On July 2, 1937, the Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator
Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported
missing near Howland Island in the Pacific.
The pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost
their bearings during the most challenging leg of the global journey:
Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2,227 nautical
miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean.
Apollo13 – view of the crippled Service Module after
separation.
On April 13, 1970, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth
when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up on Apollo 13, the third
manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell,
John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days
before for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were
forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire
insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the
contents of both of the SM’s oxygen tanks to space.
Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating
electric power, the SM’s propulsion and life support systems
could not operate. The CM’s systems had to be shut down
to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the
crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing
canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home
alive.
At NASA Mission Control in Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center, Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, left, director of flight
crew operations, holds lithium hydroxide canisters attached
to a hose, a makeshift repair to reduce the dangerous levels
of carbon dioxide aboard the crippled spacecraft Apollo 13.
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying
227 passengers and 12 crew members, lost contact with
air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from
Kuala Lumpur, then veers off course, disappears and
most of the plane, and everyone on board, were never
seen again.
About an hour after Flight 370 was scheduled to land in
Beijing, Malaysia Airlines announced it was missing.
Prior to the aircraft’s mysterious disappearance, it had
been flying seemingly without incident.
There were no distress signals from the plane, reports
of bad weather or technical problems.
In 2015, French police officers carried a piece of airplane
debris on the island of Réunion which later proved to
have been from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
More debris from Flight 370 found.
Lt. Edward O’Hare takes off from the aircraft carrier Lexington
in a raid against the Japanese position at Rabaul—and minutes
later became America’s first WWII flying ace, shooting down five
enemy bombers.
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USS Lexington
Edward "Butch" O’Hare waves during a parade
held in his honor in his hometown of St. Louis,
Missouri. Flanking him are his mother Selma
O’Hare, left, and his wife Rita.
World War II fighter pilot Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O’Hare,
right, is congratulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
as O’Hare’s wife Rita places the Medal of Honor around his
neck on April 21, 1942, during a White House ceremony in Washington, D.C.
In 1963 President Kennedy lays a wreath on a monument dedicated to Lt. Comdr. Edward "Butch" O’Hare (1914 –
1943). The wreath was handed to him by O’Hare’s
nephews, Philip Tovrea III and Edward Palmer, right.
