10 December - A Curtiss R5C-1 Commando military transport plane, BuNo 39528, c/n 26715/CU355, (ex-USAAF 42-3582), of VMR-152, crashed into Mount Rainier's South Tahoma Glacier, killing 32 U.S. Marines. Wreckage not found until July 1947.
• December 30 - Antarctica PBM Mariner crash - A U.S. Navy PBM Mariner flying boat supporting Operation Highjump crashes during a blizzard in Antarctica. Three crew members are killed and six others were stranded 13 days before being rescued. The three who died were buried at the crash site and their remains have not been recovered.

1947

• 27 January - United States Army Air Force Silverplate B-29-36-MO Superfortress, 44-65385, of the 428th Base Unit, Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico, for Los Alamos bomb development testing, crashed immediately after take-off from Kirtland on routine maintenance test flight. No specific cause is documented, a fire in one engine and the pilot's failure to compensate for loss of power is believed to have caused the accident. Twelve crew KWF.
• February - Second prototype Curtiss XBTC-2, BuNo 31402, of only two built, crashes at NATC Patuxent River, Maryland, during testing of full-span Duplex wingflaps and dual rotation propellers.
• 18 February - The USS Cusk becomes the world's first submarine to launch a guided missile when it fires an LTV-N-2 Loon, which then crashes after flying only 6,000 yards, due to an apparent control malfunction.

Kee Bird down on the ice, taken February 1947

• 21 February - United States Army Air Force B-29-95-BW Superfortress, 45-21768, "Kee Bird", of the 46th/72nd Reconnaissance Squadrons, on mission out of Ladd Field, runs out of fuel due to a navigational error and is forced to land in a remote area of northern Greenland. The aircrew is rescued unharmed 3 days later, but the plane is abandoned in place. The accident achieves continuing notability for the exceptionally fortuitous rescue and later for a well-publicized and ultimately disastrous 1994 recovery attempt.
• 20 April - A B-29 Superfortress crashes and explodes one mile off shore at Kwajalein Island. No bodies are recovered. One of the dead is Capt. Quitman B. Jackson, 24, of Columbia, South Carolina, a 1944 graduate of West Point. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Charlotte R. Jackson, and their child, Susan, of Kansas City, Missouri, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Q. B. Jackson, of 1523 Lady Street, Columbia, S.C.
• 8 May - A P-51 Mustang based at Shaw Field, South Carolina, crashes at ~noon near Cassatt, South Carolina in Kershaw County. Col. W. M. Turner, executive officer at Shaw Field, said that ambulances and firefighting equipment went to the scene but that his information was that the pilot was not injured. He said that he was awaiting a full report on the crash.
• 18 May - A U.S. Navy pilot and two school boys are killed when a Corsair fighter crashes onto a school playground in Burlington, Iowa, during an airshow at the Municipal Airport. The fighter, one of 35 aircraft from Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, performing a mock formation raid in front of 3,500 spectators to signal the start of National Naval Reserve week, went into a series of barrel rolls, then appeared to go out of control before it crashed onto the playground at the Perkins School where 14 youngsters were playing ball. At least five others were injured, and several homes were struck by debris from the crash.
• 19 May - The crash of a C-45 Expeditor two miles S of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, kills three officers and two enlisted men of the 4140th Base Unit, Wright Field, Ohio, who had departed that base at 1805 hrs. on a flight to Selfridge Field, Michigan, to make advance preparations for air shows throughout the country. The twin-prop, twin-tailed aircraft came down in an open area during a driving rainstorm at ~2105 hrs. and broke into six major pieces. One crew attempted to parachute but was unsuccessful. The plane impacted within 500 yards of St. Mary's academy girls' school on the outskirts of Windsor.
• 29 May - A captured, modified V-2 rocket, launched from White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, at 2030 hrs. CST, fails to reach its maximum altitude, and comes down ~three minutes later, impacting in Tepeyac cemetery, ~six miles S of Juarez, Mexico. Unburnt fuel explodes, with the blast being felt in both Juarez and El Paso, Texas. Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner, commander at White Sands, confirmed by telephone the launch of the rocket, but refused any further comment.
• 29 May - An Army C-54 Skymaster courier plane with 33 passengers and eight crew on board crashes into a mountain SW of Tokyo, Japan. An Army announcement said that it had not been determined whether or not there were any survivors. A revised count reported that there were 40 aboard the C-54, 28 enlisted, eight officers, and four civilians, all killed in the crash. They were reported to be burned beyond recognition. The flight, inbound from Korea, had apparently exploded as it approached Tachikawa Airfield for a landing.
• 29 May - A B-29 Superfortress crashes shortly after take off from Ladd Field, Alaska. Three crew were reported missing while nine others were injured.
• 29 May or 30 May - Twelve members of the Colombian army air force are injured in the crash landing of their transport at Bogota, Colombia, after it collided in mid-air with a buzzard.
• 4 June - A U.S. Marine Corps Vought F4U-4 Corsair crashes in the surf at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina during a VFW airshow, and pilot Lt. Gene Dial, of MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, walks some 15 feet to shore unhurt. The pilot, with four and a half years of service, said that he crashed once before during a carrier take-off.
• 22 June - Martin XB-48, 45-59585, makes first flight, a 37-minute, 73-mile hop from Martin's Baltimore, Maryland plant to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, but blows all four tires on its fore-and-aft mounted undercarriage on landing when pilot O. E. "Pat" Tibbs, Director of Flight for Martin, applies heavy pressure to specially-designed, but very slow to respond, insensitive air-braking lever. Tibbs and co-pilot E. R. "Dutch" Gelvin are uninjured.
• Post July - First prototype Gloster E.1/44, SM809, final assembly completed July 1947 at Bentham Experimental Department, taken by road to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), Boscombe Down, never makes it. En route, vehicle carrying it apparently jack-knives while descending hill, crashes into stone wall, airframe damaged beyond repair. It was news of this accident that alerted the British public to the existence of a new Gloster fighter design.
• 19 July - RAF Bristol Brigand TF.1, RH742, assigned to the A&AEE, piloted by F/L T. Morren, failed to pull out of firing pass during exercise in the Lyme Bay area off the Dorset coast, entered slow roll and lost speed while inverted, into spiral dive into sea, killing both crew. It was thought that one of the dive brakes may have failed. This was the first fatal accident in the type.
• 25 July - First (of two) North American XP-82 Twin Mustangs, 44-83886, c/n 120-43742, of the 611 AAF Base Unit, crash lands at Eglin Field, Florida.
• 29 July - Nine crew are killed and two injured in a failed take-off attempt by a B-29 Superfortress from Eglin Field, Florida at 0813 hrs., the bomber coming down ~300 yards N of the main base near Valparaiso, Florida and burning. Killed were instructor pilot Capt. Gordon W. Barrett, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a West Point graduate who was awarded the DFC while flying B-29s in World War II; pilot 1st Lt. Huddie C. Bagley of Braufield, Texas; co-pilot Capt. Robert M. Seldomridge of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; navigator 1st Lt. Joseph A. Anderson, Shalimar, Florida; navigator 1st Lt. Milton Rose, Fort Walton, Florida; engineer Master Sgt. Michele Aulicino, Mary Esther, Florida; scanner Staff Sgt. Hugh T. Mulholland of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; scanner Cpl. Ashley W. Odom, McBee, South Carolina; and scanner Pfc. Donald D. Crawford from Fort Worth, Texas. Injured were scanner S/Sgt. Jeremiah W. Conlon of Worthington, Kentucky, admitted to the Eglin hospital with abrasions of the face and head, and ankle injuries; and radio operator S/Sgt. Lloyd D. Farris of Pensacola, Florida, with minor injuries but admitted for observation. The Superfortress apparently failed to gain much altitude before coming down, said Capt. Robert Gaughan, base public relations officer.
• August - First prototype Curtiss XBTC-2, BuNo 31401, of only two built, crashes at NATC Patuxent River, Maryland, during testing of full-span Duplex wingflaps and dual rotation propellers. This design was the last Curtiss aircraft built for the U.S. Navy.
• September - Gloster E.1/44, TX145, experiences extreme nose-wheel shimmy at 140 mph (225 km/h) during taxi tests at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), Boscombe Down, suffers severe damage to front end, returned to workshops for repair. Taxi trials not resumed until late February 1948.
• 16 September - A pilot assigned to Eglin Field, Florida, is KWF during an attempted emergency landing in a Lockheed P-80 at that base on Tuesday afternoon. Capt. Lawson L. Lipscomb of Houston, Texas, radioed that he was having difficulty with the jet and was returning to the Eglin main base where emergency preparations had been made on the runways, but the fighter came down just west of the airfield.
• 22 September - First (of four) Saab J 21R jet conversions from Saab J 21A-1, 21119, first flown 10 March 1947 after modification, is destroyed this date in a mid-air explosion.
• 15 October - Second prototype Westland Wyvern TF Mk. 1, (N.11/44), TS375, powered by Rolls-Royce Eagle, crashes during attempted forced landing at RAE Farnborough after its propeller stopped, killing Westland test pilot Squadron Leader Peter J. Garner, late of the RAF. Aircraft was to rendezvous for air-to-air photography for Flight's renowned photographer John Yoxall, but before photo shoot can take place, a bearing fails and both contra-props stop, pilot unable to round-off properly from steep dive due to immense drag of eight stopped blades, drops heavily into the intended field, breaks into pieces, pilot unconscious, airframe burns almost completely.
• 3 November - English Electric test pilot Johnny W.C. Squier takes off from Salmesbury, Lancs. in EE-built Vampire F.3, VP732, intended for the RCAF as 17043, experiences engine failure, force lands on a farm, narrowly missing trees. Fighter is wrecked but pilot survives.
• 19 November - Only accident of the Martin XB-48 test programme occurs when pilot E. R. "Dutch" Gelvin tries to abort takeoff in first prototype, 45-59585, from NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, when fire warning light comes on as engines reach full power. He retards throttle and applies brakes but bomber does not slow. As he runs out of runway and as the brake pressure bleeds off, he has a choice of running into the Chesapeake Bay or heading for the mudflats - he opts for the latter. He turns off the runway, tries to retract the undercarriage, runs across a ditch, a road, another ditch, left outrigger gear collapses and jet slides to stop leaning to port, just 50 feet short of a Navy doctor's home. Damage is minimal, limited to gear doors, outrigger, and flaps. Cause was the emergency fuel system, designed to maintain engine power at 94 percent, regardless of throttle position. This will be eliminated in second prototype.
• 28 November - A USAF Douglas C-47B, 43-48736, c/n 14552/25997, en route from Pisa to Frankfurt-Rhein-Main AFB, thirty miles off-course, crashes in the Italian Alps near Trappa, Italy. All five crew and 15 passengers KWF. Wreckage discovered eight months later.

1948

• 28 February - Two Army Air Force crew are killed in the crash of an T-6C-NT Texan, 41-32589, near Cowan, Tennessee when their aircraft impacts in mountainous terrain while flying from Hot Springs, Arkansas to Murphy, North Carolina. A search was begun when they were reported overdue on Sunday, 29 February. Rescuers labored for several hours to reach the wreckage which had been spotted earlier by a search plane. Capt. R. M. Howard of the Air Forces rescue service identified the victims as Frank Dreher, of West Columbia, South Carolina, a February 1948 Pre-med graduate of Clemson College; and Hubert Wells, of Murphy, North Carolina.
• 18 March: Lt. Roger L. Miller, flying a Marine Corps F4U Corsair, crashes into the sea during dive bombing practice. His body was not recovered. He was the father of Roger L. Miller Jr. and his second son was born the following day. His name was Stephen.
• 20, 25 March - Two large tornadoes strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, damaging or destroying a large number of aircraft including at least two C-54 Skymasters, a C-47 Skytrain, and many B-29 Superfortresses stored from World War II. See 1948 Tinker Air Force Base tornadoes.
• 31 March - One of two SB2C-5 Helldivers, BuNo 83414, en route from Naval Air Station Tillamook, Oregon, to San Diego, California, crashes in woods near Rockaway Beach, Oregon, killing pilot Robert W. Smedley. Wreckage rediscovered by loggers on 10 March 2010.
• 5 April - A Soviet Yak-3 fighter buzzes a British European Airways Vickers Viking VC.1B, G-AIVP, c/n 229, while it is on a scheduled flight to Berlin, Germany, then collides with the wing of the airliner, killing the pilots of both aircraft and ten passengers on the Viking. Total fatalities is 15. See 1948 Gatow air disaster.
• 9 April - A six-month fatality-free period at Eglin AFB, Florida, (the longest since the base opened) ends when Capt. William Robbins, 26, is killed in the crash of a P-51D-30-NA Mustang, 44-74913, in a wooded area N of Crestview, Florida. The pilot in the Friday morning accident was father of three and was well-known for his involvement with the Boy Scouts of America. A resident of Cinco Bayou, Florida, Robbins is buried in his hometown of Tampa, Florida on 11 April.
• 10 April - Eglin AFB, Florida, suffers second accident in two days when A-26 Invader from Biggs AFB, El Paso, Texas, goes down in the Gulf of Mexico S of Destin, Florida. Two of three crew survive by parachuting from stricken bomber, TDY here for firing exercises over the Gulf. First Lieutenant John Kubo and T/Sgt. Joseph A. Riley (ages, hometowns not given) are rescued by Eglin crash boats. KWF is T/Sgt. John E. Brizendine, officially listed as missing.
• 3 May - Second Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, BuNo 37971, NACA 141, crashes on takeoff on 20th flight for NACA (46th total take-off) at Edwards AFB, California, due to compressor disintegration that cut control runs in fuselage, killing NACA pilot Howard C. Lilly. Lilly is the first NACA pilot to die while on duty, and the first pilot who had flown at supersonic speed to be killed.
• 11 May - Maj. Simon H. Johnson, deputy commanding officer of the Eglin AFB, Florida, fighter section, is killed when his Republic P-84 Thunderjet disintegrates during an air demonstration on the Eglin reservation, in front of some 600 witnesses. The public information officer at Eglin stated that the pilot was "engaged in operational tests on the plane" when the accident occurred. Maj. Johnson, a resident of Shalimar, Florida, was originally from Houston, Texas. He had served a year in Italy flying 50 missions in P-51s with the 31st Fighter Group, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the air medal with five clusters. He had attended the University of Texas and graduated from the U.S. Army flying school in 1940.
• 23 May - In the early evening, ex-RAF Handley Page Halifax C.MK 8, registered G-AIZO, ex-PP293, and operated by Bond Air Services Ltd. carrying a cargo of apricots from Valencia, Spain, crashes at Studham, Bedfordshire while on a Standard Beam Approach (SBA) to Bovingdon in bad weather. After a steep turn to port and losing height rapidly, the Halifax sideslips towards the ground until, seeming to recover and flying straight and level and with engines at full power, the aircraft strikes the ground flat and disintegrates, breaking into its component sections. Miraculously, the crew escape alive. After initial suspicions that the cargo may have shifted in flight, the subsequent AAIB report blames loss of control by the pilot whilst the aircraft was too close to the ground for recovery.
• 5 June - Northrop YB-49-NO, 42-102368, c/n 1488, crashes in desert near Muroc Air Force Base, California after both outer wings become detached from center section during spin recovery, killing pilot Maj. Daniel Forbes, co-pilot Capt. Glen Edwards, and three crew. Forbes Air Force Base, Kansas, is named for the pilot, and Muroc is renamed Edwards Air Force Base for the co-pilot on 5 December 1949. Flying wing bomber design will be revived in the 1980s as the B-2 Spirit.
• 8 July - A USAF C-54 Skymaster crashes near Wiesbaden, Germany, killing three crew. This was the first accident during the Berlin Airlift. KWF were 1st Lt. George B. Smith, 1st Lt. Leland V. Williams, and Karl v. Hagen of the Department of the Army.
• 21 July - B-29 Lake Mead crash - A United States Air Force B-29-100-BW Superfortress, 45-21847, modified into an F-13 reconnaissance platform, crashes into Lake Mead, Nevada, during a classified cosmic ray research mission out of Armitage Field, Naval Air Facility, NOTS, Inyokern, California. Five crew escape unharmed before bomber sinks.
• 25 July - A C-47B-15-DK Skytrain, 43-49534, c/n 15350/26795, participating in the Berlin Airlift, departs Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany, strikes apartment building on approach to Berlin and crashes in the street, killing both crew, 1st Lt. Charles H. King, and 1st Lt. Robert W. Stuber.
• 20 August - A B-29-15-BA Superfortress, 42-63442, crashes near Rapid City, South Dakota shortly after take off from Rapid City AFB, killing all 17 on board.
• 23 August - On first flight test of the XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-524, (the second of two prototypes), McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch successfully detaches from trapeze carried on EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", but when he tries to hook up after free flight, the small fighter, buffeted in turbulence from the bomber, swings violently forward, smashes canopy against the trapeze, knocking the pilot's helmet off. Schoch successfully belly lands on dry lakebed at Muroc Air Force Base, California, suffering little damage.
• 24 August - Two separate accidents kill 13 U.S. airmen, this date. Nine are killed aboard an Army C-117A-1-DK Skytrain, 45-2554, c/n 18557/34212, 45-2554, near Newton, New Jersey, after a mid-air collision with an Army B-25J-30-NC Mitchell, 44-86870. The bomber suffers damage to a wingtip but lands safely. In a separate accident, two C-47 Skytrains engaged in the Berlin Airlift collide in mid-air near Ravoltzhausen, killing two crew on each airlifter. Killed in the C-47s were Maj. Edwin C. Diltz, Capt. William R. Howard, Capt. Joel M. DeVolentine, and 1st Lt. William T. Lucas.
• 3 September - The only Silverplate B-29 to be part of the strike package on both atomic missions over Japan, B-29-40-MO Superfortress, 44-27353, "The Great Artiste", of the 509th Composite Group, deployed to Goose Bay Air Base, Labrador for polar navigation training, aborts routine training flight due to an engine problem, makes downwind landing, touches down half way down runway, overruns onto unfinished extension, groundloops to avoid tractor. Structural damage at wing joint so severe that Superfortress never flies again. Despite historicity, airframe is scrapped at Goose Bay in September 1949.
• 20 September - First prototype USAF XB-45 Tornado, 45-59479, in a dive test at Muroc Air Force Base, California, to test design load factor, suffers engine explosion, tearing off cowling panels that shear several feet from the horizontal stabilizer, aircraft pitches up, and both wings tear off under negative g load. Crew has no ejection seats, and George Krebs and Nick Piccard are killed.
• 6 October - An engine fire causes the crash in Template:City-state, of a Boeing B-29-100-BW Superfortress, 45-21866, of the 3150th Electronics Squadron , United States Air Force, shortly after take off from Robins Air Force Base, killing 9 of 13 men aboard, including 3 RCA engineers. Four parachuted to safety. (See also 1948 Waycross B-29 crash).
• 18 October - A USAF C-54D-10-DC Skymaster, 42-72688, c/n 10793, participating in the Berlin Airlift, crashed near Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, killing three crew, Capt. James A. Vaughn, 1st Lt. Eugene Erickson and Sgt. Richard Winter.
• 19 October - Royal Navy Grumman Avenger III, KE443, 'FD 068', of 703 Squadron, shorebased at Ford, Sussex, noses over on landing aboard HMS Illustrious. Airframe is not repaired and ends up on fire dump at Gosport, Hampshire, surviving until at least mid-1950.
• 22 October - On fifth flight of the second prototype XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-524, McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch unhooks from trapeze carried on EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", and for the first time retracts the small fighter's nose hook in flight. But when he extends it to reconnect with the mothership, buffeting over the open nose hook well (previously flown taped closed) causes the Goblin to be too unstable for reconnection. The hook is broken in the attempts, and Schoch belly lands on the dry lake at Muroc Air Force Base for the second time. This was the last flight of the second prototype.
• 3 November - RB-29A Superfortress, 44-61999, "Overexposed", of the 16th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, 91st Reconnaissance Group, 311th Air Division, Strategic Air Command, USAF, crashes on Shelf Moor, Bleaklow, in between Manchester and Sheffield, Derbyshire, while descending through cloud. All 13 crew KWF. It is doubtful they ever saw the ground. The time was estimated from one of the crew members wrist watch. The plane, piloted by Captain L. P. Tanner, was on a short flight, carrying mail and the payroll for American service personnel based at USAF Burtonwood. The flight was from Scampton near Lincoln to Burtonwood near Warrington, a flight of less than an hour. Low cloud hung over much of England and which meant the flight had to be flown on instruments. The crew descended after having flown for the time the crew believed it should have taken them to cross the hill. Unfortunately the aircraft had not quite passed the hills and struck the ground near Higher Shelf Stones and was destroyed by fire.
• 5 November - A DB-17G Flying Fortress, 44-83678 returning to Eglin AFB, Florida from Fort Wayne, Indiana, crashes in woods SE of Auxiliary Field 2, crashing and burning NE of the runway at Eglin main base early Friday. All five on board are KWF, including Lt. Col. Frederick W. Eley, 43, of Shalimar, Florida, staff judge advocate at Eglin for nearly three years - he was returning from his grandmother's funeral in Portland, Indiana; Maj. Bydie J. Nettles, 29, who lived in Shalimar, Florida but was originally from Pensacola, Florida, group adjutant for the 3203rd Maintenance and Supply section; Capt. Robert LeMar, 31, Ben's Lake, Eglin AFB, test pilot with the 3203rd; crew chief M/Sgt. Carl LeMieux, 31, of Milton, Florida; and Sgt. William E. Bazer, 36, assistant engineer, Destin, Florida. Bazer's wife was the Eglin base librarian.
• 7 November - Second prototype Republic XR-12 Rainbow, 44-91003, crashes at 1300 hrs. while returning to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The number 2 (port inner) engine exploded as the aircraft was returning from a photographic suitability test flight. The pilot was unable to maintain control due to violent buffeting, and he ordered the crew to bail out. Five of the seven crew escaped safely, including pilot Lynn Hendrix, rescued by Eglin crash boats and helicopters. Airframe impacts two miles S of the base, in the Choctawhatchee Bay. Sgt. Vernon B. Palmer, 20, and M/Sgt. Victor C. Riberdy, 30, who lived at Auxiliary Field 5, but was from Hartford, Connecticut, are KWF.
• 8 or 11 December (sources differ) - US Navy R5D-3 Skymaster, BuNo 56502, c/n 10643, returning from the Berlin Airlift, crashes in the Taunus Mountains near Frankfurt-am-Main S of Königstein, Germany. One crew of six aboard killed: AMM3 Harry R. Crites, Jr.

1949

• 12 January - During the Berlin Airlift, the crash of a C-54D-5-DC Skymaster, 42-72629, c/n 10734, on approach to Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, kills three crew, 1st Lt. Ralph H. Boyd, 1st Lt. Craig B. Ladd, and T/Sgt. Charles L. Putnam.
• 19 January - First flight of Martin XSSM-A-1 Matador test vehicle, from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, ends in crash.
• 6 March - Two USMC Reserve Grumman F6F-5N Hellcats crash into the 9,500 foot level of the south slope of Mt. Baldy, in Southern California.
• 15 March - Second prototype of three Vought XF7U-1 Cutlass twin-tailed fighters, BuNo 122473, lost on test flight over the Chesapeake Bay, out of NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Test pilot William H. B. Millar killed.
• 29 April - First prototype (of two) of the XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-523, makes its first and only flight, piloted by McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch. After launching from trapeze suspended below EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", pilot is unable to hook up for retrieval and belly lands on dry lakebed at Muroc Air Force Base, California. After only six total flights by the Goblin, totalling ~2 1/2 hours of flight time, the U.S. Air Force abandons the test program. Both prototypes are preserved in museum collections.
• 4 May - USAF F-82F Twin Mustang, 46-468, out of Mitchel Field crashes into an unfinished house on Fulton Avenue near Duncan Road, a residential neighborhood of Hempstead, New York near Hofstra University; the plane burst into flames but neither the pilot, 2nd Lt. Andrew Wallace, nor his radar observer, 1st Lt. Bryan Jolley, were killed. In fact, Wallace used a brick from the house to smash the right canopy and rescue Jolley.
• 25 May - Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress, 44-27299, of the 97th Bomb Group, Biggs AFB, Texas, suffers fire in number 4 (starboard outer) engine shortly after take-off for routine navigation and radar training mission. Unable to extinguish blaze, crew bails out but navigator's parachute does not open and he is killed - believed that he had struck his head on nosegear operating assembly while departing bomber. B-29 makes two-mile circle, then comes down 35 miles NE of El Paso, Texas, exploding on impact.
• 30 May - Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft test pilot Jo O. Lancaster becomes first British pilot to save his life with an ejection seat when he bails out of experimental twin-jet flying wing Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52, TS363, out of Bitteswell, using "primitive" Martin-Baker Mk. 1 seat, when an oscillation in pitch set in during a shallow dive from ~5,000 feet.
• 3 June - Sole completed Sukhoi Su-15 (Aircraft P) twin-engined jet all-weather interceptor develops severe vibration during 39th test flight, breaks up in mid-air forcing pilot S. N. Anokhin to eject. Project abandoned, second prototype never finished.
• 11 July - A U.S. Navy pilot trainee is killed when his F4U-4 Corsair strikes a parked SNJ Texan at Corry Field, Florida, upon returning from a period of field carrier landing practice. It approaches on landing, and the port wing strikes a static SNJ in a parking area and the Corsair "cartwheels" onto its back, killing the pilot.
• 9 August - US Navy pilot Lt. J. L. "Pappy" Fruin of VF-101 loses control of his F2H-1 Banshee at 500 mph and 30,000 feet and ejects over Walterboro, South Carolina, becoming the first American Naval aviator to use an ejector seat during an actual in-flight emergency. VF-101 was the first Navy unit to receive the type.
• 12 August - Third of three Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 jet-powered flying-boat fighter prototypes, TG271, design specification E.6/44, is written off after hitting a submerged obstruction and sinking in the Solent off Cowes, Isle of Wight, Royal Navy pilot Lt. Cdr. Eric "Winkle" Brown surviving. Design not placed in production.
• Post-August - Second of three Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 jet-powered flying-boat fighter prototypes, TG267, design specification E.6/44, crashes into the sea during practice for an air show, killing the pilot. Design not placed in production.
• 15 September - First B-36 Peacemaker loss occurs when B-36B 44-92079, of the 9th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, crashes into Lake Worth during a night "maximum effort" mission takeoff from Carswell AFB, Texas, killing five of 13 crew. Cause attributed to two propellers going into reverse pitch. Wreckage removed from lake and scrapped.
• 30 September - First Avro 707 delta-wing research aircraft, VX784, first flown 6 September 1949 (one source says 4 September), crashes near Blackbushe on test flight out of Boscombe Down, killing Avro test pilot Flt. Lt. Eric Esler. Cause never established.
• 3 October - The first (of only two) prototypes of the Kellett XR-10 helicopter, 45-22793, crashes due to a control system failure, killing Kellett's chief test pilot, Dave Driskill. The project was abandoned shortly thereafter.
• 31 October - Westland Wyvern test program suffers set-back when second prototype Wyvern TF Mk 2 (N.12/45), VP113, powered by Armstrong Siddeley Python turboprop, crashes in attempted dead-stick landing after the props seize in flight, test pilot killed.
• 1 November – A Lockheed P-38L Lightning, NX26297 flown by a Bolivian Air Force pilot, collides in midair with Eastern Airlines Flight 537, a Douglas DC-4 airliner, N88727, on its final approach to National Airport. All 55 people on board the DC-4 die; the P-38 pilot survived with injuries. Bridaux was considered one of Bolivia's most experienced pilots. Among the dead were Congressman George J. Bates and former Congressman Michael J. Kennedy. DC-4 wreckage comes down on Virginia shoreline of the Potomac River, north of Mount Vernon. It was (at the time) the worst plane crash in the history of civil aviation. The P-38 pilot was accused of causing the accident, later tried and cleared of the charges, which now is believed to have been an ATC error.
• 22 November - First prototype Gloster E.1/44, TX145, on test flight out of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, suffers engine flame-out, crash lands. Repaired.
• 29 November - Fairey Gannet, VR546, crashes on take-off from Fairey's flight test airfield at White Waltham, Berkshire, following violent porpoising at unstick speed. Repairs take three months and test flying does not resume until March 1950.
• 11 December - F-51D-25-NT Mustang, 45-11353, crashes at Reno Air Force Base, Nevada, killing Reno native 1st Lt. Croston Stead during training mission. Base is subsequently named Stead Air Force Base in January 1951 in his honor.

See also

• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (pre-1925)
• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1950–1974)
• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1975–1999)
• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (2000–present)
• List of aircraft accidents at Eglin Air Force Base

External links

• Aviation Week
• PlaneCrashInfo.com