3 March 1911 (USA): First aviation appropriation of $125,000 authorized for U.S. Army.

3 March 1911 (USA): With Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois navigating a course and Phillip Parmelee at the controls, the Wright Type B on loan from Robert F. Collier sets an official U. S. cross-country record from Laredo to Eagle Pass, Texas. It flies the 106 miles in 2 hours 10 min.

3 March 1912 (England): First flight of the Avro 500 two-bay tractor biplane with unstaggered parallel-chord wings with rounded tips, a deep rectangular section fuselage bearing a rectangular steel-framed stabilizer, elevator and rudder with no fixed fin, and a tidy undercarriage with a pair of wheels on a transverse leaf-spring and a long central skid projecting forward of the propeller.

3 March 1916 (USA): The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor to NASA, is born.

3 March 1918 (France): Lloyd Andrews Hamilton becomes the first American to receive a commission in the British Royal Flying Corps when he is assigned as lieutenant with No. 3 squadron in France.

3 March 1919 (USA/Canada): Airplane builder William E. Boeing and Eddie Hubbard of Hubbard Air Service make the first international airmail flight from Seattle, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in a Boeing CL-4S.

3 March 1923 (USA/Puerto Rico): Six Army airplanes in command of Capt. Thomas G. Lamphier, USAS, leaves San Antonio, Texas, for a flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and return.

3 March 1926 (Canada): Air Service to Red Lake, Ontario began. JV Elliot and AH Farringtron of Elliot Air Service flew two Curtiss JN-4 “Canuck” biplanes with a passenger in each from Hudson to Red Lake, Ontario.

3 March 1930 (Canada): The inaugural flight over the Prairie Air Mail Route was carried out by Western Canada Airways Ltd.

3 March 1931 (England): First flight of the Fairey Gordon single-engine two-seat light biplane bomber and utility aircraft.

3 March 1936 (Ethiopia): Italian aircraft attack Ethiopian ground forces as they retreat across the Takkaze River, dropping mustard gas and 80 tons (72.6 tonnes/metric tons) of high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Thousands of Ethiopian troops are killed.

3-9 March 1936 (South Africa/England): Flying a Miles “Falcon” with de Havilland “Gypsy” engine, Thomas Rose flies from Capetown, South Africa, to Croydon, England, in 6 days 7 hours 5 minutes, making new record.

3 March 1942 (France): Overnight, 235 British bombers, the largest number sent against a single target to date, attack the Renault vehicle factory at Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris in an attempt at night precision bombing. Three-quarters of the bombs hit the factory, but 367 French civilians are killed and 10,000 rendered homeless by errant bombs. The death toll in fact is greater than in any single attack on a German city thus far in the war.

3 March 1942 (Australia): Three Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters shoot down the KNILM Douglas DC-3 airliner “Pelikaan&rdqqo; (PK-AFV) as it approaches Broome, Australia, forcing it to make a belly landing in shallow surf at Carnot Bay, then strafe it, killing or seriously injuring four of the 12 people on board. A Japanese Kawanishi H6K “Mavis” flying boat bombs the wreckage the following day. A shipment of diamonds worth A£150,000 to A£300,000 aboard the plane disappears, apparently stolen.

3 March 1944 (England): England-based Lockheed P-38 “Lightning” fighters of the U. S. Army Air Forces’ 55th Fighter Group become the first Allied fighters to escort bombers all the way to Berlin.

3 March 1945 (Philippines): United States and Filipino troops take Manila.

3 March 1945 (USSR): First flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250 (a.k.a. Samolet N). This Soviet fighter aircraft developed as part of a crash program in 1944 to develop a high-performance fighter to counter German turbojet-powered aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Me-262. The Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau decided to focus on a design that used something more mature than the jet engine, which was still at an experimental stage in the Soviet Union, and chose a mixed-power solution with the VRDK motorjet powered by the Klimov VK-107 V12 engine. While quite successful when it worked, with a maximum speed of 820 km/h (510 mph) being reached during trials, production problems with the VRDK fatally delayed the program and it was canceled in 1948 as obsolete.

3 March 1949 (Global Flight): Commanded by Capt. James G. Gallagher, the crew of 14 aboard the Strategic Air Command Boeing B-50A “Superfortress” ‘Lucky Lady II’ of the 43rd Bombardment Group, USAF, completes the first nonstop round-the-world flight of 94 hours 1 min. Flying a distance of 23,452 miles the Boeing B-50A is refueled four times by Boeing KB-29 tankers before landing back at Carswell AFB, Texas.

3 March 1950 (Australia/Japan): Australian Quantas inaugurates a passenger service from Sydney to Tokyo.

3 March 1952 (Malaya): A Royal Air Force Vickers-Armstrongs “Valetta” (VW153) military transport crashed on take-off from RAF Butterworth, Malaya.

3 March 1953 (Pakistan): A Canadian Pacific Airlines de Havilland DH.106 “Comet 1A” crashes on takeoff from Karachi, Pakistan, killing all 11 aboard. Excessive nose-pitch causes it to stall, resulting in first fatal jetliner crash in history.

3 March 1953 (USA): First flight of the Bell HSL. The Bell HSL (Model 61) was an American 1950’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter built by Bell Helicopter company, and the only tandem rotor design designed by Bell.

3 March 1960 (British Isles): The longest nonstop flight ever made by a Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft is completed when a Vickers Valiant B.Mk.1 (XD858) piloted by Sqdn. Ldr. J. H. Garstin flies around the British Isles for a total distance of 8,500 miles aided by two inflight refuelings.

3 March 1964 (USA): The port side cargo door of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules explosively blows off the aircraft at 19,000 feet above the Smoky Mountain resort town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, carrying one crewman to his death and another hanging onto a chain outside the aircraft as the fuselage decompresses. Crew chief Jose Gallegoes, 32, was holding a length of chain attached to his bolted-down tool box when the access door blew off. “Something like an explosion happened and I found myself hanging out of the plane”, the San Luis, Colorado man said later. “I was hanging by the chain with which I was securing the tool box. That chain saved my life”, he said. His fellow crewmen pulled him back inside the cargo plane, but there was nothing they could do for the as yet unidentified crewman who fell to his death on the mountainous slopes below, ~35 miles E of Knoxville, Tennessee. He had no parachute. A search was begun for his body. The departing door also sheared off the number two (port inner) propeller. The pilot, Flt. Lt. David W. Parsons, a RAF exchange officer from Wellington, England, was circling over McGhee Tyson Air Force Base when the door gave way. He immediately initiated an emergency landing, but found that he had no hydraulic control for the nose gear, touching down on the main gear before the Hercules settled onto its nose, skidding ~5,000 feet along the runway before coming to a halt. None of the seven crew remaining aboard were hurt. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was en route from Sewart Air Force Base, at Smyrna, Tennessee to Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina, when the accident occurred. Most of the plane’s parachutes were stacked near the door and were carried over the side by the decompression. Sheriff Ray Noland stated that an open parachute was seen drifting down near Sevierville, Tennessee, and deputies searching for the crewman’s body found a parachute, a seat and the door ~two miles N of state highway 73, E of Gatlinburg.

3 March 1965 (North Vietnam): The United States begins Operation Blue Tree, medium-altitude photographic reconnaissance and bomb damage assessment flights over North Vietnam.

3 March 1967 (USSR): First flight of the Beriev Be-30. The Beriev Be-30 (NATO reporting name Cuff) is a Russian regional airliner and utility transport aircraft designed by the Beriev Design Bureau. It was developed specifically for Aeroflot local service routes using short, grass airstrips. It was also designed to be used in the light transport, aerial survey and air ambulance roles. It competed against the Antonov An-28 and the Czechoslovakian LET-410.

3 March 1969 (France): After a lengthy succession of taxi and runway tests, the first prototype Concorde 001 (F-WTSS) makes its first flight, with Andre Turcat at the controls. The flight lasts 29 min.

3 March 1969 (USA): Apollo 9, the second manned launch of a Saturn V rocket, launches to spend 10 days in lower Earth orbit to test the lunar module’s behavior in space.

3 March 1969 (USA): The United States Navy establishes its Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar, California, to improve its fighter pilots’ dogfighting skills. The school will become popularly known as “TOPGUN”.

3 March 1972 (USA): Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild Hiller FH-227B Twin-engine turboprop, crashes near Albany, New York while descending to land, killing 16 of the 48 people on board and 1 on the ground.

3 March 1973 (Russia): Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 307, an Ilyushin Il-18, crashes short of the runway at Sheremetyevo International Airport, killing all 25 on board.

3 March 1974 (France): In the world’s worst air disaster, a DC-10-10 of Turkish Airlines loses an aft cargo door after taking off from Paris en route to London, resulting in a complete loss of control. The aircraft crashes, killing 346 passengers and crew. This is the second time a cargo bay door has been lost from aircraft of this type. As a result, a latch modification becomes mandatory.

3 March 1977 (Italy): Aeronautica Militare Italiana, Italian Air Force Lockheed C-130H Hercules (MM61996, c/n 4492, ‘46-10’), of the 46 Aerobrigata, crashed into Monte Serra, 15 kilometers E of Pisa, Italy.

3 March 1991 (USA): United Airlines Flight 585, a Boeing 737-200, crashes while attempting to land at Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing all 25 people on board. The cause of the crash is not identified until the investigation into the crash of USAir Flight 427 in 1994; both crashes are eventually attributed to defects in a valve associated with the rudder.

3 March 1991 (USA): US Navy North American CT-39G Sabreliner (BuNo 160057, c/n 306-107, ex-N56798) crashed at 1145 hrs. in a neighborhood ≈.5 miles S of NAS Glenview, Illinois, killing three crew, but missing houses. No one on ground was injured and witnesses said the pilot appeared to intentionally avoid structures, the jet coming down 20 feet from homes.

3 March 2001 (USA): A United States National Guard Short C-23B+ Sherpa (Shorts 360) (AF 93-1336), of Florida Army National Guard Det. 1 H/171st AVN, based at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, crashes during heavy rainstorm around 1100 hrs. in Unadilla, Georgia in the United States. All 21 people on board are killed. Aircraft was en route from Hurlburt Field, Florida to NAS Oceana, Virginia with Virginia Beach-based RED HORSE detachment on board who had been training at Hurlburt.

3 March 2001 (Thailand): An explosion in the center wing fuel tank destroys Thai Airways International Flight 114, a Boeing 737-4D7, on the ground while it is preboarding at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. One person, a flight attendant is killed.

3 March 2005 (Persian Gulf): A Westland Lynx Mk.8 (Royal Navy) crashes during Gulf exercise. The three crew members survived. The Lynx is currently deployed to HMS Nottingham.

3 March 2005 (Global Flight): The late Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane around the world solo nonstop without refueling, flying 25,000 miles in 67 hours and 2 min.

3 March 2008 (Iraq): An Iraqi Air Force Mil Mi-17 Hip helicopter crashes in a dust storm near Bayji, Iraq, killing seven members of the IAF, as well as SSgt. Christopher S. Frost, 24, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, a USAF public affairs specialist who deployed to the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq from the 377th Air Base Wing at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.

3 March 2009 (Canada): Perimeter Aviation Flight 460, a Swearingen SA-226 TC Metroliner (C-FSLZ) makes a wheels-up landing at Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport, Canada. The same aircraft had an unsafe gear indication the previous day.

3 March 2010 (USA): A US Coast Guard Sikorsky MH-60T, an upgraded Sikorsky HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed in the remote Utah mountains. It was one of two traveling through the area en route to its home base in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, after performing security duty at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The helicopters made a refueling stop in Salt Lake City and were headed to Leadville, Colorado, when the crash occurred about 50 miles (80 km) east of Salt Lake City. Three crewmen were airlifted to local hospitals and two others sustained minor injuries.

3 March 2010 (Azerbaijan): An Azerbaijan Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot close air support aircraft crashed in the Shamkir district in northwest Azerbaijan at around 1700 hrs. local time, killing the pilot.

3 March 2010 (India): An Indian Navy HAL Kiran crashed into building in Hyderabad during the air show/exhibition “India Aviation 2010”. Both pilots and a civilian on the ground were killed. At least 5 other civilians also received injuries.

3 March 2010 (South Korea): An Republic of Korea Army MD Helicopters MD.500 helicopter crashed 20 km east of the capital Seoul, at around 2014 hrs. Helicopter hit a greenhouse in a rice paddy in Namyangju. The two crew members were rushed to a hospital but were later confirmed dead.