January 18 – The Iraqi Air Force conducts a major raid against civilian and economic targets in Iran, claiming to have dispatched 66 sorties but actually sending more. The raid is made with inadequate fighter escort for attack aircraft and poor crew training in evading Iranian ground antiaircraft defenses, and some aircraft are lost due to insufficient maintenance or because they have been sent to targets that are too far away, causing them to run out of fuel on the way home.[4]
January 20 – Out on probation for hijackingNorthwest Orient Airlines Flight 608 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport outside Seattle, Washington, in July 1980, 20-year-old Glenn Kurt Tripp again hijacks Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 608, a Boeing 727 with 41 people on board bound for Portland, Oregon. After it takes off from Seattle, he tells a flight attendant that he has bomb in a box he is holding and demands to be flown to Afghanistan, but agrees to allow the airliner to land at Portland to refuel. After three hours of negotiations at Portland, Tripp agrees to allow half the passengers to disembark and while they do, two U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents climb aboard the plane through its cockpit windows and confront Tripp. When Tripp moves as if to throw his box at them, one agent fires a single shot that kills him. The box turns out to contain no explosives.[5][6]
March 16 – A Boeing 767 lands at Boeing Field in the U.S. State of Washington, after a record breaking non-stop flight from Lisbon, Portugal. The 5,499 miles (8,850 km) flown non-stop constitute a record for twin-engined airliners.
March 25 – As a consequence of the incidents on March 4 and March 5, the United States Government bans use of American airspace by Cubana de Aviación for 14 days.
March 28 – The first Boeing 747-300 enters service with Swissair as the launch customer.
May 15 – Iraqi aircraft make a missile attack on the Panamanianoil tankerPan Oceanic Sane, setting her on fire. Her crew abandons her in the channel at Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni, Iran.[2]
May 22 – During an air showatRhein-Main Air BaseinFrankfurt-am-Main, West Germany, a Canadian ForcesCF-104 Starfighter (serial number 104813) of 439 Squadron explodes in mid-air. Although its pilot ejects safely, its wreckage falls on a nearby road and hits a car carrying five people, killing three adults and two children. The sixth passenger in the car dies months later of burns suffered in the accident.[9]
May 31 – A missile attack by Iraqi aircraft in the Persian Gulf near the Iranian port of Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni seriously damages the Indianbulk carrierAti Priti.[2]
June 8 – The propeller detaches from the No. 4 engine of Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 – a Lockheed L-188C Electra with 10 passengers and a crew of five on board – shortly after takeoff from Cold Bay AirportinCold Bay, Alaska, for a flight to Seattle, Washington, causing damage that depressurizes the plane and jams its flight controls and engine throttles. Through use of the autopilot and gradual loosening of the flight controls and by shutting down the engines upon touchdown and rolling to an unpowered stop, the crew manages to land the aircraft safely at Anchorage International AirportinAnchorage Alaska, without injury to anyone or any further damage to the airliner.
Iraqi Foreign MinisterTariq Aziz warns that Iraq will begin to attack economic targets in Iran if Iran does not halt such attacks on Iraq.[1]
The Soviet Union cancels the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic transport program after the Tu-144 has made 102 commercial flights since entering service with AeroflotinDecember 1975. The Soviet government also provides for the future use of the remaining Tu-144s as airborne laboratories.
July 7 – A standard production Learjet 55 sets six time-to-climb records.
July 11 – The TAMEBoeing 737-2V2 AdvancedCiudad de Loja, flying over a mountainous region in heavy fog with an unqualified flight crew, crashes into a mountain while on final approach to a landing at Mariscal Lamar AirportinCuenca, Ecuador, killing all 119 people on board. It is TAME's first crash and remains its deadliest; the crash also remains the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Ecuador.
July 22 – Dick Smith achieves the first solo circumnavigation of the globe in a helicopter. Smith makes the 56,742-kilometre (35,258 mi) journey in stages using a bell Jetranger III named Australian Explorer.[14]
July 23 – Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767-200 with 69 people on board, runs out of fuel over Canada at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,000 m) during a flight from Ottawa, Ontario, to Edmonton, Alberta. Its flight crew glides the aircraft to a landing at Gimli, Manitoba. All on board survive, and only 10 suffer minor injuries. The aircraft involved returns to service and is nicknamed the "Gimli Glider."
October 2 – During an Iranian offensive, Iraq apparently experiments with the use of Mil Mi-8 (NATO reporting name "Hip") helicopters and Soviet-made attack aircraft to drop mustard gas.[17]
October 11; A Lufthansa Boeing 747 plane carrying cargo crash lands at Hong Kong Kai take airport. The plane ends up on the grass and is seriously damaged. There are no deaths.
November 11 – A bilateral air traffic agreement between Peru and the United States expires. Its expiration and disagreements between the two countries over "fifth freedom rights" – which allow an airline to carry revenue traffic between foreign countries as a part of services connecting the airline's own country – will lead to the suspension of commercial air traffic between the two countries from May 1984tomid-1985.
November 18–19 – Seven young Georgians hijack Aeroflot Flight 6833, a Tupolev Tu-134A with 57 people on board, in an attempt to force it to fly them to Turkey. The aircraft's pilot and co-pilot refuse to meet their demands and use sharp maneuvers to spoil the hijackers' aim and force them out of the cockpit, and several people are injured in a clash between the hijackers and the other people on the plane. The plane circles, then lands at Tbilisi in the Soviet Union, where on the next day the KGB's counterterrorist SpetsnazAlpha Group storms it, killing three crew members, two passengers, and three hijackers.
December 7 – A disaster occursatMadrid–Barajas AirportinMadrid, Spain, when the IberiaBoeing 727-256 AdvancedJumila (registration EC-CFJ) collides during its takeoff roll with the AviacoDouglas DC-9-32Vasco Núñez de Balboa (registration EC-CGS), which had made a wrong turn onto the runway while taxiing in fog. Both aircraft catch fire and are destroyed, killing all 42 people aboard the DC-9 and 51 of the 93 people aboard the Boeing 727. Mexican actress Fanny Cano is among the dead on the DC-9, and South African pianist Marc Raubenheimer is killed on the Boeing 727.[10]
^ abcdCordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran–Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, ISBN0-8133-1330-9, p. 171.
^ abCordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, ISBN0-8133-1330-9, p. 173.
^ abCordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, ISBN0-8133-1330-9, p. 175.
^Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, ISBN0-8133-1330-9, p. 176.
^Raffensperger, Todd Avery, "How Close Did the World Come to a Nuclear War in 1983? The Fierce Rhetoric of President Ronald Reagan Certainly Rattled the Russians," Military Heritage, June 2012, p. 21.
