1970 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970:

Events

January

• The Egyptian Air Force has lost 60 fighters in air-to-air combat with the Israeli Air Force since the end of the Six-Day War with Israel in June 1967. Over the same period, the Israeli Air Force has lost only six fighters to all causes.^[1]
• January 1 – Nord-Aviation, Sud-Aviation, and SEREB merge to form SNIAS (the future Aérospatiale).^[2]
• January 12 – A Hellenic Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain crashes in Greece's Cithaeron mountain range. Press reports variously state that 25 people were on board and all died, 27 were on board and four survived, or 30 were on board and four survived. It is the third-deadliest aviation accident in Greek history at the time.^[3]
• January 13 – Polynesian Airlines Flight 208B, a Douglas C-47B-45DK Skytrain (registration 5W-FAC), encounters wind shear one minute after takeoff from Faleolo Airport in Apia, Western Samoa. Its nose pitches up, and it stalls, crashes into the Pacific Ocean, and explodes, killing all 32 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Western Samoa (now Samoa).^[3]
• January 14 – A Faucett Perú Douglas RC-54V Skymaster (registration OB-R-776) crashes into Pozo Chuño Mountain in Peru's Contumazá District, killing all 28 people on board.^[4]
• January 22 – Pan American World Airways begins the world's first wide-body airliner service, introducing the first Boeing 747 into service on the New York-London route.^[5]
• January 25 – A Convair CV-240-2 (registration XC-DOK) operated by the Mexican Comisión Federal de Electricidad (Federal Electricity Commission) and carrying journalists covering the Mexican presidential campaign on a flight from Mexico City crashes into La Vega hill while on approach to El Tajín National Airport in Tihuatlán, Mexico, killing 19 of the 20 people on board.^[6]
• January 28 – After its crew prematurely initiates their descent to a landing at Batagay Airport in Batagay in the Soviet Union's Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, an Aeroflot Antonov An-24B (registration CCCP-47701) crashes into the rocky slope of a 1,081-meter (3,547-foot) mountain 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Batagay at an altitude of 1,020 meters (3,346 feet). All 34 people on board die in the crash.^[7]
• January 29 – Aeroflot Flight 145, a Tupolev Tu-124V (registration CCCP-45083) on approach to Kilpyavr air base in Murmansk in the Soviet Union strikes the side of a hill 29 kilometers (18.1 miles) from the air base and slides down its slope before coming to rest. Of the 38 people on board, five die on impact and six more freeze to death while awaiting rescue.^[8]
• January 31 – The Soviet aerospace engineer Mikhail Mil, founder of the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant dies, aged 61.

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.^[9]
• Vickers-Armstrongs ceases production of the Vickers VC10 after manufacturing 54 of the aircraft.
• February 4
  • Descending in poor visibility, TAROM Flight RO35, an Antonov An-24B (registration YR-AMT) with 21 people on board, strikes trees in Romania's Vlădeasa Mountains, crashes on a mountain slope, and breaks up. All six crew members and seven of the passengers die instantly, and six more passengers die before rescuers arrive, leaving only one survivor.^[10]
  • 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 6 – During its descent to a landing at Samarkand Airport at Samarkand in the Soviet Union's Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, an Aeroflot Ilyusin Il-18V (registration CCCP-75798) crashes into a mountain 32 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of the airport at an altitude of 1,500 meters (4,921 feet), killing 92 of the 106 people on board.^[11]
• February 12 – After suffering engine failure, a Líneas Aéreas La Urraca Douglas C-47-DL Skytrain crashes near Puerto López, Colombia. Thirteen of the 14 people on board die on impact; the only person recovered alive from the crash site later dies of his injuries.^[12]
• February 15
  • Hugh Dowding, the commander of Royal Air Force Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, dies at the age of 87.
  • A Dominicana de Aviación McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 crashes into the Caribbean Sea two minutes after takeoff from Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic following engine failure, killing all 102 people on board. World lightweight boxing champion Carlos Cruz and his wife and two children, as well as 12 members of the Puerto Rican national women's volleyball team, are among the dead.^[13][14] The Puerto Rican salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico had planned to board the flight, but chooses not to after one of its members has a bad feeling about the flight and convinces the others not to take it.^[15]
• February 17–18 – United States Air Force Boeing 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 aircraft 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 25 – Trans World Airlines inaugurates scheduled nonstop Boeing 747 service between Los Angeles, California, and New York City, thus becoming the first airline to offer domestic Boeing 747 service in the United States.^[16]
• February 27
  • Hawker Siddeley begins buying back surplus Hawker Hunters from the Royal Air Force to remanufacture for new customers.
  • The British light aircraft manufacturer Beagle Aircraft goes into voluntary liquidation.^[17]

March

• The United States confirms that SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles are deployed in Laos.^[18]
• March 6
  • British European Airways (BE) opens its charter service, BEA Airtours.
  • A Handley Page Jetstream suffers engine failure on approach to Samedan Airport outside St. Moritz, Switzerland, and crashes 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) short of the runway, killing all 11 people on board.^[19]
• March 14 – A Paraense Transportes Aéreos Fairchild FH-227B (registration PP-BUF) on approach to Val de Cans International Airport in Belém, Brazil, crashes into Guajara Bay 800 meters (2,625 feet) short of the runway, killing 38 of the 40 people on board.^[20]
• March 16 – A United States Navy Lockheed EC-121K Warning Star attempting to land at Da Nang Air Base in Da Nang, South Vietnam, with its No. 3 engine feathered stalls, crashes, cartwheels into a United States Air Force hangar area, and breaks into three pieces, with its cockpit and fuselage forward of the wing sliding into a revetment wall and burning, its center section landing upside down in a street and burning, and its tail section landing on a softball field. Of the 28 men on board, 23 die, four suffer grave injuries, and one walks away from the tail section unharmed.^[21]
• March 17 – An Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-9 is hijacked. The hijacker is overpowered and the aircraft lands safely in Boston, Massachusetts, 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.^[18]
• March 30 – A Royal Malaysian Air Force de Havilland Canada DHC-4A Caribou crashes into Malaysia's Cowie Bay, killing all 10 people on board.^[22]
• 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.^[23]

April

• When three Haitian Coast Guard ships rebel against President François Duvalier and shell the presidential palace at Port-au-Prince, loyal Haitian Air Force pilots whose bombs had been confiscated out of fear that they also might rebel instead use 55-gallon drums of gasoline (petrol) to attack the ships. They score no hits.^[24]
• April 1
  • Aeroflot Flight 661, an Antonov An-24B (registration CCCP-47751) on a domestic flight in the Soviet Union from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk, collides with a Hydrometeorological Research Center of the USSR radiosonde weather balloon over Novosibirsk Oblast about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) southeast of Toguchin at an altitude of 5,400 meters (17,716 feet). The collision detaches the nose section of the An-24B, and the aircraft enters a steep descent and begins to disintegrate at an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,562 feet), some of its pieces catching fire before landing on farm land. All 45 people on board die.^[25]
  • A Royal Air Maroc Sud Aviation Caravelle III on approach to Nouasseur Airport in Casablanca, Morocco, crashes near Berrechid. Its fuselage breaks in two, and 61 of the 82 people on board die.^[26]
• April 2 – Royal Air Inter, a subsidiary of Royal Air Maroc, is formed to fly domestic routes in Morocco using Fokker F27 Friendships, begins flight operations.
• April 4 – After the crew of Aeroflot Flight 2903, an Ilyushin Il-14P (registration CCCP-52002), notices that they are low on approach in poor visibility to Zaporozhye Airport at Zaporozhye in the Soviet Union's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and initiates a go-around at an altitude of 40 meters (131 feet), the airliner's right wing strikes the ground during a turn and the plane crashes, killing seven of the 35 people on board.^[27]
• April 10
  • A United States Air Force Lockheed C-130A Hercules suffers a double engine failure and attempts to ditch in the Pacific Ocean off Okinawa, killing all 11 people on board.^[28]
  • An Aerocosta Colombia Curtiss C-46D-10-CU Commando cargo plane with 5,000 kilograms (11,023 pounds) of carcasses and a crew of four on board disappears over the Caribbean Sea during a flight from Santa Marta, Colombia, to Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe.^[29]
• April 14 – An Ecuatoriana Douglas C-54D-1-DC Skymaster cargo plane (registration HC-AON) crashes immediately after takeoff from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, for a flight to Quito, Ecuador, killing its two-man crew.^[30]
• April 18 – Two Soviet Navy Tupolev Tu-20 (NATO reporting name "BEAR D") reconnaissance/missile-targeting aircraft land at José Martí International Airport outside Havana, Cuba, the first time that any variant of the BEAR has landed outside the Soviet Bloc. The visit begins periodic flights by BEAR D and Tupolev Tu-142 (NATO reporting name "BEAR F") aircraft between the Soviet Union and Cuba that continue until the Soviet Union's collapse two decades later.^[31]
• April 21 – An explosion in a lavatory blows the tail off of a Philippine Air Lines Hawker Siddeley HS 748-209 Srs. 2 (registration PI-C1022) as it cruises at 10,500 feet (3,200 meters) over Cabanatuan on Luzon in the Philippines. The airliner crashes, killing all 36 people on board.^[32]
• April 24 – The United States begins Operation Patio, involving air strikes up to 18 miles (29 km) inside Cambodia.^[33]
• April 25 – An Italian Air Force Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar suffers an engine failure during its initial climb from Rivolto Air Force Base in Codroipo, Italy, and crashes, killing 17 of the 19 people on board.^[34]
• April 26 – Lufthansa begins wide-body airliner service with a Boeing 747 flight.

May

• 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.^[18]
• 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.^[35] The last U.S. Army helicopter will not leave Cambodia until June 29.^[36]
• 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.^[37]
  • American labor union leader and president of the United Auto Workers Walter Reuther and architect Oscar Stonorov die when their Gates Learjet 23 (registration N434J) strikes trees in poor visibility and crashes short of the runway on final approach to Pellston Regional Airport in Pellston, Michigan. Also killed are Reuther's wife, his bodyguard, and the plane's pilot and copilot.^[14]
• May 15 – Royal Air Maroc places its first Boeing aircraft, a Boeing 727-200, in revenue service.
• May 18 – National Airlines ends a 108-day strike by offering ground crews a 33% pay increase.
• May 20 – The Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to reach Mach 2.
• 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.
  • The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 exceeds Mach 2 in level flight, the first commercial aircraft to do so.
• May 29 – Plagued with maintenance problems and with its aircraft grounded since a fatal accident on March 14, the Brazilian airline Paraense Transportes Aéreos goes out of business. It had operated since March 1952.

June

• Laos's Royal Lao Air Force receives its first Douglas AC-47 Spooky fixed-wing gunships, transferred to it from the United States Air Force under the U.S. Military Assistance Program.^[38]
• June 6 – The commander of the U.S. Air Force's Military Airlift Command, General Jack J. Catton, accepts the first operational Lockheed C-5 Galaxy into service. The C-5 is the largest airplane in the world at the time.^[39]
• June 15 – The Soviet MVD arrests a group of 12 Soviet "refuseniks" at Smolny Airport outside of Leningrad before they can board a 12-seater Aeroflot Antonov An-2 for a flight to Priozersk. Pretending to be a wedding party, they had purchased all 12 tickets available for the flight and intended to hijack the plane as a means of escaping to the West.
• June 16 – National Airlines becomes the third American airline to offer transatlantic service, inaugurating daily nonstop round-trip service between Miami, Florida, and London, England.^[40]
• June 26 – Continental Airlines becomes the second airline (after Trans World Airlines) to offer Boeing 747 service on domestic routes in the United States.

July

• July 1
  • Melbourne, Australia, opens its new international airport.
  • Trans World Airlines becomes the first airline to offer a no-smoking section aboard every aircraft in its fleet.^[16]
• July 3
  • A Dan-Air de Havilland DH 106 Comet Series 4 crashes on the slopes of the Montseny Range near Arbúcies, Catalonia in northern Spain, killing all 112 people on board.
  • 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.
• July 18 – A Soviet Air Force Antonov An-22 (NATO reporting name "Cock") disappears over the North Atlantic Ocean during a flight from Reykjavik, Iceland, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, with the loss of all 23 people aboard.^[41]
• July 22 – An agreement is signed between Germany and the United Kingdom to develop the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft as the Panavia Panther. It later will emerge as the Panavia Tornado.
• July 30 – The Egyptian Air Force loses five MiG fighters and their pilots in a single day of combat with the Israeli Air Force.^[1]
• July 31 – American champion bull rider George Paul is killed when the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza he is piloting crashes into a mountain slope near Kemmerer, Wyoming.^[14]

August

• August 6 – Three minutes after takeoff from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, for a domestic flight to Lahore, a Pakistan International Airlines Fokker F27 Friendship (registration AP-ALM) crashes in a thunderstorm, killing all 30 people on board.^[42]
• August 7 – After over three years of fighting, a ceasefire brings the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel to a close.^[1]
• 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 24 – Two U.S. Air Force Sikorsky HH-53C Sea Stallion helicopters complete a nine-day, seven-stop flight of 9,000 miles (14,493 km) from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to Da Nang, South Vietnam. The trip has included the first transpacific flight by helicopters, a 1,700-mile (2,738-km) non-stop segment on August 22 from Shemya Island in the Aleutian Islands to Misawa Air Base, Japan, with in-flight refuelling by HC-130 Hercules tanker aircraft.^[43]
• August 29 – An Indian Airlines Fokker F-27 Friendship 400 (registration VT-DWT) strikes a hill and crashes just after takeoff from Silchar Airport in Silchar, India, killing all 39 people on board.^[44]

September

• The Bellanca Sales Company acquires the assets of the Champion Aircraft Company, creating the Bellanca Aircraft Corporation.^[45]
• September 2 – Shortly after climbing to an altitude of 9,000 meters (29,527 feet), Aeroflot Flight 3630, a Tupolev Tu-124 (registration CCCP-45012) crashes near Dnepropetrovsk in the Soviet Union's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, killing all 37 people on board.^[46]
• September 3
  • Descending to land at Leninabad in the Soviet Union's Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, an Aeroflot Yakovlev Yak-40 (registration CCCP-87690) crashes at an altitude of 2,100 meters (6,890 feet) into the side of 2,300-meter (7,546-foot) Mount Airy-Tash, 90 km (56.3 miles) northeast of Leninabad, killing all 21 people on board. At the time, it is the deadliest accident in history involving a Yak-40 and the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Tajikistan.^[47]
  • 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.
  • Flying the Catbird, a radio-controlled model airplane of his own design, Maynard L. Hill sets a new world record recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for gain in altitude by a radio-controlled airplane. Launched by hand from the Naval Weapons Laboratory airfield at Dahlgren, Virginia, Catbird climbs for 43 minutes and reaches an altitude of 8,205 meters (26,920 feet) before returning to earth in a 20-minute dive and landing 10 meters (32.8 feet) from its launch point.^[48]
• September 8 – While a Trans International Airlines Douglas DC-8 (registration N8963T) taxis at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City for a ferry flight to Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax County, Virginia, with eight flight attendants and three cockpit crew members on board, a foreign object becomes wedged between the right elevator and horizontal stabilizer, blown there by backwash from the aircraft preceding it on the taxiway. The problem is not detected, and the aircraft crashes upon takeoff, killing all 11 people on board; it is Trans International's only fatal accident. The accident prompts the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to institute new minimum distances between aircraft in line-up for take-off.
• 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 explosives 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.

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.^[49]
• October 2
  • Shortly after takeoff from Sung Shan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, a United States Air Force Lockheed C-130E Hercules crashes near a 700-foot (213-meter) hill 13 miles (21 km) southwest of Taipei, killing all 43 people on board. Its wreckage is not discovered until October 8.^[50]
  • National Airlines begins the first Boeing 747 service to or from Miami, Florida, offering flights between Miami and New York City^[40]
  • 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 4 – American stock car racing driver Curtis Turner is one of two people killed when the Aero Commander 500 he is piloting crashes near Mahaffey, Pennsylvania.^[14]
• 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 flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko 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.
• October 25 – National Airlines expands Boeing 747 service at Miami, introducing flights to Los Angeles, California.^[40]
• October 28 – The U.S. Air Force completes Operation Fig Hill, an airlift begun on September 27 to bring medical personnel, equipment, and supplies to Jordan in the aftermath of combat between the country's armed forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization. During the airlift, transport aircraft have delivered 200 medical personnel, two field hospitals, and 186 short tons (169 metric tons) of supplies, equipment, vehicles, tents, and food.^[51]

November

• The Israeli Air Force has lost 20 fighters in combat with Egyptian forces since June thanks to the Egyptian deployment of S-125 Neva/Pechora (NATO reporting name "SA-3 Goa") surface-to-air missiles and MiG-21J (NATO reporting name "Fishbed") fighters.^[1]
• November 1 – Trans World Airlines introduces "Business Class Ambassador Service" featuring "twin-seat" accommodations on transcontinental flights in the United States, marketing the new service as "a whole new way to fly."^[16]
• November 11 – The British government agrees to fund development of the Rolls-Royce RB211 turbofan, rescuing the project from Rolls-Royce's bankruptcy.
• November 12–13 (overnight) – The 1970 Bhola cyclone strikes East Pakistan, submerging the airports at Chittagong and Cox's Bazar under 1 meter (3.3 feet) of water for several hours.
• 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 21
  • In Operation Ivory Coast, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army assault the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay, North Vietnam, to free prisoners-of-war thought to be there, supported by 59 U.S. Navy and 57 U.S. Air Force aircraft, 28 of them directly assigned to the immediate assault area. No prisonsers are found at the camp, but the attackers kill 42 North Vietnamese guards in exchange for two Americans injured and one HH-3E Jolly Green helicopter deliberately crash-landed in the prison courtyard and left behind. Large air raids are conducted over the night of November 20–21 to divert North Vietnamese attention from the assault, including the largest U.S. Navy night aircraft carrier operation of the Vietnam War; one U.S. Air Force F-105 Thunderchief is shot down during these raids, but its crew ejects safely.^[18]
  • American aircraft begin the first major bombing campaign over North Vietnam since 1968, as 300 aircraft attack the Mu Gia and Ban Gari passes.
• November 27
  • Benjamín Mendoza y Amor Flores lunges at Pope Paul VI with a dagger at Manila International Airport outside of Manila in the Philippines shortly after the Pope disembarks from a chartered Douglas DC-8. The Pope suffers minor injuries.
  • During a flight over South Vietnam from Tan Son Nhut Air Base to Nha Trang Air Base in poor visibility, a United States Air Force C-123K Provider strikes trees on a 5,100-foot (1,554-meter) ridge at an elevation of 4,600 feet (1,402 meter) and crashes, killing all 79 people on board. Its wreckage is not found until December 6.^[52]
  • Capitol Airways Flight 3/26, a Douglas DC-8-63-CF (registration N4909C) chartered by the U.S. Air Force's Military Airlift Command, fails to become airborne while attempting to take off from Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, because of a failure of all main landing gear wheels to rotate. It overruns the runway, strikes a wooden barrier, an Instrument Landing System structure, and a 12-foot (3.7-meter) deep drainage ditch, and catches fire, killing 47 of the 229 people on board.^[53]
• November 29 – Carrying troops, a U.S. Air Force C-123K Provider descending in thick cloud on approach to Cam Ranh Airport in South Vietnam strikes high ground at an altitude of 2,700 feet (823 meters) and crashes into the jungle, killing 42 of the 44 people on board.^[54]

December

• December 5 – The Venezuelan Air Force moves its headquarters to Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base in Caracas, Venezuela.^[55]
• December 7 – During a flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Bucharest, Romania, a TAROM BAC One-Eleven 424EU attempts to divert to Constanta, Romania. On approach to Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport outside of Constanta in thickening fog, the airliner flies into the ground 5 km (3.1 miles) short of the runway, killing 19 of the 27 people on board.^[56]
• December 15 – Soviet aircraft designer Artem Mikoyan dies, aged 65.
• December 16 – U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules and C-141 Starlifter transports complete an airlift begun November 18 to bring relief supplies and equipment to East Pakistan after the devastating 1970 Bhola cyclone. The aircraft have delivered a total of 140 short tons (127 metric tons) of supplies and equipment, some of them making flights of almost 10,000 miles (16,100 km).^[51]
• December 19 – Forty minutes after a Soviet Air Force Antonov An-22 (NATO reporting name "Cock") (registration CCCP-09305) takes off from Dacca, East Pakistan, one of its propellers disintegrates at an altitude of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet). Its crew initiates an emergency descent and attempts an emergency landing at Panagarh Airport in Panagarh, India, but cannot get the landing gear or flaps down. After flying down the runway for 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) at an altitude of 1 meter (3.3 feet), the An-22 banks right, its right wing strikes the ground, and it crashes, breaks up, and catches fire. All 17 people on board die.^[57]
• December 30 – The Grumman YF-14A, prototype of the F-14 Tomcat, is destroyed in a crash during its second flight due to hydraulic failure. Its two-man crew ejects and parachutes safely.^[58]
• December 31
  • After the pilot of a chartered Rousseau Aviation Nord 262E carrying the Air Liquide football (soccer) team from Algiers, Algeria, to Minorca in Spain's Balearic Islands for a New Year's Day match sends out a distress call about 90 km (56.3 miles) from Algiers, the aircraft disappears over the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of all 30 people on board.^[59]
  • With pre-tax losses of $130 million, the year ends as the worst ever for U.S. airlines.

First flights

January

• January 17 Sukhoi T-6-2IG (prototype of Sukhoi Su-24 'Fencer')

February

• February 19 - Canadair CL-84 CX8401

March

• 13 March - Martin Marietta X-24A first powered flight following launch from a Boeing B-52

May

• Spencer S-12 Air Car^[60]
• May 20 - Civil Aviation Department Revathi Mark 2 VT-SAH
• May 28 - Boeing Vertol Model 347
• May 28 - Meridionali/Agusta EMA 124 I-EMAF

July

• July 2 - Saab SK37 Viggen
• July 16 - Aérospatiale Corvette^[61] F-WRSN
• July 18 - Aeritalia G.222^[62]

August

• August 1 - Beck-Mahoney Sorceress^[61]
• August 20 - Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk
• August 21 - American Aviation AA-5 Traveler^[61]
• August 22 - Aermacchi MB-326K^[63]
• August 29 - McDonnell Douglas DC-10 N10DC

September

• September 3 - Mace-Trefethen R-2^[61]
• September 11 - Britten-Norman Trislander G-ATWU

November

• November 12 - Nihon XC-1^[61]
• November 14 - Aerosport Rail N43344
• November 16 - Lockheed L-1011^[61] N1011

December

• December 1 - Dassault Falcon 10^[61]
• December 20^[64] or 21^[58] – Grumman YF-14A, prototype of the F-14 Tomcat

Entered service

• Antonov An-26 ("Curl")^[65]
• Nanchang Q-5 with Chinese People's Liberation Army

January

• January 22 – Boeing 747 with Pan American World Airways^[5] and Transworld Airlines

June

• June 6 – Lockheed C-5 Galaxy with the U.S. Air Force' Military Airlift Command^[39]

September

• Beechcraft King Air Model C90^[66]

October

• October 2 – Bell UH-1N Iroquois "Twin Huey" with the United States Air Force's Special Operations Center at Hurlburt Field, Florida^[51][67]

References

• Taylor, John W. R. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1971–72. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd., 1971.