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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1978:
[edit] Events
[edit] January
- January 1 – British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley, and Scottish Aviation are absorbed into British Aerospace
- January 1 – The Boeing 747-237B Emperor Ashoka, operating as Air India Flight 855, crashes into the Arabian Sea just off Bombay, India, immediately after takeoff from Sahar International Airport, killing all 213 people on board.
- January 18 – After its nose wheel locks in the up position, Eastern Air Lines Flight 274, a Boeing 727-25, makes a two-point landing at Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, without injury to any of the 76 people on board and with only minor damage to the airliner.
[edit] February
- April 1 – The Canadian Snowbirds aerobatic team officially becomes 431 Air Demonstration Squadron.
- April 18 – The Vickers Viscount becomes the first turboprop airliner to see 25 years in service.
- April 20 – Korean Airlines Flight 902, a Boeing 707-321B flying from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea, with 109 people on board, veers drastically off course and violates Soviet airspace over the Kola Peninsula. A Soviet Air Defense Forces Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name "Flagon") fighter hits the airliner with an air-to-air missile, badly damaging the left wing and puncturing the fuselage, killing two passengers. The plane eventually makes a crash landing on a frozen lake near Loukhi, where Soviet helicopters rescue the 107 survivors.
- April 26 – Possibly due to engine trouble, a United States Navy P-3 Orion patrol aircraft (BuNo 152724) of Patrol Squadron 23 (VP-23) crashes in the Atlantic Ocean near Naval Air Facility Lajes in Lajes in the Azores, killing the crew of seven.
- May 8 – The National Airlines Boeing 727-235 Donna, operating as Flight 193, crashes into Escambia Bay while on descent to Pensacola, Florida, killing three of the 58 people on board and injuring 11 of the 55 survivors.
- May 20 – McDonnell Douglas delivers its 5,000th F-4 Phantom II aircraft, 20 years after the first flight of the prototype.
- May 24 – Barbara Ann Oswald hijacks a St. Louis, Missouri-based charter helicopter and orders its pilot, Allen Barklage, to fly it to United States Penitentiary, Marion, in Marion, Illinois, so that her husband, Garrett B. Trapnell – imprisoned there for a 1972 airliner hijacking – can escape. Barklage wrestles Oswald's gun from her as he lands the helicopter in the prison yard and shoots her to death. In December, her daughter Robin Oswald will hijack an airliner in an unsuccessful attempt to get Trapnell released.
[edit] August
- August 12–17 – Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman make the first transatlantic crossing by balloon, taking 5 days 17 hours to travel from Presque Isle, Maine, to Evreux, France in the Double Eagle II
- August 30 – Two East Germans hijack LOT Flight 165, a Tupolev Tu-134 with 63 passengers on board, during a flight from Gdańsk, Poland, to East Berlin, taking a flight attendant hostage. They force the plane to fly to Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin, where all aboard the plane are released unharmed and the two hijackers and six other East German passengers on the plane claim sanctuary.
[edit] September
- September 3 – Members of the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) shoot down Air Rhodesia Flight 825, the Vickers Viscount Hunyani, with a Strela 2 (NATO reporting name "SA-7 Grail") surface-to-air missile west of Karoi, Rhodesia. Of the 56 people on board, 38 die in the crash and ZIPRA guerrillas shoot 10 more to death on the ground, leaving only eight survivors.
- September 25 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, a Boeing 727 airliner, collides with a Cessna 172 over San Diego, California. There were no survivors on either plane, and with the seven fatalities on the ground the total number of lives lost was 144, making it the worst air disaster in California history to date.
- September 30 – Aarno Lamminparras, an unemployed home building contractor, hijacks Finnair Flight 405, a Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle with 47 other people on board flying from Oulu to Helsinki, Finland. At Helsinki, he allows 34 passengers off the plane, which he then forces to fly back to Oulu, where he receives a ransom payment from Finnair, then back to Helsinki, where he receives more money from a Finnish newspaper and releases the remaining 11 passengers. The aircraft then flies to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, refuels, and returns to Helsinki for more ransom money from the newspaper before flying on to Oulu, where he releases his final three hostages in exchange for a chauffered limousine ride home and 24 hours alone with his wife. Police storm his house and arrest him.
[edit] October
[edit] November
[edit] December
- The retirement of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal leaves the Royal Navy without a ship capable of operating high-performance fixed-wing aircraft for the first time since 1918.[2]
- December 11 – Masked men rob the Lufthansa cargo handling area at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, New York, of $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels newly flown in from West Germany in the largest cash robbery ever committed in the United States at the time.[3]
- December 21 – Seventeen-year-old Robin Oswald hijacks Trans World Airlines Flight 541, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 with 87 people on board, threatening to blow up the airliner if her father is not released from prison. The aircraft makes an emergency landing at Williamson County Regional Airport in Marion, Illinois, where authorities talk her into surrendering without further incident. Her father, Garrett B. Trapnell, had been imprisoned for a 1972 airliner hijacking and her mother, Barbara Ann Oswald, Trapnell's wife, had been killed when she hijacked a helicopter in May 1978 in order to help him escape from prison.
- December 23 – On approach to a landing in Palermo, Sicily, Alitalia Flight 4128, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, crashes into the Tyrrhenian Sea about 3 km (1.9 mi) north of Palermo, killing 108 of the 129 on board and injuring all 21 survivors.
- December 28 – United Airlines Flight 173, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-61, crashes in Portland, Oregon, killing 10 and injuring 28 of the 189 aboard. The aircraft had run out of fuel while the crew was troubleshooting landing gear indicator problems.
- December 29 – Freddie To makes the first flight of a solar-powered aircraft, the Solar One
[edit] First flights
[edit] January
[edit] February
[edit] August
[edit] September
[edit] November
[edit] December
[edit] Entered service
[edit] January
[edit] August
[edit] Retirements
[edit] References
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 314.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 27.
- ^ McCabe, Scott, "Crime History: 'Goodfellas' Make Off With $5.8M in Lufthansa Heist", Washington Examiner, Sunday, December 11, 2011, Page 6.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 321.
- ^ 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. 102.
- ^ Knott, Robert C., Attack From the Sky: Naval Air Operations in the Korean War, Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy Naval Historical Center, 2004, ISBN 0-945274-52-1, p. 188.
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