This is a list of notable 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. For more exhaustive lists, see the Aircraft Crash Record Office or the Air Safety Network or the Dutch Scramble Website Brush and Dustpan Database. 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. 1940 5 January The early models of the Henschel Hs 129 suffer from heavy stick forces, amongst other problems, and on this date the Hs 129 V2 is destroyed when it fails to pull out of a dive. 6 January Bell XP-39B Airacobra, 38–326, modified from prototype XP-39, on test flight out of Buffalo, New York, suffers failure of main gear legs to retract fully, stopping short of flush stowage. Pilot, Wright Field P-39 project officer George Price, saves prototype with deft belly-landing, damage mostly limited to the propeller. 10 January The Mechelen Incident, also known as the Mechelen affair, was an event during the Phoney War in the first stages of World War II. A German Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun, D-NFAW, piloted by Major Erich Hoenmanns, 52, base commander of Loddenheide airfield, near Münster with an officer, Major Helmuth Reinberger, on-board carrying the plans for Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), a German attack on the Low Countries, becomes lost and crash-lands in neutral Belgium near Vucht, in the modern-day municipality of Maasmechelen. This prompts an immediate crisis in the Low Countries and amidst the French and British authorities, whom the Belgians notify of their discovery; however the crisis abates relatively quickly once the dates mentioned in the plans pass without incident. It has been argued that the incident led to a major change in the German attack plan, but this hypothesis has also been disputed. 3 FebruaryUS Army Air Corps Chief of Staff Gen. Henry H. Arnold's personal staff transport, Northrop A-17AS, 36–350, c/n 290, 3-seat command transport, written off in accident this date. 3 February RAF pilot Peter Townsend, flying a Hawker Hurricane of 43 Squadron, downs Heinkel He