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.

A B-17 crew from the United States Army Air Force’s Eighth
Air Force, 385th Bomb Group, plot a target on a map prior
to a mission.

The U.S. Eighth Air Force launched its bombing campaign against
Nazi Germany, one of the largest, most important and most
devastating strategic initiatives in the annals of warfare, on this
day in history, Jan. 27, 1943. 

The crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Knock-out Dropper
bomber.

From London’s Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris,
the first Concordes with commercial passengers simultaneously
take flight on January 21, 1976. The London flight was headed to
Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris to Rio de Janeiro via
Senegal in West Africa. At their cruising speeds, the innovative Concordes flew well over the sound barrier at 1,350 miles an
hour, cutting air travel time by more than half.

On January 16, 1942, the actress Carole Lombard, famous for her
roles in such screwball comedies as My Man Godfrey and To Be
or Not to Be, and for her marriage to the actor Clark Gable, was
killed when the TWA DC-3 plane she is traveling in crashes en
route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She was 33.

1942

1936