2003 in aviation

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Years:	2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

This is a list of aviation-related events from 2003:

Events

January

• January 8 – The Turkish Airlines Avro RJ100 Konya, operating as Flight 634, crashes in thick fog while on final approach to land at Diyarbakır Airport in Diyarbakır, Turkey. The plane breaks into three pieces and catches fire, killing 75 of the 80 people on board and seriously injuring all five survivors.
• January 8 – Air Midwest Flight 5481, a Beechcraft 1900D operating as a US Airways Express flight, crashes into a US Airways hangar on takeoff from Charlotte/Douglas International Airport at Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board and injuring one person on the ground. The accident investigation determines that the crash resulted from improper maintenance and because the aircraft was overweight, Air Midwest having used Federal Aviation Administration-approved estimated passenger weight tables that had not been updated since 1936, when the average weight of an American passenger was 20 pounds (9 kg) lighter than in 2003.

February

• Fina Air begins services.
• February 1 – The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on reentry after 16 days in space, killing its entire crew of seven.
• February 5-9 – Aero-India show is held at Bangalore

May

• May 25 – Boeing 727-223 tail number N844AA is stolen from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola. Ben Charles Padilla, who is suspected of having been at the controls, disappears at the same time. Despite a worldwide search by police and intelligence agencies, neither the plane nor Padilla are ever found.
• May 29 – A man attempts to hijack Qantas Flight 1737, a Boeing 717-200 with 52 other people on board, shortly after taking off from Melbourne Airport in Melbourne, Australia, hoping to crash the plane into Australia's Walls of Jerusalem National Park in Tasmania, which he believes will release the Devil from his lair and bring about Armageddon. He injures two flight attendants before being subdued by other passengers.
• May 30 – The final commercial flight of an Air France Concorde takes place.

June

• June 26 – The NASA Helios Prototype unmanned aerial vehicle breaks up in flight and crashes into the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles (16 km) west of Kauai, Hawaii, during a remotely piloted systems checkout flight in preparation for an endurance test scheduled for July.

July

• July 8 – Sudan Airways Flight 139, a Boeing 737-200, crashes at Port Sudan, Sudan, killing 116 of the 117 people on board. A two-year-old boy is the only survivor.

August

• July 26-August 3 – The 13th FAI World Rally Flying Championship takes place in in Rustenburg, South Africa. the individual winners are 1. Nigel Hopkins and Dale de Klerk (South Africa), 2. Janusz Darocha and Zbigniew Chrząszcz (Poland), 3. Nathalie Strube and P. Sicard (France); the team winners are 1. South Africa, 2. France, 3. Poland.
• August 11 – The Spirit of Butts Farm completes the first flight across the Atlantic by a computer-controlled model aircraft. The flight also sets two world records for a model aircraft, for duration (38 hours 53 minutes) and for non-stop distance (1,883 statute miles/3,038 km).
• August 26 – Colgan Air Flight 9446, a US Airways Express Beechcraft 1900D on a repositioning flight with no passengers aboard, crashes in the water off Yarmouth, Massachusetts, immediately after takeoff from Barnstable Municipal Airport in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, due to a maintenance error. The two-man crew dies.

September

• September 14 - USAF Thunderbirds #6 solo crashes into the tarmac at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, while attempting its initial maneuver at the Gunfighter Skies 2003 air show. The pilot safely ejected just moments before impact. Pilot error (insufficient altitude) is determined as the cause and the pilot is reassigned to the Pentagon. Although the desert terrain is similar, the ground elevation at Mountain Home AFB is over 1000 feet higher than the Thunderbirds' home base at Nellis AFB.

• Skip Holm, flying the modified P-51D 'Dago Red', sets a new closed-course piston-engine speed record of 507 mph at the Reno Air Races.

October

• October 15 - Yang Liwei becomes the People's Republic of China's first man in space.
• October 24, Concorde makes its last scheduled commercial flight.

November

• November 22, the DHL shootdown incident in Baghdad.
• November 26, the last "retirement" Concorde flight.

December

• December 17 – The 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Brothers in the Wright Flyer is celebrated as the 100th birthday of aviation.
• December 17 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately built, manned aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound,
• December 25 – UTA Flight 141, a severely overloaded chartered Boeing 727-223, fails to become airborne during its takeoff attempt from Cadjehoun Airport in Cotonou, Benin. It runs off the end of the runway and crashes on a beach along the Bight of Benin, killing 151 of the 163 people on board. All 12 survivors as well as two people on the ground are injured. Newspaper reports create rumors that the Boeing 727 involved is N844AA, which had disappeared after being stolen in May, but the rumors prove unfounded; the accident aircraft is 3X-GDO.

First flights

March

• March 6 - Bell/Agusta BA609
• March 7 - HAL HJT-36.
• March 29 - Ullmann 2000 Panther prototype N202KT

May

• May 20 - SpaceShipOne (first captive flight, unmanned)
• May 29 - Van's Aircraft RV-10 prototype N410RV

July

• July 28 - Adam A700 AdamJet
• July 29 - SpaceShipOne (first manned captive flight)

August

• August 1 - First successful supersonic flight of the HAL Light Combat Aircraft's (LCA's) first technology demonstrator, TD-1.
• August 7 - SpaceShipOne (first free-flight)

December

• December 17 - SpaceShipOne (first powered flight)