This is a list of aviation-related events from 1950:
Events Arrow Air is founded. The Piper Aircraft Corporation purchases the Stinson Aircraft Company The Brazilian Navy begins to reestablish an air arm of its own when an aeronautics directorate is created within the Ministry of the Navy.Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810–1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, , p. 196.
January The Pan American Airways Corporation officially renames itself Pan American World Airways, the name the airline had begun to use for itself unofficially in 1943. January 3 – A Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser makes the first commercial nonstop flight from Tokyo, Japan, to Honolulu, Hawaii.Aviation Hawaii: 1950–1959 Chronology of Aviation in Hawaii January 5 – Attempting to land at Koltsovo Airport at Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Unions Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic during a heavy snowstorm with high winds, a Soviet Air Force Lisunov Li-2 crashes, killing all 19 people on board. Almost the entire Soviet Air Force ice hockey team, VVS Moscow – 11 players, a team physician, and a masseur – dies in the crash. January 21 – A TAM–Transporte Aéreo Militar Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registration TAM-10) on a domestic flight in poor weather in Bolivia crashes near Vacas, killing all 32 people on board the aircraft and one woman on the ground.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description January 24 – A Société Transatlantique Aérienne (STA) Douglas C-47A-50-DL Skytrain (registration F-BFGD) on a domestic flight in Madagascar crashes into a mountain west of Tamatave, killing all 14 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description January 26 – A United States Air Force Strategic Air Command C-54D-1-DC Skymaster with 44 people on board disappears without trace over Canadas Yukon Territory near Snag during a flight from Elmendorf Air Force Base outside Anchorage, Territory of Alaska, to Great Falls Air Force Base in Cascade County, Montana. No wreckage or bodies are ever found. January 31 The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff estimate that the Soviet Union will have 10 to 20 atomic bombs by mid-1950 and 70 to 135 by mid-1953, and recommends that the United States Air Forces air defense capability in the United States be increased from 30 to 67 squadrons.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , p. 108. President of the United States Harry S. Truman announces that he has ordered the United States Government to develop the hydrogen bomb."Today in History," The Washington Post Express, January 31, 2012, p. 34.
February Early February – A U.S. Weapon Systems Evaluation Group reports that the U.S. Air Forces Strategic Air Command would suffer heavy losses in an air offensive against the Soviet Union, with the most favorable assumptions allowing 70 to 85 percent of atomic bombs to be delivered to their targets. It estimates bomber losses of about 35 percent in night raids and 50 percent in daylight raids, and that the bombers could deliver the planned 292 atomic bombs called for in the initial attack but would suffer losses too high to allow the follow-on strikes with conventional bombs required by U.S. war plans.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , pp. 139–140. February 13 – A U.S. Air Force B-36B Peacemaker bomber participating in the first full-scale practice for a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union suffers the failure of all six of its engines during a mission to simulate a Soviet nuclear attack on San Francisco, California. The crew jettisons the Mark 4 atomic bomb the plane is carrying, which detonates over the Pacific Ocean in the first loss of a nuclear weapon, then bails out – which 12 of the 17 men on board survive – over Princess Royal Island, British Columbia, Canada, leaving the plane to fly on autopilot out over the Pacific Ocean and crash. Instead, some of its engines apparently recover power on their own, and the bomber flies unmanned for several hours and crashes on a remote mountainside in northern British Columbia; this remains unknown until it is discovered lying almost intact on the mountain in 1953. Mid-February – A U.S. military Joint Advanced Study Committee reports that the United States will have to rely heavily on atomic weapons in achieving its strategic objectives in a war with the Soviet Union, with early atomic strikes critical during a war. It finds that the U.S. Air Force will have to strike Soviet atomic bomb assembly and storage sites and Soviet Air Force long-range bomber bases early in a conflict to protect the United States from Soviet atomic attacks.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , p. 138. Late February – The U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee reports that at the beginning of a war the Soviet Air Force could field 1,725 long-range bombers and 18,325 other aircraft and that the Soviet Navy could deploy 3,225 aircraft, while the United States Navy could deploy four fleet aircraft carriers off Europe. It notes that the U.S. Air Force has 14 bomber and fighter groups.
March Sixty aircraft from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier make a tight-formation flyover over Saigon in the State of Vietnam to encourage the population and government there to support the French in French Indochina and oppose the expansion of communism, beginning U.S. aid to the French in the region.Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945–1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, , p. 607. March 7 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 307, a Martin 2-0-2, hits a flagpole and crashes into a house in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while on approach to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, killing all 13 people aboard the plane and two children in the house. March 12 – The Llandow air disaster occurs, as the Avro Tudor V airliner Star Girl (G-AKBY) on a private charter flight from Dublin, Ireland, crashes on final approach to Lladow aerodrome in South Wales. Three passengers survive, but 80 people (75 passengers and all five crew members) die in the worst aviation accident in history to that time. March 15 – The last operational prototype of the United States Air Force's Northrop YB-49 jet-powered flying wing bomber is destroyed when its nose gear collapses during high-speed taxiing tests simulating takeoff runs at Muroc Air Force Base, California. The incident brings the YB-49 bomber program to an end, although the U.S. Air Force continues development of the YRB-49A reconnaissance version of the aircraft.Wooldridge, E. T., "History of the Flying Wing: The Northrop Bombers," century-of-flight.net, undated. March 20 – The Royal Air Force sends Avro Lincoln bombers to Singapore for use against the Communist guerillas of Malaya in the Malayan Emergency. March 24 – Three CSA Czech Airlines Douglas DC-3 airliners carrying a combined 85 people are hijacked during domestic flights – one flying from Brno to Prague, one from Ostrava to Prague, and one from Bratislava to Prague – over Czechoslovakia and forced to fly to Erding Air Base in the American occupation zone in Allied-occupied Germany. Twenty-six of the people on board choose to remain in Germany rather than return to Czechoslovakia.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking DescriptionAviation Safety Network Hijacking DescriptionAviation Safety Network Hijacking Description March 25 – A Devlet Hava Yollari (DHY) Douglas C-47A-75-DL Skytrain (registration TC-BAL) crashes and catches fire on landing at Etimesgut Airport in Ankara, Turkey, killing all 15 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description March 28 A SEMAF Latécoère 631 flying boat (registration F-WANU) suffers a mechanical failure and crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Cap Ferret, France, during a test flight, killing all 12 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description A Douglas C-47 Skytrain on a United States Embassy flight from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Washington, D.C., catches fire in mid-air and crashes on a snow-covered farm near Ramsayville, Ontario. One man parachutes to safety, and but the other five people on board are killed, including United States Ambassador to Canada Laurence Steinhardt.Anonymous, "PROBING FATAL STEINHARDT AIR PLANE CRASH," The News Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan), March 29, 1950.
April April 5 – To demonstrate support for the government of Synghman Rhee in South Korea, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier arrives in the Yellow Sea off Inchon, South Korea, and flies her F9F Panther, F4U Corsair, and AD Skyraider aircraft over the city in a show of strength.Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945–1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, , p. 176. April 8 – A Soviet Lavochkin La-11 (NATO reporting name "Fang") fighter shoots down a United States Navy PB4Y Privateer maritime patrol aircraft over the Baltic Sea. The Privateers entire crew of 10 men dies. April 10 – A Royal Pakistan Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain crashes into a mountain near Suberi in Rajasthan, Pakistan, killing all 12 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description April 11 – A United States Air Force B-29 Superfortress carrying a nuclear bomb and four spare detonators for it crashes into a mountain near Manzano Base three minutes after takeoff from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, starting a fire visible for and killing its entire crew of 13. The bomb is damaged, but all nuclear components and the detonators are recovered. April 18 – The worlds first flight by a turboprop-powered flying boat takes place, when the U.S. Navys Convair XP5Y-1, prototype of the R3Y Tradewind, flies for the first time at San Diego, California.Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: Great But Impractical Aircraft," Naval History, June 2012, p. 12.http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/r3y.htm globalsecurity.org Convair XP5Y-1/R3Y Tradewind flying boat April 21 – off course during a flight from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa to Tachikawa Airfield in Tokyo, Japan, a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-54D-10-DC Skymaster crashes into the side of Mount Hirugatake, killing all 35 people on board. It is the second-deadliest aviation accident in Japanese history at the time.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
May May 2 – An Avianca Douglas C-47-DL Skytrain on a domestic flight in Ecuador crashes in mountainous terrain just north of Chimborazo near Simiatug, killing all 15 people on board. Its wreckage is discovered on May 4.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description May 17 – Transcontinental and Western Air changes its name to Trans World Airlines. May 24 – A Limitada Nacional de Servicio Aéreo Douglas C-47A-55-DL Skytrain crashes into the stratovolcano Galeras just west of Pasto, Colombia, killing 26 of the 27 people on board. The only survivor is a 10-year-old girl.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description May 30 – After an Aerovias Brasil Douglas C-47-DL Skytrain (registration PP-AVZ) begins a descent from through clouds, it encounters severe turbulence that causes the displacement of passengers and cargo. The crew loses control of the aircraft, which enters a dive too steep for its design limits, loses both its wings, and crashes near Ilhéus, Brazil, killing 13 of the 15 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
June During the month, Overseas National Airways is founded. June 1 British European Airways commences the first regular passenger service to be flown by helicopter, between Liverpool and Cardiff. Arizona Airways, Challenger Airlines, and Monarch Airlines merge to form Frontier Airlines.