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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970:
[edit] Events
[edit] January
[edit] February
- The last flight of an active U.S. Navy antisubmarine Lockheed P-2 Neptune takes place, with Rear Admiral Tom Davies at the controls. The P-2 had been in active U.S. Navy service since March 1947, and Davies had set a world distance record in the Neptune Truculent Turtle in September 1946.[2]
- February 4 – The Avro 748-105 Srs. 1 Cuidad de Bahia Blanca, operating as Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 707, encounters severe turbulence and crashes near Loma Alta in Chaco Province, Argentina, killing all 37 people on board.
- February 5 – A Dominicana de Aviación McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, loses power in one engine two minutes after takeoff from Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. The pilots attempt to return to the airport, but the other engine also fails and the DC-9 crashes into the Caribbean Sea off Punta Caucedo, killing all 102 people on board. Fuel contamination is found to have caused the engine failures.
- February 17–18 – United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses attack Laos.
- February 21 – A bomb explodes in the cargo compartment of Swissair Flight 330, a Convair CV-990, nine minutes after takeoff from Zürich International Airport in Zürich, Switzerland. The flight crew attempts to return to Zürich, but have difficulty seeing their instruments because of smoke in the cockpit; the plane finally suffers an electrical failure and crashes near Lucerne, Switzerland, killing all 47 people on board. Responsibility for the bombing is never determined.
- February 24 – The Royal Navy recommissions the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal after a £UK 30 million refit of the ship.
- February 27 – Hawker Siddeley begins buying back surplus Hawker Hunters from the Royal Air Force to remanufacture for new customers.
- The United States confirms that SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles are deployed in Laos.[3]
- March 6 – BEA opens its charter service, BEA Airtours
- March 17 – An Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-9 is hijacked. The hijacker is overpowered and the aircraft lands safely in Boston, Masachusetts, although the co-pilot is killed in the struggle.
- March 28 – A United States Navy F-4J Phantom II fighter of Fighter Squadron 142 (VF-142) shoots down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 fighter. It is the only American air-to-air kill in the Vietnam War between September 1968 and January 1971.[4]
- March 31 – In what becomes known in Japan as the Yodogo Hijacking, nine members of the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction, a predecessor of the Japanese Red Army, hijack a Boeing 727-89 operating as Japan Airlines Flight 351 with 129 other people on board on a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, Japan. After releasing their hostages at Fukuoka and at Kimpo Airport in Seoul, South Korea, they proceed to Mirim Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, and surrender to North Korean authorities, who grant them asylum. Notable passengers on the flight include Mori Wakabayashi of the rock band Les Rallizes Dénudés; future Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal Stephen Fumio Hamao; Japanese pop singer Mita Akira; and Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, who would become one of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators.
- President Richard M. Nixon's administration announces that recent American attacks on North Vietnam, primarily targeting communications and air defense facilities, are the Vietnam War's largest since 1968.[7]
- May 1 – B-52 Stratofortress strikes and helicopter assaults against North Vietnamese forces are part of the first day of the American and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.[8] The last U.S. Army helicopter will not leave Cambodia until June 29.[9]
- May 2 – After several unsuccessful attempts to land at Princess Juliana International Airport on St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles due to poor weather, ALM Antillean Airlines Flight 980, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-33F, runs out of fuel and ditches in the Caribbean Sea, killing 23 of the 63 people on board and injuring 37 of the 40 survivors.
- May 9 – U.S. Navy attack helicopters are the first American aircraft to reach Phnom Penh during the American and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.[10]
- May 18 – National Airlines ends a 108-day strike by offering ground crews a 33% pay increase.
- May 26 – Operation Menu, the 14-month-long covert American bombing campaign by B-52 Stratofortresses against North Vietnamese Army sanctuaries in Cambodia, comes to an end. The B-52s have flown 3,800 sorties and dropped 108,823 tons (98,723,578 kg) of munitions during the campaign.
- May 26 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 exceeds Mach 2 in level flight, the first commercial aircraft to do so.
- July 1 – Melbourne opens its new international airport
- July 3 – A Dan-Air de Havilland DH 106 Comet Series 4 crashes on the slopes of the Sierra del Montseny near Arbucias (Gerona) in Catalonia in northern Spain, killing all 112 people on board.
- July 3 – The Canadian Armed Forces decommission Canada's last aircraft carrier, HMCS Bonaventure (CVL 22), at Halifax, Nova Scotia.
- July 5 – While landing, Air Canada Flight 621, a Douglas DC-8-63, hits the runway at Toronto International Airport in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with such force that its number four engine and pylon break off the right wing. The pilot manages to lift off again for a go around, but a series of explosions in the right wing break off the number three engine and pylon and then destroy most of the wing before the pilot can make a second landing attempt. The plane crashes in Brampton, Ontario, killing all 109 people on board.
- July 17 – Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport commences passenger screening to help prevent hijackings; the first airport to do so.
[edit] August
- August 9 – LANSA Flight 502, a Lockheed L-188A Electra, crashes shortly after takeoff from Quispiquilla Airport near Cusco, Peru, killing 99 of the 100 people on board and two people on the ground. It is the deadliest air accident in Peruvian history at the time.
- August 12 – China Airlines Flight 206, a NAMC YS-11, crashes into a bamboo grove on the top of Yuan Mountain in fog during a severe thunderstorm while on approach to land at Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, killing 14 of the 31 people on board.
- August 22 – Two Sikorsky HH-53C helicopters complete a non-stop transpacific flight of 9,000 miles (14,484 km) using in-flight refuelling.
[edit] September
- September 3 – Air France places the first orders for the Airbus A300
- September 6 – Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijack three airliners bound for New York City. The hijackings of Trans World Airlines Flight 741 – a Boeing 707 flying from Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany, with 155 people on board including rabbi Yitzchok Hutner – and Swissair Flight 100 – a Douglas DC-8 with 155 passengers on board flying from Zürich-Kloten Airport in Switzerland – proceed without injury to anyone, and the airliners are flown to Dawson's Field, an abandoned former Royal Air Force airstrip in a remote desert area of Jordan near Zarka. The hijacking of El Al Flight 219, a Boeing 707 with 158 people on board, fails when hijacker Patrick Argüello is shot and killed after injuring one crew member and his partner Leila Khaled is subdued and turned over to British authorities in London; two other PFLP members prevented from boarding El Al Flight 219 instead hijack Pan American World Airways Flight 93, a Boeing 747 flying from Brussels, Belgium, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with 153 people on board, which they force to fly to Beirut, Lebanon, and then on to Cairo, Egypt.
- September 9 – To pressure British authorities into releasing Leila Khaled, a PFLP sympathizer hijacks BOAC Flight 775, a Vickers VC10 flying from Bahrain to Beirut with 114 people on board, and forces it to land at Dawson's Field in Jordan.
- September 12 – After removing all hostages from them, PFLP members use explosves to destroy the four empty airliners at Dawson's Creek and Cairo hijacked on September 6 and 9. By September 30, all hostages from the four planes will be recovered unharmed.
[edit] October
- In its Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy, the new British Conservative government only partially reverses the preceding Labour government's plans to phase out all Royal Navy aircraft carriers by the end of 1971, instead rescheduling the decommissioning of HMS Eagle for 1972 and of HMS Ark Royal for the late 1970s, with the Royal Navy to have no large, fixed-wing aircraft carriers after Ark Royal″s retirement.[11]
- October 2 – A Golden Eagle Aviation Martin 4-0-4 carrying the stating players, coaches, and boosters of the Wichita State University football team crashes on a mountain west of Silver Plume, Colorado, killing 31 of the 40 people on board.
- October 15 – The first successful aircraft hijacking in the Soviet Union takes place, when the Lithuanian nationalist Pranas Brazinskas and his son Algirdas seize Aeroflot Flight 244, an Antonov An-24, over the Soviet Union, after a shoot-out on board with guards in which a flight attendant is killed and several other crew members are wounded. The hijackers force the plane to fly to Trabzon, Turkey, where they surrender to Turkish authorities.
- October 19 – Hindustan Aeronautics completes its first licence-built MiG-21
- October 21 – An explosion in the lavatory blows the tail off of Philippine Airlines Flight 215, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748-209 Series 2, while it is flying over the Philippine Islands at 10,500 feet (3,200 m) during a flight from Cauayan City to Manila; the aircraft crashes, killing all 40 people on board. A bomb is suspected.
[edit] November
- November 11 - The British government agrees to fund development of the Rolls-Royce RB211 turbofan, rescuing the project from Rolls-Royce's bankruptcy.
- November 14 - Southern Airways Flight 932, a Douglas DC-9, crashes near Ceredo, West Virginia, killing all 75 on board. Among the dead are 37 members of the Marshall University football team, eight of its coaches, 25 team boosters, and the crew of five.
- November 20–21 - In Operation Ivory Coast, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army assault North Vietnam's Son Tay prison camp to free prisoners-of-war thought to be there, but none are found. Large air raids are conducted to divert North Vietnamese attention from the assault.[12]
- November 21 - American aircraft begin the first major bombing campaign over North Vietnam since 1968. 300 aircraft attack the Mu Gia and Ban Gari passes.
[edit] December
- December 15 - Artem Mikoyan dies, aged 65
- December 20 - With pre-tax losses of $US 130 million, the year ends as the worst ever for US airlines.
- December 31 - Jeanne Holm becomes the U.S. Air Force's first female General.
[edit] First flights
[edit] January
- January 17 Sukhoi T-6-2IG (prototype of Sukhoi Su-24 'Fencer')
[edit] February
[edit] August
[edit] September
[edit] November
[edit] December
[edit] Entered service
[edit] January
[edit] References
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 20.
- ^ Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The God of the Sea's Namesake", Naval History, October 2011, pp. 16, 17.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 158.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 158.
- ^ Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810-1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-295-8, p. 233.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 140.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 158.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, pp. pp 140-141.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 142.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 73.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 27.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 158.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 10.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 12.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 252.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 56.
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