This is a list of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred. Not all of the aircraft were in operation at the time. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances.
Aircraft terminology Information on aircraft gives the type, and if available, the serial number of the operator in italics, the constructors number, also known as the manufacturer's serial number (c/n), exterior codes in apostrophes, nicknames (if any) in quotation marks, flight callsign in italics, and operating units.
1935 19 January Chief Warrant Gunner and Naval Aviation Pilot (CWO-GUN; NAP) Charles T. Thrun, USCG, Coast Guard Aviator Number 3, is killed when his Grumman JF-2 Duck, 162, c/n 189, crashes into the Delaware Bay at Cape May, New Jersey. CWO Thrun was the first Coast Guard aviator to die in the line of duty. Second crewman on board survives. Joe Baugher states that the airframe was reserialled as V136, even though it was no longer on inventory.
12 February The US Navy's last rigid airship, the , loses its upper fin off Point Sur, California, sinks to the surface of the Pacific Ocean in a controlled crash, and is lost, although the inclusion of lifevests on board allows the saving of 81 of 83 crew.Associated Press, "Airship Macon Sinks In Pacific After 81 Rescued By Naval Craft", San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 13 February 1935, Volume 41, page 1. It takes with it the four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawks, BuNos. A-9058/9061 carried aboard for fleet scouting. The airship's remains lie unfound until 1990 when a fisherman brings up a girder. Wreck is subsequently found by crewed Navy submersible Sea Cliff.Vaeth, J. Gordon, "They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, , p. 101.
15 February Short Singapore flying boat K3595 crashes in the Peloritani mountain range near Messina, Sicily in poor visibility. All on board are killed - eight RAF personnel and a civilian Senior Technical Officer of the Royal Aircraft Establishment. The aircraft was one of four that departed from the United Kingdom four weeks earlier for delivery to No. 205 Squadron RAF, based in Singapore. One of the victims of the crash is Flight Lieutenant Henry Longfield Beatty, the half-brother of The First Sea Lord David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty. They were buried at Capuccini Naval Cemetery, Malta.
25 February A Curtiss Y1O-40B Raven, 32-416, of the 1st Observation Squadron, 9th Observation Group, Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, piloted by Don W. Smith, suffers major damage when it force lands due to engine failure at Floyd Bennett Field, New York City, New York. Repaired.
22 March Prototype Grumman XF3F-1, BuNo 9727 (1st), c/n 257, company model G-11, first flown 20 March 1935,Jones, Lloyd S., "U. S. Naval Fighters: Navy/Marine Corps 1922 to 1980s", Aero Publishers, Inc., Fallbrook, California, 1977, , , page 40. disintegrates when pulled sharply out of a terminal velocity dive, the tenth and final such test in six flights, killing pilot Jimmy Collins. G-forces in this dive estimated at 12–13, wrenching wings off, engine torn from mount.Editors, "The Corpulent Long Islanders", Air International, Bromley, Kent, UK, March 1976, Volume 10, Number 3, p. 128. The airframe impacted in Pinelawn Cemetery, Farmingdale, Long Island.Graff, Cory, "F6F Hellcat at War", Zenith Press, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2009, , , page 20. 9727 serial applied to three Grumman prototypes, two of which crashed.Boyne, Walt, "Test Pilot", Airpower, Granada Hills, California, September 1974, Volume 4, Number 5, p. 52. The Navy immediately orders a replacement which will be completed in two months and fly on 9 May.
April Yugoslavian Air Force Ikarus IK-1, high-wing monoplane fighter, first prototype crashes on third flight at Zemun airfield when it fails to recover from power dive, pilot Capt. Leonid Bajdak, parachuting to safety. Examination of wreck revealed that fabric covering of the port wing had failed due to negligence in sewing the seams. Second prototype ordered as Ikarus IK-2, wings metal-skinned.Green, William, "War Planes of the Second World War – Fighters, Volume Four", Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, New York, 1961, pp.203–204.
16 April Flying Officer Clive Newton Edgerton takes off from Laverton in RAAF Westland Wapiti, A5-31, but after entering a steep dive from 15,000 feet is unable to recover. "The structure of the aircraft failed during the test flight and the aircraft crashed at Werribee." Witnesses reported that the wings failed and folded back along the fuselage. The lower starboard wing landed in a paddock 1½ miles from the fuselage. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee (AAIC) reported that "The tailplane actuating gear was in full forward position...the aircraft had five ballast weights in the tail...when there should have been six, and in addition another four in the passenger's cockpit, so that the aircraft was obviously tail light and nose heavy. Apparently the pilot had his tail actuating gear into the full forward, giving maximum lift to the tail to enable him to go into a dive." The speed of Edgerton's dive was so great that the blades of the airscrew were pulled from the boss by the centrifugal force.Owers, Colin A., "Jack-Of-All-Trades: Westland Wapitis in Australian Service", Air Enthusiast, Stamford, Lincs., UK, Number 119, September–October 2005, p. 27.
17 May Second of three Grumman XF3F-1 prototypes, BuNo 9727 (2nd), first flown 9 May, crashes on the first day it arrives at NAS Anacostia. Pilot Lee Gelbach is unable to recover from a flat spin which develops during a ten-turn right-hand spin demonstration – bails out safely. "The pilot's report indicated that high speeds induced directional instability. This caused the XF3F-1 to enter a flat spin from which recovery was impossible." A third Grumman XF3F-1 prototype will be built, using some parts salvaged from second prototype, also with BuNo 9727 (3rd), but pilot Bill H. McAvoy will be luckier than his two fellow test pilots, and NOT have to evacuate the Flying Barrel during testing. The Navy accepts the (third) prototype on 1 August and orders 54 F3F-1s on 4 August.Jones, Lloyd S., "U. S. Naval Fighters: Navy/Marine Corps 1922 to 1980s", Aero Publishers, Inc., Fallbrook, California, 1977, , , page 41.
18 May The Tupolev ANT-20, Maxim Gorky, the largest aircraft ever built to that time, flown by pilots I. V. Mikheyev and I. S. Zhurov, and three more planes (Tupolev ANT-14, Polikarpov R-5 and Polikarpov I-5) take off for a demonstration flight over Moscow. As a result of a poorly executed loop maneuver (a third such stunt on this flight) around the plane performed by an accompanying I-5 fighter, flown by Nikolai Blagin, both planes collide and the Maxim Gorky crashes into a low-rise residential neighborhood west of present-day Sokol station. Forty-five people are killed in the crash, including crew members and 33 family members of some of those who had built the aircraft. (While authorities announced that the fatal maneuver was impromptu and reckless, it has been recently suggested that it might have been a planned part of the show.) Also killed was the fighter pilot, Blagin, who was made a scapegoat in the crash and subsequently had his name used eponymously (Blaginism) to mean, roughly, a "cocky disregard of authority." However, Blagin was given a state funeral at Novodevichy Cemetery together with ANT-20 victims.
21 May A U.S. Navy Martin PM-1 is lost off Midway Island with six crew during a mass flight from Hawaii to that island.Schmitt, Robert C., "Catastrophic Mortality in Hawaii", page 75.file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/Downloads/JL03074%20(1).pdf
18 June The Seversky SEV-2XP is heavily damaged (perhaps intentionally) while en route to Wright Field, Ohio, for the 1935 U.S. Army Air Corps competition for a new single-seat fighter. The two-seat design is reworked into a single-seater with retractable undercarriage when the Air Corps delays the competition until April 1936.
20 June Douglas Y1O-35, 32-319, c/n 1119, of the 88th Observation Squadron, suffers loss of power on right engine during takeoff from Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California for flight to Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, at ~1000 hrs. Pilot, Cadet Tracy R. Walsh, manages to hop over soldiers breaking camp alongside runway but does not have sufficient flying speed. Airplane crashes through a tent, a fence, and into an automobile, demolishing itself, the vehicle, and killing three civilians in the car. Three crew on plane unhurt. O-35 surveyed and dropped from records at March Field, 15 October 1935.Pelletier, Alain J., "Bombers As Postmen", Air Enthusiast No.122, Stamford, Lincs., UK, March/April 2006, pp.38–40.
21 June A Curtiss Y1O-40B Raven, 32-416, repaired after being wrecked at Floyd Bennett Field, New York City, on 25 February 1935, now flying out of Brooks Field, Texas, is written off in a take-off accident at Hatbox Field, Muskogee, Oklahoma this date. Pilot is Charles A. Pursley.
Circa July Within three weeks of arriving at the Erprobungstelle at Rechlin, Germany for testing, both the Henschel Hs 123V1 and V2 (D-ILUA) prototype dive bombers crash after failing to pull out of terminal velocity dives when wing centre-sections fail, both pilots killed.Green, William, "The Warplanes of the Third Reich", Galahad Books, New York, 1986, , , p. 378.Woodman, Harry, "Angelito", Airpower, Granada Hills, California, September 1972, Volume 2, Number 5, pp.44–46.
30 July The prototype Northrop 3A, (XP-948) c/n 44, intended for the 1935 U.S. Army Air Corps competition for a new single-seat fighter, is lost over Santa Monica Bay, California, out of Jack Northrop Field, Hawthorne, California, during spin stall trials. Pilot killed. No trace of the pilot, 1st Lt. Frank Scare, or wreckage was found. Design rights sold in 1936 to Vought, becoming the V-141. Pilot's name also reported as Arthur H. Skaer, Jr.
19 August Martin B-12A, 33-167, of the 31st Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group, Hamilton Field, California, piloted by William Ball, receives heavy damage when the landing gear collapses on landing at Medford Airport, Medford, Oregon.Copp, DeWitt S., "A Few Great Captains: The Men and Events That Shaped the Development of U.S. Air Power", The Air Force Historical Foundation, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, Library of Congress catalog card number 78-22310, , page 309.
12 September Prototype Gloster Gladiator, KS200, suffers bad landing at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, ending up on nose, starboard lower wingtip crushed. Repaired, it will survive until late 1942.Stamford, Lincs., UK, "UK Roundels File", Air Enthusiast, Number 130, July–August 2007, p. 19
October During training, Adolf Galland crashes in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44 biplane and is in a coma for three days, suffering serious skull fractures, a broken nose, and a partially blinded left eye from glass fragments. His commander, Major Rheitel, an aviator from the First World War, assists him during his recovery and getting back into flying.
5 October A prototype Supermarine Walrus, K4797, carrying Admiral Roger Backhouse crashed while attempting a water landing in Portland Harbour, after attempting a water landing with the wheels still lowered. The crew and passenger were rescued with minor injuries and the aircraft was later recovered.