5 March 1906 (France): Traian Vuia begins testing his “Vuia №1” at Montesson, France, by driving it as an automobile without its wings mounted. It is a high-wing monoplane powered by a carbonic acid gas engine, and is first aircraft with pneumatic tires. It has been described as the first man-carrying monoplane of basically modern configuration.

5 March 1912 (USA): Bob Fowler flies from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Florida. The west to east coast-to-coast journey has taken four months to complete.

5 March 1923 (USA): Martin GMT (Glenn Martin Transatlantic), USAAS 62949, McCook Field project code ’P-87’, loses power on one of two Liberty engines while en route to Chanute Field, Illinois, is unable to stay aloft on one only, crashes. Pilot Maj. Bradley escapes injury, but Lt. Stanley Smith is fatally injured.

5 March 1923 (USA): The great aeronautical pioneer Igor Sikorsky sets up the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corp. in the United States with the financial help of several important leading figures, including Sergey Rachmaninoff. Sikorsky left Russia in 1917 when revolution threatened his work and his life.

5 March 1928 (Scotland): First flight of the Beardmore Inflexible. The Beardmore Inflexible, also known as the Rohrbach Ro.VI, was a three-engined all-metal prototype bomber aircraft built by William Beardmore and Company at Dalmuir, Scotland.

5 March 1936 (England): First flight of the Supermarine Spitfire. The single-seat fighter would play a major role in World War II, with over 20,300 being built over the following 10 years.

5 March 1936 (England): First Westland Wapiti delivered to the RCAF. The Westland Wapiti was a British two-seat general purpose military single-engined biplane of the 1920’s. It was designed and built by Westland Aircraft Works to replace the Airco D.H.9A in Royal Air Force service.

5 March 1937 (England): Imperial Airways opens a new flying boat base at Hythe, Hampshire.

5 March 1942 (USA): The Civil Air Patrol begins maritime patrols off the United States East Coast.

5 March 1943 (Germany): Overnight, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command begins a bombing campaign against the Ruhr area of Germany with an Oboe-marked raid on Essen. Known as the Battle of the Ruhr, it will last until mid-July. The first raid destroys 53 buildings in the Krupp complex and destroys 160 acres (65 ha) of Essen.

5 March 1943 (England): First flight of the Gloster Meteor. The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies’ first operational jet aircraft. The Meteor’s development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, developed by Sir Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft began in 1940, work on the engines had started in 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with 616 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Although the Meteor was not an aerodynamically advanced aircraft, it proved to be a successful and effective combat fighter.

5 March 1943 (North Atlantic Ocean): In the North Atlantic Ocean, the first U. S. Navy antisubmarine hunter-killer group begins combat operations, centered around the escort aircraft carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9) and the aircraft of Composite Squadron 9 (VC-9) embarked aboard her.

5 March 1943 (Barents Sea): Twelve German Heinkel He.111 bombers attack Convoy RA-53 during its voyage from Murmansk in the Soviet Union to Loch Ewe, Scotland, but cause no damage.

5 March 1947 (Canada): RCAF accepts its first helicopter, Sikorsky H-5 Dragonflyat Trenton, Ontario. The Sikorsky H-5 is a helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, formerly used by the United States Air Force, and its predecessor, the United States Army Air Forces, as well as the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard. In December 1946, an agreement was signed between the British company Westland Aircraft and Sikorsky to produce a British version of the H-5 or S-51, to be manufactured under license in Britain as the Westland-Sikorsky WS-51 I. By the time production ceased in 1951, more than 300 examples of all types of the S-51/H-5 had been built.

5 March 1957 (England): A Blackburn Beverley C Mark I heavy transport aircraft (XH117, c/n 1023) of 53 Squadron Royal Air Force crashed on approach to RAF Abingdon, England following engine failure due to fuel starvation. Eighteen occupants killed and two on the ground.

5 March 1958 (USA): The United States Army Ballistic Missile Agency launches the JPL Explorer 2, but due to a mechanical failure, satellite does not reach orbit.

5 March 1958 (USSR): First flight of the Yakovlev Yak-28. The Yakovlev Yak-28 was a swept wing, turbojet-powered combat aircraft used by the Soviet Union. Produced initially as a bomber, it was also manufactured in reconnaissance, electronic warfare, interceptor, and trainer versions, known by the NATO reporting names Brewer, Firebar, and Maestro respectively. Based on the Yak-129 prototype first flown on 5 March 1958, it began to enter service in 1960.

5 March 1960 (Italy): A Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar (AF 53-8152A, c/n 255) of the 12th Troop Carrier Squadron, 322d Air Division, Dreux Air Base, France, departed Adana, Turkey with 3 crew, 15 passengers and 7,614 lbs. of cargo, made a fuelling stop at Athens, Greece, departing at 1600 hours for Naples, Italy. Two hours into an expected 3:02 flight, the port engine began to over-speed. Attempts to cut off and/or feather the propeller failed and the aircraft lost altitude. The pilot elected to shut down the engine by turning off the fire wall shut off. The engine did stop, but the propeller shaft sheared with the propeller wind-milling at an increased rate. The aircraft began to descend at a rate of 500 feet per minute. Realizing that the aircraft will not reach the chosen emergency airfield, at Crotone, Italy, the pilot circled the aircraft over the small town of Botricello ordering the passengers and radio operator to bail out, all landing safely with only minor injuries. Pilot Harold Cliffton Hardesty and co-pilot Harry Francis Dawley, Jr. then landed the C-119 on the nearby beach at 1830 hrs. (dusk) with gear down, full flaps, landing light on, with an approach speed of 120 kts. and touch-down at 90 kts. The roll out was straight for 800-1,000 feet before the C-119 veered to the right and into the water, with the cockpit filling to about the level of the side window. The two crew evacuated through the top hatch, sliding off the left wing and swam ashore. Although the plane had stopped basically intact, the wave action overnight destroyed the airframe.

5 March 1960 (England): Late pre-production English Electric Lightning F.1 (XG334, c/n 95023) of the Air Fighting Development Squadron, RAF Coltishall, Norfolk, aircraft ’A’, crashed near Wells-next-the-Sea after suffering complete hydraulic failure, resulting in loss of all control-surface power and hydraulic services. The pilot, Sqn. Leader Harding, ejected safely, descending near Syderstone, in North Norfolk. Total flights 34, hours flown 23 h 35 min. This was the first loss of the type. Extensive sea search around Roaring Middle Light failed to find any trace of the missing Lightning.

5 March 1962 (USA): A Convair B-58 Hustler (AF 59-2458) of the Forty-third Bombardment Wing breaks three records during a round trip between New York and Los Angeles in 4 hours 41 min 14.98 seconds. The fastest transcontinental crossing between Los Angeles and New York is accomplished in 2 hours 58.71 seconds at an average speed of 1,214.65 mph. The third record notches the fastest time between New York and Los Angeles.

5 March 1963 (USA): Country music star Patsy Cline and three others are killed in the crash of a Piper Comanche near Camden, Tennessee.

5 March 1966 (Japan): BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707 bound for Hong Kong, crashes at Mount Fuji near Gotenba, Japan, killing all 124 passengers and crew.

5 March 1966 (North Vietnam): For the first time, the United States employs the Alpha section (listing major fixed ground targets in North Vietnam) of a U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Rolling Thunder order.

5 March 1966 (USA): First free flight of the Lockheed D-21 drone. The Lockheed D-21 was an American Mach 3+ reconnaissance drone. The D-21 was initially designed to be launched from the back of its Lockheed M-21 carrier aircraft, a variant of the Lockheed A-12 aircraft. Development began in October 1962. Originally known by the Lockheed designation Q-12, the drone was intended for reconnaissance missions deep in enemy airspace. The D-21 was designed to carry a single high-resolution photographic camera over a preprogramd path, then release the camera module into the air for retrieval, after which the drone would self-destruct. Following a fatal accident when launched from an M-21, the D-21 was modified to be launched from a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. Only four operational D-21 flights were made over the People’s Republic of China before the program was canceled in 1971.

5 March 1967 (USA): Lake Central Flight 527, a Convair 340, crashes near Marseilles, Ohio after a propeller detaches and severs the fuselage, causing a loss of control; all 38 on board die.

5 March 1967 (USA): U.S. Coast Guard Grumman HU-16 Albatross (USCG 1240) out of St. Petersburg, Florida, deploys to drop a dewatering pump to a sinking 40-foot yacht Flying Fish, off of Carrabelle, Florida. Shortly after making a low pass after the sinking vessel to drop the pump, the flying boat crashes a short distance away, with loss of all six crew. Submerged wreck not identified until 2006.

5 March 1967 (Liberia): Varig Airlines Flight 837, a Douglas DC-8, crashes while on approach to Roberts International Airport due to pilot error, killing 51 of 90 on board as well as 5 on the ground.

5 March 1974 (Canada): A USAF Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker of the 7th Air Refuelling Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, en route from Eielson AFB, Alaska to its homebase at Carswell AFB, Texas, suffered explosive decompression when a small window blew out at 35,000 feet at 1630 hrs. EST about 40 miles SE of Fort Nelson, British Columbia. One passenger of the 25 aboard died from the effects of the rapid decompression; others and eight crew okay. The tanker made an emergency landing at a Canadian Armed Forces Base at Edmonton, Alberta.

5 March 1974 (USA): A USAF Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker (AF 57-1500) of the 91st Air Refuelling Squadron, 384th Air Refuelling Wing, crashed and burned shortly after take-off from McConnell AFB, Kansas, killing two of seven crew. Air Force spokesmen reported that the aircraft was carrying 136,000 pounds of fuel when it crashed 3,000 feet from the main runway, after it apparently lost power.

5 March 1974 (Gulf of Mexico): A USN North American RA-5C Vigilante crashes in the Gulf of Mexico 35 miles W of Tampa, Florida. Both crew eject, two chutes observed, but only the navigator is recovered, by a fishing boat.

5 March 1975 (Japan): Entered Service: Shin Meiwa US-1 with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. The Shin Meiwa PS-1 and US-1A are large STOL aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and air-sea rescue (SAR) work respectively. The PS-1 was a flying boat which carried its own beaching gear on board, while the US-1A is a true amphibian.

5 March 1976 (England): The last flight of the second Concorde prototype aircraft to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at the Royal Naval Air Station, Yeovilton, England.

5 March 1978 (USA): The Landsat 3 is launched, third in a series of photo satellites. Its Earth-snapping work would last five years until March of 1983.

5 March 1979 (Jupiter): Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter at a distance of 172,000 miles.

5 March 1981 (Venus): Venera 14, a Soviet space probe for intended to explore Venus, arrives at its destination. The descender has a twin-ship, Venera 13, which launched and also arrived 5 days prior.

5 March 1991 (Venezuela): Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108 took off from La Chinita International Airport in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on a short-haul flight to Santa Barbara Ed-L Delicias Airport in Venezuela with 45 passengers and crew. Some minutes later the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashed on the side of a foggy mountain near La Valesa in the La Aguada sector of the Páramo Los Torres and burst into flames. All 45 people on board died.

5 March 1993 (Macedonia): Palair Macedonian Airlines Flight 301, a Fokker 100, crashes shortly after takeoff from Skopje Airport in Macedonia. 83 of the 97 passengers and crew on board die in the accident.

5 March 2000 (USA): Southwest Airlines Flight 1455, a Boeing 737-300, overruns the runway in Burbank, California. Of the 142 people on board, 43 are injured, two seriously.

5 March 2003 (France): At Saint-Forget, France a Socata Rallye MS.892 (F-BLSO) collided midair with a Cessna F150 (F-BSIQ) killing the instructor and student pilot in the latter aircraft. After investigation, the BEA called for obligatory use of transponders in a large zone around Paris.

5 March 2005 (Global Flight): Steve Fossett completes the first non-stop, solo circumnavigation of the world in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, completing the trip in 67 hours and 2 min.

5 March 2011 (Ukraine): Antonov An-148 crash occurred at Garbuzovo, Alxeevsky Region, Belgorod Oblast, Russia following an in-flight break-up. All six people on board are killed.

5 March 2012 (India): An Indian Air Force Dassault Mirage 2000TH crashed near Babanbas, Rajasthan. The two crew ejected safely.