1997 - All passengers aboard a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight escaped unhurt after the aircraft aborted take-off and careened off Dubai International Airport’s runway, causing almost four hours of delay to air traffic. En route from Karachi to London, the pilot of PIA flight PK787 aborted take-off when the Boeing 747-200’s Number 2 General Electric engine caught fire, lost power and began discharging smoke. The plane crashed through landing lights and a localiser fence before stopping 500 metres past the end of the runway in gravelly terrain, the ailing engine coming to rest one foot from the edge of a concrete navigation signal box. Airport ground staff and firefighters arrived almost immediately to assist the aircraft and clear the area of any danger.
Other important events
1832 - John C. Calhoun becomes the first US Vice-President to resign, stepping down over differences with President Andrew Jackson.
1846 - Iowa becomes the 29th US state.
1895 - World’s first movie theatre opens in Paris.
1908 - Earthquake claims 80,000 lives in Messina, Italy.
1926 - Imperial Airways begins England-India mail and passenger service.
1948 - Egyptian Premier Nokrashy Pasha is assassinated.
1966 - China detonates its fifth atomic bomb.
1972 - Kim Il-sung becomes President of North Korea.
1981 - Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, is born in Norfolk.
1983 - Sunil Gavaskar breaks Sir Don Bradman’s record of 29 hundreds by scoring his 30th Test century in Chennai.
1985 - Lebanon’s Muslim and Christian leaders sign an armistice designed to end 10 years of civil war.
1989 - Playwright Vaclav Havel is sworn in as President of Czechoslovakia.
1994 - CIA director R. James Woolsey resigns in the aftermath of the discovery of an American spy for Moscow.
1997 - Egypt’s highest court backs a ban on female genital mutilation.
2002 - Yemen politician Jarallah Omar is shot and killed.
2003 - British actor Alan Bates dies of cancer at the age of 69.
2007 - Nepal declared a federal democratic Republic by interim parliament, abolishing the monarchy.
2009 -New Zealand yacht Alfa Romeo wins the Sydney to Hobart race.
2011 - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is laid to rest in Pyongyang.
2012 - Iranian cargo ship sinks off Umm Al Quwain.
2013 - Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal takes over as the new Chief Minister of Delhi.
2014 - An AirAsia plane on a regular flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore, crashes, killing all 162 on board.
2016 - Pakistan’s fourth nuclear plant Chashma-III goes online in Chashma.
