This Day in FAA History: November 24th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19331124: The Aeronautics Branch announced an airport development program to be undertaken in cooperation with the Civil Works Administration. Since one purpose of the program was to provide work immediately to the unemployed, the Branch urged municipalities wishing to acquire landing fields to apply within the next two weeks. (See April 15, 1934.)
19711124: The first in a series of hijackings involving extortion occurred when a passenger on a flight from Portland to Seattle successfully demanded $200,000 and four parachutes, then parachuted from the rear stairway of the Boeing 727. The hijacker–who used the name Dan Cooper, but became known as D.B. Cooper in the press–was never found. (In February 1980, however, tattered bills from his loot were discovered along the Columbia River in Washington.) Another incident involving a demand for ransom and parachutes occurred on December 24, 1971, and 17 more extortion attempts on U.S. air carriers were made during the next 6 months. (See March 7-9, 1972.)
19751124: Dr. John L. McLucas became the sixth FAA Administrator, succeeding Alexander P. Butterfield (see March 14, 1973). The President had persuaded McLucas to give up his portfolio as Secretary of the Air Force in favor of the FAA post. McLucas had been nominated by Ford on October 20 and confirmed by the Senate on November 13.
Born in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1920, McLucas held degrees from Davidson College and Tulane University. After serving as a Navy radar officer during World War II, he earned a doctorate in physics with a minor in electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University in 1950. McLucas authored numerous scientific articles and held ten patents. He became vice president and later president of a private electronics firm, then joined the Defense Department in 1962 as Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering. Two years later, he became Assistant Secretary General for Scientific Affairs at NATO headquarters. In 1966, McLucas became president and chief executive officer of the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit research organization established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work on technical problems for the government. He became Under Secretary of the Air Force in 1969, and was promoted to Secretary in 1973. McLucas served as FAA Administrator for 16 months, including the remainder of the Ford Administration and two months under President Jimmy Carter. (See April 1, 1977.)
19761124: The Secretary of Transportation chose Arizona, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Michigan to participate in a four-state demonstration program mandated by Congress (see July 12, 1976). The chosen states administered Federal grants for the development of general aviation airports within their borders for fiscal 1977-78 to determine whether state agencies could manage these funds more effectively than FAA. Although FAA recommended that the demonstration be extended beyond fiscal 1978, Congress allowed the program to expire. (See October 1, 1989.)
19931124: A group of airlines and their trade associations formally asked DOT or FAA to prohibit Los Angeles officials from implementing a plan to deny airlines access to Los Angeles International Airport because of their refusal to pay higher landing fees. On November 30 and December 1, FAA Administrator David Hinson and DOT Secretary Federico Peña met with airline representatives and Los Angeles city officials to mediate the dispute. As a result, the airlines agreed to pay the higher fees, retroactive to July 1, while planning to pursue the issue through litigation. The airlines subsequently asked DOT to review the increases in accordance with legislation (see August 23, 1994) that provided a means of timely resolution of such disputes. On June 30, 1995, DOT ruled that the increases were largely valid but that the airlines were due a partial refund, a decision that remained under appeal at the end of 1996.
20081124: FAA commissioned an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system testbed at Daytona Beach Airport under a joint program with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Lockheed Martin, and other partners. The system provided real-time graphical weather displays from the National Weather Service, along with critical flight information. (See March 7, 2008; November 23, 2009.)
20091124: The Department of Transportation levied a civil penalty of $100,000 against Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines for their roles in causing the passengers on board Continental Express Flight 2816 to remain on the aircraft at Rochester International Airport for an unreasonable period of time (7 hours) on August 8, 2009. In addition, the Department assessed a civil penalty of $75,000 against Mesaba Airlines, which provided ground handling for the flight, for its role in the incident. (See August 11, 2009; April 29, 2010.)
20141124: In the aftermath of the Chicago ARTCC fire, FAA announced a series of changes that would lead to faster disaster recovery and more secure facilities and equipment. FAA’s three-stage plan included: making radar, voice radios, flight planning data and weather and aeronautical information more rapidly available to support operations in a new configuration; reducing or eliminating the manual nature of operations by recreating specific sectors and services of the off-line facility at surrounding facilities; and enhancing NextGen capabilities to make services available even more quickly if a facility had a catastrophic loss. (See September 25, 2014.)
20151124: Airbus announced FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency had issued a type certificate to the A320neo (new engine option), powered by Pratt & Whitney’s Pure Power PW1100G-JM engine.
20151124: The Airline Operators and Pilots Association reported FAA had released a list of the first 35 of 74 VORs it planned to decommission through 2020. More than 200 more would be decommissioned through 2025. FAA planned to retain more than half of the VORs as it established a minimum operational network to serve as a backup to satellite systems. The list of 35 approved VORs, the first in line to be decommissioned, was spread among 17 states. At the time of the announcement, FAA owned and operated 957 VORs in the continental United States. An additional 100 nonfederal VORs were in operation around the country. Included in the list of VORs to be decommissioned were 12 VORs, 155 VOR/DMEs, and 141 VORTACs. The majority were located in the eastern and central regions of the United States. In the case of VOR/DMEs and VORTACs, the DME and TACAN portions of the units would be left in place to facilitate RNAV requirements.