Kobe Bean Bryant (August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020)

CALABASAS, Calif. – Former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant has died in a
helicopter crash in California.

Nine people were on board when the helicopter went down near Calabasas
this morning. Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among the
passengers. Bryant’s wife Vanessa was reportedly not on the helicopter.

Kobe Bryant played his entire 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles
Lakers and finished his career as one of the best to ever play the game.     

 
ED DONAHUE
    
    
    

Space Shuttle Columbia’s last Launch.     
     
 

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.

When Columbia re-entered the earth’s atmosphere on the morning of
February 1, 2003, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to
penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure,
which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart.

The first debris began falling to the ground in West Texas near Lubbock
at 8:58 a.m. One minute later, the last communication from the crew of
five men and two women was heard, and at 9 a.m. the space shuttle
disintegrated over northeast Texas, near Dallas.  
     
     
    

      
        
                      
     
    
   
       
 
Crewmember helmet found in a field after the space shuttle Columbia 
disaster.

United Airlines Flight 173 was a scheduled flight from John F.
Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Portland
International Airport in Portland, Oregon, with a scheduled stop
in Denver, Colorado. On December 28, 1978, the aircraft flying
this route ran out of fuel while troubleshooting a landing gear
problem and crashed in a suburban Portland neighborhood
near NE 157th Avenue and East Burnside Street killing 10
people. 

Flight 173 was piloted by an experienced cockpit crew,
consisting of Captain Malburn McBroom (above), First
Officer Roderick "Rod" Beebe, and Flight Engineer
Forrest Mendenhall.  McBroom had been with United
Airlines for 27 years; he was one of the airline’s most
senior pilots with more than 27,600 hours of flight time,
of which about 5,500 hours had been as a DC-8 captain.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to exploded in midair
over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members
aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden
inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane
was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of
Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against
the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it
was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany.

Flight 103 impact crater at Lockerbie, Scotland.

    
Depiction of the moment the bomb was detonated.

Members of the Flight 19 crew which disappeared in 1945.(History.com)

 

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19
take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-
hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120
miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would
return them to the naval base. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been
flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and
back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other
planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land
were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were
successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a
distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20
p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft due
to a lack of fuel.

Five U.S. Navy Grumman TBF-1 Avengers from Escort Scouting Squadron 29 (VGS-29) flying in formation over Norfolk, Virginia.