A PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jetliner (similar to above) operating as American Airlines Flight 5342, was on final approach to Runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia Wednesday evening when it collided with an Army H-60 Sikorsky helicopter crashing into the Potomac River Wednesday evening. This was the first commercial airline crash in the U.S. since 2009.
Before and after shuttle explosion (first visible signs of danger on left, just after explosion on right).
At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space.
McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger.
She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger‘s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off.
Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.
Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors.
The Final Crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
President Ronald Reagan addressing the nation from the White House on the day of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.
The Apollo 1 crew, from left, Edward H. White II, Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee.
A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killed all three astronauts of Apollo 1 on this day in 1967.
An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the fire.
The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch scheduled for the following month.
Theentrance to the tribute to the three astronauts who died in the fire.
The three-part hatch that was in place on the Apollo 1 spacecraft is shown in the tribute.This is the first time any part of the Apollo 1 spacecraft has been displayed publicly.
