2020 – United States Air Force Test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to ever break the sound barrier, dies at age 97 in Los Angeles, California.

2009 – SA Airlink Flight 8625, operated by Embraer ERJ 135 ZS-SJW, overruns the runway at George Airport, South Africa, arriving from Cape Town. The aircraft sustains substantial damage when it runs down a bank onto a road and may be declared a write-off.

1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, just more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

1990 – An Alaskan Airlines Boeing 727 takes off from Seattle International Airport in visibility of only 500 ft (150 m), the lowest for any airliner takeoff in the US.

1980 – Pan Am‘s Boeing 747, the China Clipper, arrives from JFK International Airport in New York, to Beijing, after a stop in Tokyo. It marks the first time since 1949 that a commercial flight between the United States and mainland China is completed.

1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew take the photograph known as “The Blue Marble” as they leave the Earth.

1962 – First flight of the Aérospatiale Super Frelon.

1955 – First prototype Martin XP6M-1 Seamaster, BuNo 138821, c/n XP-1, first flown July 14, 1955, disintegrates in flight at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) due to horizontal tail going to full up in control malfunction, subjecting airframe to 9 G stress as it began an outside loop, crashing into Potomac River near junction of St. Mary’s River, killing four crew, pilot Navy Lieutenant Commander Utgoff, and Martin employees.

1951 – The 6555th Guided Missile Squadron at Cape Canaveral, Florida, launches Martin B-61 Matador, GM-547. Lift-off and flight were normal, but the missile did not respond properly to guidance signals, and it finally went out of control and fell into the Atlantic 15 minutes and 20 seconds after launch. The flight covered a distance of 105 miles.

1945 – New Zealand National Airways Corporation is founded with amalgamation of Union Airways, Air Travel and Cook Strait Airways.

1944 – The sole Northrop JB-1A Bat, unofficially known as the “Thunderbug” due to the improvised General Electric B-1 turbojets’ “peculiar squeal”, a jet-propelled flying wing spanning 28 feet 4 inches (8.64 m) to carry 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs in pods close to the engines, makes its first powered, but unmanned, flight from Santa Rosa Island, Eglin Field, Florida, launching from a pair of rails laid across the sand dunes. It climbs rapidly, stalls, and crashes 400 yards from the launch point.