Debris from the space shuttle Columbia streaks across the
sky over Tyler, Texas.

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia brook up while
entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew
members on board.

The Columbia‘s 28th space mission, designated STS-107, was
originally scheduled to launch on January 11, 2001, but was
delayed numerous times for a variety of reasons over nearly
two years. Columbia finally launched on January 16, 2003, with
a crew of seven. Eighty seconds into the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle’s propellant tank and hit the
edge of the shuttle’s left wing.

The Space Shuttle Columbia crew, left to right. Front row:
Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla, William McCool. Back row: David Brown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. (AP file)

The crew of the space shuttle Columbia on the day of launch.

Accident investigators reconstructed space shuttle Columbia from recovered debris.

The U.S. State Department angrily accused the Soviet Union of
shooting down an unarmed American jet that strayed into East
German airspace. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were
killed in the incident. The Soviets responded with charges that
the flight was a “gross provocation,” and the incident was an
ugly reminder of  the heightened East-West tensions of the Cold
War-era.

The occupants of the aircraft were Lieutenant Colonel Gerald K. Hannaford, Captain Donald Grant Millard and Captain John F.
Lorraine.

According to the U.S. military, the jet was on a training flight over
West Germany and pilots became disoriented by a violent storm
that led the plane to veer nearly 100 miles off course.

Memorial at the crash site near Vogelsberg.

North American T-39A Sabre Liner USAF.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19S "Farmer" at the National
Museum of the United States Air Force.

On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turned into a heroic
display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles safely land the
plane they were piloting on New York City’s Hudson River
after a bird strike caused its engines to fail. David Paterson,
governor of New York at the time, dubbed the incident the
“miracle on the Hudson.”  

Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot with decades of
flying experience, received a slew of honors for his actions,
including an invitation to Barack Obama’s presidential
inauguration and resolutions of praise from the U.S.
Congress.

Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles.

Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III will
turn 73 on January 23rd. 

The incident was adapted into the feature film
Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood. It starred Tom        
Hanks as Sullenberger and Aaron Eckhart as      
Skiles. It was released by Warner Bros. on
September 9, 2016.

On January 13, 1982, an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 plunged into
the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people. The
crash, caused by bad weather, took place only two miles from
the White House.

The Air Florida flight took off from Washington National Airport
in Arlington, Virginia, with 74 passengers and 5 crew members
on board. The plane had flown into Washington from Miami in
the early afternoon and was supposed to return to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, after a short stop.

However, snow in Washington temporarily closed the airport and
when it reopened, the plane was de-iced with chemical anti-freeze,
but the plane still had difficulty moving away from the gate due to
the ice. When it eventually made it to the airport’s only usable
runway, it was forced to wait 45 minutes for clearance to take
off.

Not wanting to further delay the flight, the pilot, Larry Wheaton,
did not return for more de-icing, and worse, failed to turn on the
plane’s own de-icing system.

ED DANAHUE

Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is 86 years old today.

Hopkins has received numerous accolades, including two 
Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, two Primetime
Emmy Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also
received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005 and the BAFTA
Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2008.

1991