September 11, 1997

1997Camille Henry, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1933)^[†]

Joseph Wilfred Camille "The Eel" Henry was a Canadian professional Canadian ice hockey left winger/centre who played for the New York Rangers, the Chicago Black Hawks and the St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League.

1997Hannah Weiner, American poet (born 1928)^[†]

Hannah Adelle Weiner was an American poet who is often grouped with the Language poets because of the prominent place she assumed in the poetics of that group.

1997NASA's Mars Global Surveyor reaches Mars.^[†]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the United States's civil space program, aeronautics research and space research. Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program.

1997Kurkse tragedy: Fourteen Estonian soldiers of the Baltic Battalion are drowned or die of hypothermia during a training exercise in the Kurkse Strait.^[†]

The Kurkse tragedy occurred on 11 September 1997, when 14 Estonian soldiers of the Baltic Battalion drowned in the Kurkse Strait during a dangerous training maneuver. The Kurkse tragedy is the deadliest accident in the Estonian Defence Forces since the country regained independence in 1991.