What Happened on October 24

Aviation

2003 — Concorde Makes Final Commercial Flight, Ending Era of Supersonic Passenger Travel

The delta-winged icon departs New York for London one last time today, closing three decades of transatlantic service.

Concorde lifted from John F. Kennedy International Airport this evening, bound for London Heathrow on the last commercial flight of its career.

The slender delta-winged jet, capacious for only 100 passengers yet capable of cruising at twice the speed of sound, has ferried the wealthy and hurried across the Atlantic since 1976. British Airways and Air France, the only carriers to operate the Anglo-French airliner, announced the retirement earlier this year, citing declining passenger numbers and rising maintenance costs after the 2000 crash outside Paris that killed 113 people.

Tonight's departure, flight BA002, marks the end of scheduled supersonic passenger flight. The aircraft climbs now above the Atlantic, its Olympus engines drinking fuel at a rate that made economic sense only when time trumped cost for a narrow market of bankers, celebrities, and diplomats. The three-hour crossing, halved from subsonic travel, will yield to seven hours aboard conventional jets.

British Airways has scheduled three farewell pleasure flights for next month, including a loop over the Bay of Biscay, before the fleet enters museum retirement. The final commercial service carries 100 passengers who paid premium fares knowing they bought passage into history. The airframe, conceived in 1962, outlived the Cold War optimism that launched it yet never escaped the fuel economics that constrained its market.

Tonight's passengers dine at altitude where the sky turns indigo and the curvature of the earth reveals itself, a privilege soon to pass from commercial aviation entirely.

• Concorde makes its last commercial flight.

Source: Wikipedia — Concorde

White Sands Proving Ground

1946 — V-2 Rocket Camera Snaps First Earth Photo From Space

The image, captured at an altitude of 65 miles, shows one-third of the planet's horizon curved against the blackness of the upper atmosphere.

Sixty-five miles above the New Mexico desert, a 35-millimeter motion picture camera aboard the V-2 No. 13 rocket captured the first photograph of Earth taken from outer space.

Launched Thursday from the Army's White Sands Proving Ground, the modified German weapon reached its apex before crashing back to the desert floor. The camera, decommissioned from a gunnery sighting system, had been programmed to snap one frame every second and a half. The surviving image, developed from film found in the wreckage, shows the Gulf of California and the curvature of the planet against the darkness above.

The Naval Research Laboratory and Army Ordnance Department jointly conducted the experiment, part of a series of V-2 flights repurposing Nazi Germany's ballistic missile for atmospheric research. Previous launches had carried fruit flies and yeast cultures to test radiation effects; this mission sought photographic reconnaissance of weather patterns and terrain from altitudes no aircraft could reach.

The rocket had been assembled at the Mittelwerk underground factory using slave labor during the war, then shipped to New Mexico along with captured German engineers now working under Army contract. Wernher von Braun, the missile's designer, observed the launch from the blockhouse.

The photograph's quality surprised researchers who had expected vibration to blur the exposure.

• A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.

Source: Wikipedia — V-2 No. 13

Storm Coverage

2005 — Hurricane Wilma Slams Florida With $20.6 Billion in Damage, 61 Dead

The Category 3 storm makes landfall near Cape Romano with sustained winds of 125 mph, flooding the lower Florida Keys and knocking out power to millions.

Hurricane Wilma struck southwestern Florida this morning, making landfall near Cape Romano as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 125 mph and causing $20.6 billion in damage.

The hurricane, which had weakened from its record-breaking intensity in the Caribbean, still packed sufficient force to flood the lower Florida Keys and push storm surge through Naples and Fort Myers. The National Hurricane Center reported the eye crossed the coast at 6:30 a.m., with the worst winds concentrated in Collier and southern Lee counties. Power outages affected millions of customers across the southern peninsula.

The storm has killed 35 people directly and 26 indirectly, according to emergency management officials. Most deaths occurred from storm surge flooding, falling trees, and carbon monoxide poisoning from generator use in the aftermath. The direct fatalities include drowning victims in the Keys and Monroe County; indirect deaths encompass heart attacks during preparation and cleanup, and traffic accidents at darkened intersections.

Wilma had become the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record while swirling off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula last week, with a barometric pressure of 882 millibars and sustained winds of 185 mph. That violence dissipated over Cancun, where the storm stalled for days, before re-intensifying over open water and racing toward Florida.

• Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in Florida, resulting in 35 direct and 26 indirect fatalities and causing $20.6B USD in damage.

Source: Wikipedia — Hurricane Wilma

Pearl River Delta Infrastructure

2018 — World's Longest Sea Crossing Opens to Traffic

The $20 billion span cuts travel time across the Pearl River Delta from three hours to 30 minutes.

Officials gathered at dawn where the bridge meets the Hong Kong coastline, watching the first vehicles queue for entry as the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge opened to public traffic this morning. The 55-kilometer crossing, the longest sea bridge and tunnel system in the world, connects three distinct economies across the Pearl River Delta. Drivers with appropriate permits may now traverse the span in 30 minutes, down from three hours via detour through Shenzhen. The $20 billion project includes an immersed tube tunnel section to allow shipping passage and artificial islands housing ventilation and emergency facilities.

• The world's longest sea crossing, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, opens for public traffic.

Source: Wikipedia — Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge

Transportation Safety

1947 — 52 Die as United DC-6 Crashes at Bryce Canyon

A cabin heater malfunction prompted the pilot of United Flight 608 to seek clearance toward Bryce Canyon Airport before the four-day-old DC-6 carrying 48 passengers and 5 crew crashed in Garfield County.

The deadliest air disaster in United Air Lines history claimed 52 lives when Flight 608 plunged into Bryce Canyon National Park this morning.

The DC-6, four days old and on its second revenue trip, was bound from Los Angeles to Chicago with 48 passengers and 5 crew. The pilot radioed trouble with his cabin heater and requested clearance to descend toward Bryce Canyon Airport in Garfield County. The ship never reached the runway.

Search parties found wreckage scattered across the canyon floor. The Civil Aeronautics Board has opened an investigation. Company officials withheld the passenger manifest pending notification of next of kin.

United Air Lines grounded its remaining DC-6 fleet pending inspection. The aircraft had entered service Saturday, replacing war-weary DC-4s on the transcontinental run.

• United Air Lines Flight 608 crashes in the Bryce Canyon National Park in Garfield County, Utah, while attempting an emergency landing at Bryce Canyon Airport, killing 52 people.

Source: Wikipedia — United Air Lines Flight 608

Markets

2008 — Global Markets Plunge in 'Bloody Friday' Rout

Indices fall roughly 10% across world exchanges in historic selloff.

In a financial crisis now competing with the Great Depression for its sweep and violence, world stock exchanges suffered their worst single-day declines on record.

"Bloody Friday" erased a decade of gains in hours.

• "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

Source: Wikipedia — Stock market crash

Spaceflight

2014 — China Launches Test Mission to Loop Behind Moon

Probe will rehearse return trajectory for future sample retrieval.

The China National Space Administration launched its Chang'e 5-T1 experimental probe today. The spacecraft will swing around the lunar far side and head back to Earth. The eight-day mission tests heat shielding and trajectory control.

• The China National Space Administration launches an experimental lunar mission, Chang'e 5-T1, which will loop behind the Moon and return to Earth.

Source: Wikipedia — China National Space Administration

The Western Front

1918 — Italian Forces Shatter Austro-Hungarian Lines at Vittorio Veneto

Victory collapses Habsburg front as armistice talks begin.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire's last offensive army dissolved in rout today as Italian forces swept through Vittorio Veneto. The breakthrough ended three years of stalemate that had cost 600,000 Italian lives. General Armando Diaz pressed the advance along the Piave River. Habsburg troops now stream toward the Tagliamento.

• World War I: Italian victory in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

Source: Wikipedia — Battle of Vittorio Veneto

The Telegraph Office

1861 — Telegraph Line Unites Atlantic and Pacific Coasts

The wires are joined; the Pony Express rides no more.

The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed this day. Operators in Salt Lake City have received the final splice from the Pacific line. Messages now fly from ocean to ocean in minutes. President Lincoln is expected to send the first official message westward before nightfall. Celebrations have broken out in the Salt Lake City station house, where operators passed cigars and shook hands at noon. Construction crews from the rival companies, meeting at last, shared a barrel of salt pork for supper.

• The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.

Source: Wikipedia — First transcontinental telegraph

The War Desk: Italian Front

1917 — Italy Suffers Disaster as Caporetto Line Breaks and Enemy Drives Toward Plains

Artillery left in mud, officers cut off from men, and headquarters twice moved rearward as Austro-German forces press toward the Venetian plain.

The Alpine wind carries smoke and panic down from the heights above Caporetto. The Battle of Caporetto, joined these two days past, has shattered the Italian Second Army in a rout rather than a retreat. Artillery lies abandoned in the mud and officers are separated from their men. The Tagliamento River now offers the last hope of a stand. Austro-German forces press toward the Venetian plain. General Cadorna has shifted his headquarters rearward twice since morning.

• World War I: Italy suffers a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Caporetto on the Austro-Italian front.

Source: Wikipedia — World War I

Moscow Bureau: Space and Defense

1960 — Soviet Rocket Detonates on Pad at Baikonur; Marshal Nedelin Among Over 100 Dead

The R-16 ballistic missile exploded before launch at the secret cosmodrome.

The Soviet Union's most ambitious missile program has suffered a blow that reaches the highest military ranks. An R-16 ballistic missile exploded on its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, killing over 100 people including Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, chief of the nation's rocket forces. The catastrophe struck during pre-launch preparations at the secret space facility in Kazakhstan. Soviet authorities have not acknowledged the disaster publicly; the first reports reached Western capitals through monitored radio traffic and refugee accounts. Nedelin, 60, had been the driving force behind the intercontinental missile project.

• Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100 people, including Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin.

Source: Wikipedia — Nedelin catastrophe