21 July 1911: Denise Moore was a popular figure in aviation circles in France. She had been taking flying lessons at the Henri Farman Aviation School at Étampes, about 30 miles south of Paris.
She took off at 6:20 p.m. in Farman’s biplane, on her third flight of the day, and made two circuits of the field. On her third turn, the aircraft banked steeply and pitched downward. It crashed and Ms. Moore was killed. She was the first woman to be killed in an airplane accident.
FLIGHT reported:
Fatal Accident to Mme. Moore.
At the present moment there are a good many ladies learning to fly in France and they appear to be unperturbed by the fatal accident to Mme. Denise Moore at Mourmelon on Friday of last week. The unfortunate lady, of whom little is known beyond that she came from Algeria, had been making splendid progress during the three weeks she had been learning and during her early solo flights showed great promise. She was, however, fired by an ambition for altitude work and on the day when the accident happened, in spite of the emphatic directions of her instructor, she started off to go high. She had reached only 150 ft. however, when apparently she made a mistake in steering, for the machine fell sideways to the ground, the pilot being killed instantly.
—FLIGHT, No. 135. (No. 30. Vol. III.), 29 July 1911, at Page 665
Denise Moore was a pseudonym for Mrs. E. J. Cornesson, widow of Denis Cornesson. She was the former Miss E. Jane-Wright. She assumed the name to keep her family from discovering that she was learning to fly.
Wiley Post’s Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, Winnie Mae, after a landing accident at Flat, Alaska. Standing in front of the Winnie Mae, at left, wearing a hat and overalls, and with a pipe in his right hand, is John Beaton. Beaton was a miner whose discovery of gold at Flat began the Iditarod Gold Rush. Post is not seen in this image. (Unattributed)
20 July 1933: At 11:58 a.m. (17:58 UTC) on the fifth day of his solo around-the-world flight, Wiley Post took off from Khabarovsk, Siberia, heading toward Nome, Alaska, 2,416 miles (3,888 kilometers) to the east-northeast (great circle route).
A very tired Wiley Post photographed at Flat, Alaska, after Winnie Mae has been repaired. (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Post missed his destination and, exhausted, became lost. He flew over Alaska for approximately seven hours before sighting a remote U.S. Army Signal Corps radio station at Flat, Alaska, a small gold mining town located along the Iditarod Trail in southwestern Alaska.
Post landed his Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, The Winnie Mae of Oklahoma, on a small landing field at the eastern edge of the town. The airplane’s wheels sank into the soft surface and Winnie Mae nosed over, damaging its propeller, engine cowling and right landing gear strut. Wiley Post was unhurt.
The International News Service (INS) reported:
. . . Utter exhaustion which numbed his mind so that he could not properly pilot his course caused him to become lost for seven hours over Alaska yesterday after he had been in the air more than 22 hours on his 3,000-mile hop from Siberia to Alaska during which he battled the most adverse weather conditions, he revealed today.
Sighting the Flat radio station caused him to land here. He said that he could at least get his directions again. He ran into soft ground on the landing field, nosing over, breaking his right wheel strut, damaging the engine cowling and valves and bending the propeller. Post was uninjured. . . .
A replacement propeller was flown in from Fairbanks and repairs were made. He continued the following day, taking off at 7:28 a.m., local.
The “Winnie Mae,” Wiley Post’s Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, after nosing over at Flat, Alaska, 20 July 1933. (Unattributed)
United Airlines’ DC-10 N1819U, Flight 232, on final approach to Sioux City Gateway Airport, 19 July 1989. In this image, damage to the right horizontal stabilizer is visible, and the aircraft tail cone is missing. (Wikipedia)
19 July 1989: United Airlines Flight 232 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, registration N1819U, enroute from Stapleton International Airport, Denver, Colorado to O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois. There were 296 persons aboard the airliner: 285 passengers and 11 crew members. The flight crew consisted of Captain Alfred C. Haynes, First Officer William Record, and Second Officer Dudley Dvorak. Also aboard, riding in the passenger cabin, was an off-duty United Airlines DC-10 Check Airman, Captain Dennis E. Fitch.
At 3:16:10 p.m., the fan disk of the airliner’s tail-mounted General Electric CF6-6 turbofan engine (Number Two) failed catastrophically. Shrapnel from the exploding engine chopped through the DC-10’s tail section and severed the three independent hydraulic systems that powered the flight control surfaces. The crew immediately lost their ability to control the airliner with rudder, elevators and ailerons. Flaps and wing leading edge slats were inoperative. Controls to the damaged engine also failed and only by cutting off fuel flow were they able to shut if down and prevention further damage or a fire. Landing gear could only be lowered by use of an emergency procedure.
The uncontrolled airliner immediately started to roll and dive. The pilots’ cockpit flight controls were completely useless to stop the roll. Only by varying the thrust on the two remaining wing mounted engines could some degree of control be maintained. Realizing there was a problem with the DC-10, Captain Fitch told a flight attendant to inform Captain Haynes that he was aboard and ask if he could assist. Haynes immediately asked Fitch to come forward, and once there to take over the throttle controls while the crew dealt with all the other problems that were occurring.
Flight 232 radar track. (NTSB)
The simultaneous loss of all three hydraulic systems was considered to be “impossible” and there were no emergency procedures to deal with the problem. The crew did the best they could by varying power on the two remaining engines to turn the airplane and to descend. They were heading for an emergency landing at Sioux City Gateway Airport, Iowa (SUX).
United Airlines Flight 232 on final approach to Sioux Gateway Airport, 19 July 1989. (Gary Anderson/Sioux City Journal)
At 4:00:16 p.m., the DC-10 touched down on Runway 22 at an estimated at 215 knots (247.4 miles per hour, 398.2 kilometers per hour) and a rate of descent of 1,620 feet per minute (8.23 meters per second). At about 100 feet (30.5 meters) above the ground, the airliner’s nose began to pitch downward and the airliner started to roll to the right. Touchdown was at the runway threshold, just left of the centerline.
The DC-10 touched down at the threshold of Runway 22, just left of the centerline.Captain Alfred C. Haynes
The force of the impact caused the airframe break apart and the wreck rolled over to the right side of the runway. Fuel exploded and fire spread. 110 passengers and 1 flight attendant were killed in the crash and fire. There were 185 survivors of the crash, including the four pilots who were trapped in the crushed nose section of the airplane which had broken away from the main wreckage.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation determined that the the center engine fan disk failed due to a crack which had formed when the original titanium ingot from which it was made had been cast 18 years before.
The official report said that a landing under these conditions was stated to be “a highly random event“. The NTSB further noted that “. . . under the circumstances the UAL flight crew performance was highly commendable and greatly exceeded reasonable expectations.”
This was one of the finest displays of airmanship during an inflight emergency since the beginning of aviation.
An Iowa National Guard UH-1 medevac helicopter hovers over the wreckage of the United Airlines DC-10, 19 July 1989.
Élise Léontine Deroche poses with the airplane in which she would later be killed, at Le Crotoy, France, 18 July 1919.
18 July 1919: Élise Léontine Deroche was at Le Crotoy in northern France, co-piloting an experimental airplane, a civil variant of the Caudron G.3. The aircraft suddenly pitched down and crashed, killing Deroche and the pilot, M. Barrault. Mme Deroche was 36 years old.
According to a notice in Flight,
“What happened is not very clear, but it would seem that the machine in which she was flying overturned during a trial flight. Baroness de la Roche was killed instantly and the pilot, Barrault, died very shortly afterwards.”
Élise Léontine Deroche, also known as the “Baroness de la Roche,” was killed instantly in an airplane crash at le Crotoy, 18 July 1919
Élisa Léontine Deroche was born 22 August 1882 at nº 61, Rue de la Verrerie, in the 4earrondissement, Paris, France. She was the daughter of Charles François Deroche, a plumber, and Christine Calydon Gaillard Deroche. In her early life she had hoped to be a singer, dancer and actress. Mlle. Deroche used the stage name, “Raymonde de Laroche.”
Mlle. Deroche married M. Louis Léopold Thadome in Paris, 4 August 1900. They divorced 28 June 1909.
She had a romantic relationship with sculptor Ferdinand Léon Delagrange, who was also one of the earliest aviators, and it was he who inspired her to become a pilot herself. They had a son, André, born in 1909. Delagrange was killed in an airplane accident in 1910. They never married.
After four months of training at Chalons, under M. Chateu,¹ an instructor for Voison, Mme Deroche made her first solo flight on Friday, 22 October 1909. On 8 March 1910, Élisa Léontine Deroche was the first woman to become a licensed pilot when she was issued Pilot License No. 36 by the Aéro-Club de France.
Pilot Certificate number 36 of the l’Aéro-Club de France was issued to Mme. de Laroche. (Musee de l’Air at l’Espace)
In a 30 October 1909 article about her solo flight, Flight & The Aircraft Engineer referred to Mme. Deroche as “Baroness de la Roche.” This erroneous title of nobility stayed with her in the public consciousness. Deroche participated in various air meets, and on 25 November 1913, made a non-stop, long-distance flight of four hours duration, for which she was awarded the Coupe Femina by the French magazine, Femina.
On 20 February 1915, Mme. Deroche married Jacques Vial at Meudon, Hauts de Seine, Île-de-France, France.
During World War I she was not allowed to fly so she served as a military driver.
Elise Raymonde Deroche (Smithsonian Institution)
Many sources report that Mme Deroche set two altitude records at Issy-les Moulineaux in June 1919, just weeks before her death. One, for example, is said to have been 5,150 meters (16,896 feet), 12 June 1919. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), however, did not recognize records set by women until 28 June 1929.
Élisa Léontine Deroche was buried at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris, France.
Élisa Léontine Deroche, Aviarix. (22 August 1882–18 July 1919)
¹ Sous Lieutenant Jean Pie Hyacinthe Paul Jerome Casale, Marquis de Montferato
Trans World Airlines’ Boeing 747-131 N93119 at London Gatwick Airport. (Cropped detail from photograph by Burmarrad via JetPhotos.net)
17 July 1996, 8:31 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time: Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131, FAA registration N93119, was enroute from New York to Paris with 212 passengers and 18 crewmembers aboard, and had been cleared to climb from 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) to 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). The airliner exploded in mid-air, 8.1 miles (13.04 kilometers) south of E. Moriches, New York.
Flight path of TWA Flight 800. (NTSB)
The flight crew of an Eastwind Air Lines flight reported the explosion to Air Traffic Control. Many witnesses (approximately one-third of those reported seeing or hearing an explosion) described an ascending streak of orange light, originating near the surface and ending in a fireball. Burning debris fell into the sea. All 230 persons on board were killed.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the explosion was a result of fuel vapor in the center wing tank being ignited by a short circuit.
PROBABLE CAUSE: An explosion of the center wing fuel tank (CWT), resulting from ignition of the flammable fuel/air mixture in the tank. The source of ignition energy for the explosion could not be determined with certainty, but, of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most likely was a short circuit outside of the CWT that allowed excessive voltage to enter it through electrical wiring associated with the fuel quantity indication system.
Contributing factors to the accident were the design and certification concept that fuel tank explosions could be prevented solely by precluding all ignition sources and the design and certification of the Boeing 747 with heat sources located beneath the CWT with no means to reduce the heat transferred into the CWT or to render the fuel vapor in the tank nonflammable.
The 747-100 series was the first version of the Boeing 747 to be built. It was designed to carry 366 to 452 passengers,depending on seating configuration. It is 231 feet, 10.2 inches (70.668 meters) long with a wingspan of 195 feet, 8 inches (59.639 meters) and overall height of 63 feet, 5 inches (19.329 meters). The interior cabin width is 20 feet (6.096 meters), giving it the name “wide body.” Its empty weight is 370,816 pounds (168,199 kilograms) and the Maximum Takeoff Weight (MTOW) is 735,000 pounds (333,390 kilograms).
The 747-100 is powered by four Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7A turbofan engines which produce 47,670 pounds of thrust, each, with water injection (2½ minutes). Its cruise speed is 0.84 Mach (555 miles per hour, 893 kilometers per hour) at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) and it maximum range is 6,100 miles (9,817 kilometers).
Boeing 747-131 N93119 was one of the oldest 747s in service, having been delivered to TWA 27 October 1971. At the time off its destruction, the airframe had accumulated 93,303 flight hours (TTAF).
During the investigation by the National Transportation Board (NTSB) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fragments of the Boeing 747 were reassembled. (NTSB)
