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March 8
In 1910… Elise Deroche, the colorful self-styled Baroness Raymonde de Laroche, becomes the first woman in the world to receive a pilot’s license in Paris.
Also in 1910… Claude Moore-Brabazon receives the Royal Aero Club’s first aviator’s certificate in London. Charles Rolls receives the second.
German airship pioneer Count von Zeppelin died today in 1917
In 1949… The Nonstop flight of 56 hours and 2 minutes has put captain William Odom in the record books. Leaving Honolulu, Hawaii, he covers a distance of 4,957.25 miles before landing at Teterboro, New Jersey to gain the world record in a Class C-1-c light aircraft.
1972: A bomb exploded aboard a Trans World Airlines Boeing 707 at Las Vegas airport. No-one was injured in the blast which destroyed the cockpit of the aircraft as it stood empty on the tarmac. The explosion happened hours after an anonymous phone caller threatened TWA with a series of bomb attacks unless $2 million was handed over. The caller instructed airport officials at Kennedy Airport in New York to go to a locker where they found a note, which said there would be explosions at six hour intervals on four of the company’s aircraft. Sniffer dogs found a bomb, which consisted of 3lb (1.36kg) of plastic explosives and a timing device, aboard a TWA aircraft at the airport in New York, 12 minutes before it was timed to explode. It was found in a case labeled “crew” in the cockpit. A few hours later police boarded a second TWA jet at the airport but nothing was found. The aircraft which exploded in Las Vegas was thoroughly searched and left New York after the first bomb was discovered. It flew to Las Vegas with only 10 passengers and was searched again once it landed. The aircraft was then put under armed guard before the plane exploded seven hours later. Debris was blown more than 100 feet away but two security guards escaped uninjured. One of them said: “It sounded like dynamite. I could see pieces of the plane flying through the air.” The security department at the International Air Transport Association suspects that five people, who each hold Middle Eastern passports, may have been involved in the plot. TWA ordered worldwide checks on all 240 of its aircraft following the initial bomb threat. US President Richard Nixon said that the government would mobilize all resources “until the current threat is crushed.”

In 1974… Charles de Gaulle Airport France is officially opened. The new international airport is located 15.5 miles (25 km) from the center of Paris.

And that is what happened TODAY March 8th , in Aviation History. See you Tomorrow!

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