Apollo 12 is hit by lightning on liftoff, but Cmdrs. Charles Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean make the second manned lunar landing with pinpoint accuracy. The lunar module Intrepid touches down about 200 yards from the Surveyor 3 probe, on the moon since 1967. The all-Navy crew, which also includes Cmdr. Richard F. Gordon Jr., is recovered in the Pacific Ocean by USS Hornet (CVS-12).
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
