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1977 in aviation#November

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|c=20th century

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|yp1=1974

|yp2=1975

|yp3=1976

|year=1977

|ya1=1978

|ya2=1979

|ya3=1980

|dp3=1940s

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|dp1=1960s

|d=1970s

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File:Aerial_fish_planting,_1977_(2)_(26251616474).jpg

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1977.

Events

=January=

=February=

  • Beechcraft produces its 10,000th Bonanza, a Bonanza Model 35. The Bonanza is entering its 31st year of production.Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World{{'}}s Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, {{ISBN|0-89009-771-2}}, p. 94.
  • February 4 – Kenya Airways begins flight operations.
  • February 9 – Queen Alia of Jordan is killed in a military helicopter crash at Amman, Jordan.{{cite web|title=Jordanians remember Queen Alia|url=http://jordantimes.com/news/local/jordanians-remember-queen-alia|work=The Jordan Times|date=8 February 2016 |accessdate=19 July 2024}}{{cite web |title=Death of a King; Cautious King Took Risks In Straddling Two Worlds |first=Judith |last=Miller |work=The New York Times |date=8 February 1999 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/08/world/death-of-a-king-cautious-king-took-risks-in-straddling-two-worlds.html |access-date=19 July 2024}}
  • February 13 – A hijacker commandeers a Turkish Airlines Douglas DC-9-32 with 57 people on board during a domestic flight in Turkey from Istanbul to İzmir, demanding to be flown to Yugoslavia. The airliner lands at İzmir, where the hijacker surrenders.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770213-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • February 15 – Attempting to land at Mineralnye Vody Airport in Mineralnye Vody Airport in the Soviet Union's Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, Aeroflot Flight 5003, an Ilyushin Il-18V (registration CCCP-75520), executes a missed approach due to low clouds and fog. While climbing away from the airport, the airliner stalls, crashes into a railway embankment, and bursts into flames, killing 77 of the 98 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770215-0 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]
  • February 18 – A Space Shuttle is airborne for the first time when the Space Shuttle Enterprise is taken up for a flight atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Enterprise does not detach from the carrier aircraft during the flight.

=March=

  • March 1 – During its initial climb after takeoff from Aden International Airport in Aden South Yemen, an Alyemda Douglas C-47A-25-DK Skytrain (registration 7O-ABF) crashes into the Gulf of Aden, killing all 19 people on board.{{Cite web|url=https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770301-1|title=ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-47A-25-DK (DC-3) 7O-ABF Aden International Airport (ADE)|last=Ranter|first=Harro|website=aviation-safety.net|access-date=2019-05-13}}
  • March 3 – Flying in fog, an Italian Air Force Lockheed C-130H Hercules (registration MM61996) crashes into Monte Serra {{convert|16|km|mi|abbr=off|sp=us}} east of Arturo dell'Oro Air Base in Pisa, Italy, killing all 44 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770303-0 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]
  • March 4 – An Overseas National Airways DC-8-63CF registration N8635 operating a cargo flight for French airline UTA, crashed on approach to Niamey Airport in Niger, causing the deaths of two of the four crew and the write off of the aircraft.{{cite web|url=https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/329193|title=Accident McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63CF N8635 Friday 4 March 1977|website=asn.flightsafety.org|publisher=Aviaton Safety Network|access-date=9 September 2024}}
  • March 11 – Air Tanzania is founded as the flag carrier of Tanzania. It will commence flight operations on June 1.
  • March 14 – An Italian man hijacks an Iberia Boeing 727-256 with 37 people on board during a domestic flight in Spain from Barcelona to Palma on Mallorca in the Balearic Islands, demanding to be flown to Ivory Coast to see his 3-year-old daughter and to Italy to see his 6-year-old daughter. Over the next two days, the airliner makes stops at Algiers in Algeria, Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Seville in Spain, Turin in Italy, Zürich in Switzerland, and Warsaw in Poland before returning to Zürich, where policemen dressed as airline crew members arrest him on March 16.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770314-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • March 17
  • A hijacker commandeers an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727-281 during a domestic flight in Japan from Sapporo to Sendai. The airliner diverts to Hakodate, Japan, where the hijacker surrenders.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770317-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • A hijacker commandeers an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727-281 during a domestic flight in Japan from Tokyo′s Haneda Airport to Sendai. The airliner returns to Tokyo, where the hijacker commits suicide.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770317-1 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • March 19
  • Two hijackers take control of a Turkish Airlines Boeing 727-2F2 with 181 people on board during a domestic flight in Turkey from Diyarbakir to Ankara. They force it to fly to Beirut, Lebanon, where they surrender at Beirut International Airport.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770319-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • Brazilian champion race car driver Carlos Pace dies along with the other two people on board when their Piper aircraft crashes near Mairiporã, Brazil.
  • March 27 – The Tenerife airport disaster takes place: Attempting to take off in fog from Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, KLM Flight 4805, a Boeing 747-206B registered as PH-BUF, collided with Pan Am Flight 1736, a Boeing 747-121 registered as N736PA, which was backtracking the runway. All 248 occupants on board the KLM aircraft die, as do 335 of the 396 people aboard the Pan Am plane; all 61 Pan Am survivors are injured. American pin-up model, motion picture actress, and film producer Eve Meyer is among the dead on the Pan Am flight. With a combined total of 583 people killed, the crash remained the worst air disaster in history until September 2001.
  • March 30 – Attempting a go-around after encountering fog while attempting to land at Zhdanov Airport in Zhdanov in the Soviet Union's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, an Aeroflot Yakovlev Yak-40 (registration CCCP-87738), strikes a {{convert|9|m|ft|abbr=off|sp=us|adj=on}} pole with its wing, crashes {{convert|1.5|km|mi|abbr=off|sp=us}} from the airport, and catches fire, killing eight of the 27 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770330-2 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]
  • March 31 – The captain of a Douglas C-47 military transport plane operated by Swift Air Lines, a commercial airline in the southern Philippines, opens fire in the cabin of the plane with an M16 rifle. The plane carried 34 Philippines soldiers on a charter flight from Zamboanga City, Philippines to Sanga-Sanga Airport on the island of Tawi-Tawi. The pilot, Ernesto Agdulos, grabbed the rifle left in the cockpit, then opened fire, killing six of the soldiers and a flight stewardess, and wounding nine others.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/43963954/|title=31 Mar 1977, Page 1 - The Salina Journal at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|access-date=2016-06-19}} After the pilot was disarmed and detained, the co-pilot landed the plane safely. The pilot initially claimed to have no memory of the incident.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/01/archives/filipino-pilot-claims-blackout-in-killing-of-7.html|title=Filipino Pilot Claims Blackout in Killing of 7|date=1977-04-01|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-06-19}} He later admitted that robbery was his motive.{{Cite web|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Page/straitstimes19770403-1.1.1.aspx|title=Newspaper Full Page - The Straits Times, 3 April 1977, Page 1|website=eresources.nlb.gov.sg|access-date=2016-06-19}}

=April=

=May=

  • British Airways pilots fly three Cyprus Airways airliners – two Hawker Siddeley Tridents and a BAC One-Eleven – out of Nicosia International Airport on Cyprus to the United Kingdom; the planes had been stranded at Nicosia International since the permanent closure of airport during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974. No test flights precede these flights because Turkey does not permit any. A third Cyprus Airways Trident is left derelict at the abandoned airport, too badly damaged by small arms fire during the fighting in July 1974 to be worth repairing.
  • May 2
  • After an Iberia Boeing 727 arriving from Madrid, Spain, lands at Rome′s Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, a Libyan man being deported from Spain who wants to return to Spain to see his fiancée threatens the flight crew with a knife and demands that the plane fly him back to Madrid immediately. He allows all the other passengers to disembark. While the airliner is still on the ground at Rome, one of the pilots disables the hijacker by activating a fire extinguisher, and the hijacker is overpowered and arrested.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770502-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • American automotive executive Ed Cole dies in the crash near Mendon, Michigan, of the Beagle B.206S2 he is piloting after he flies into a storm.
  • May 8 – One hour after takeoff, 26-year-old Bruce Trayer holds a razor to a flight attendant′s neck and demands access to the cockpit of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 22 – a Boeing 747 with 262 people on board bound from Tokyo′s Haneda Airport to Honolulu, Hawaii – where he demands to be flown to Moscow. A male flight attendant hits Trayer over the head with the cockpit crash axe, after which Trayer is overpowered. United States Air Force Air Police officers aboard the plane as passengers restrain Trayer, and the airliner returns to Tokyo, where Japanese authorities arrest him.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770508-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]{{Cite web |url=http://www.nwahistory.org/assets/13_fall_newsletter_a.pdf |title=Dubert, Robert, "Go to Cuba! GO TO HAVANA!," Reflections, Fall 2013, p. 5. |access-date=2017-02-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623225040/http://www.nwahistory.org/assets/13_fall_newsletter_a.pdf |archive-date=2016-06-23 |url-status=dead }}
  • May 10 – An Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter crashes in the Jordan Valley during a military exercise, killing all 54 people on board.
  • May 14 – A Boeing 707-321C cargo aircraft operated by Dan Air Services Limited crashes during its approach to Lusaka Airport, Zambia. All six occupants of the aircraft were killed.
  • May 15 – At the Biggin Hill Air Show in Biggin Hill, London, England, a sightseeing helicopter strikes the underside of a de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane at an altitude of {{convert|200|ft|m|abbr=off|sp=us}}, shearing off the Tiger Moth{{'}}s landing gear. The Tiger Moth lands safely with no injuries to the two people aboard. Aboard the helicopter, five people die and one is injured.
  • May 16 – Motion picture director Michael Findlay and two other passengers are instantly slashed to death by the rotors of a New York Airways Sikorsky S-61L helicopter after its landing gear collapses while they are boarding it on the roof of the Pan Am Building in New York City; another passenger boarding the helicopter is seriously injured and soon dies as well. The rotors detach and disintegrate, and a woman walking on the street below is killed by falling debris. The accident prompts the closure of the rooftop heliport.{{cite web|title=Aircraft Accident Report - New York Airways, inc., Sikorsky S-61L, N619PA Pan Am Building Heliport, New York, New York May 16, 1977 |publisher=National Transportation and Safety Board |date=October 13, 1977 |url=http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR77-09.pdf |access-date=2007-02-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930023757/http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR77-09.pdf |archive-date=September 30, 2007 }}
  • May 26 – A hijacker forces an Aeroflot Antonov An-24B with 23 people on board making a domestic flight in the Soviet Union from Donetsk to Riga to divert to Stockholm, Sweden. The hijacker surrenders at Stockholm.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770526-1 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • May 27 – Aeroflot Flight 331, an Ilyushin Il-62M, strikes power lines in bad weather and crashes {{convert|1|km|mi|abbr=on}} from José Martí International Airport at Havana, Cuba, while on final approach, killing 68 of the 70 people on board and one person on the ground.
  • May 29 – The keel of the first aircraft carrier to be built in Spain, Principe de Asturias, is laid at Ferrol.
  • May 31 – The Vietnam People's Air Force is separated from the Vietnamese Air Defense Force.

=June=

=July=

  • July 5 – Four passengers hijack a Ladeco Boeing 727-78 (registration CC-CFG) shortly after it takes off from Arica, Chile, for a domestic flight to Santiago. The plane refuels at Lima, Peru, then flies them to Havana, Cuba.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770705-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • July 8 – Six hijackers commandeer a Kuwait Airways Boeing 707 during a flight from Beirut, Lebanon, to Kuwait City, Kuwait, and force it to fly to Damascus, Syria, where they surrender to the authorities.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770708-1 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • July 10 – Two hijackers take control of an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 (registration CCCP-65639) during a domestic flight in the Soviet Union from Petrozavodsk to Leningrad and force it to fly to Helsinki, Finland, where they surrender to the authorities.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770710-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • July 14 – UNITA rebels shoot down a People's Air Force of Angola Antonov An-26 near Cuangar, Angola, killing all 30 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770714-0 Aviation Safety Network Criminal Occurrence Description]
  • July 20 – Attempting to take off from Vitim Airport in Vitim in the Soviet Union's Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic on a wet runway with a tailwind, Aeroflot Flight B-2, an Avia 14M (registration CCCP-52096), strikes a fence and trees before crashing into a forest {{convert|500|m|ft|abbr=off|sp=us}} north-northwest of the airport, killing 39 of the 40 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770720-1 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]
  • July 21 – The Libyan-Egyptian War begins. Egyptian Air Force planes shoot down two Libyan Arab Republic Air Force aircraft.
  • July 22 – The Egyptian Air Force makes a full-scale attack on a major Libyan Arab Republic Air Force base at El Adem, reportedly killing three Soviet military advisers.Brogan, Patrick, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Conflict Since 1945, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, {{ISBN|0-679-72033-2}}, p. 23.
  • July 23 - After threats of shutting down transatlantic air traffic, the U.S. and British governments reach the Bermuda II accord, giving British airlines additional ports of entry in the United States and removing American airlines' rights to carry passengers beyond London and Hong Kong.
  • July 23–24 – Further Egyptian Air Force attacks destroy large numbers of Libyan aircraft before a ceasefire ends the war. Egypt admits the loss of two planes during the last two days of the war.
  • July 24 – Attempting a night landing in heavy rain at El Tepual Airport in Puerto Montt, Chile, a Chilean Air Force Douglas DC-6B crashes into a swamp and bursts into flames, killing 38 of the 82 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770724-0 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]
  • July 25 – A Honduran Air Force Douglas C-47-DL Skytrain suffers the failure of its No. 1 engine and crashes in mountainous terrain near Yoro, Honduras, killing 25 of the 40 people on board.[http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770725-1 Aviation Safety Network Accident Description]

=August=

  • August 1 – Francis Gary Powers – the American U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 and held captive there until 1962 – dies when the KNBC television news Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter he is piloting runs out of fuel and crashes in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area in Los Angeles, California.
  • August 12
  • A hijacker commandeers an Air France Airbus A300 with 242 people on board during a flight from Nice, France, to Cairo, Egypt. The airliner diverts to Brindisi, Italy, where security forces storm the plane and arrest the hijacker.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770812-0 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • The Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first flight, a test glide in the atmosphere after detaching from a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
  • August 20 – A hijacker takes control of Western Airlines Flight 550 – a Boeing 707 with 31 people on board flying from San Diego, California, to Denver, Colorado – and demands to be flown to Mexico. The airliner lands at Salt Lake City, Utah, where the hijacker surrenders.[https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770820-1 Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description]
  • August 23 – Piloted by racing cyclist Bryan Allen, the Gossamer Condor becomes the first human-powered aeroplane to make a fully controlled flight, flying a 1.35-mile (2.17-km) figure-eight course around two pylons {{convert|0.8|km|mi|abbr=on}} apart at Shafter, California, to demonstrate sustained, controlled flight. The flight wins its designer, Dr. Paul McCready, the £50,000 Kremer Prize.Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World′s Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, {{ISBN|0-89009-771-2}}, p. 61.Guttman, Robert, "Dreams of Human-Powered Flight," Aviation History, January 2017, p. 15.
  • August 31 – Soviet test pilot Alexander V. Fedotov zoom climbs the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-266 – a modified Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25RB (NATO reporting name "Foxbat") – to attain an altitude of {{convert|123,524|ft|m|abbr=off|sp=us}} briefly, setting a new world altitude record for air-breathing aircraft.[https://books.google.com/books?id=LRiNa-cj6OUC&pg=PT20 Ruffin, Steven A., Aviation's Most Wanted: The Top Ten Book of Winged Wonders, Lucy Landings, and Other Aerial Oddities, Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005, unpaginated.]

=September=

=October=

=November=

=December=

First flights

=January=

=February=

  • Bell 214STDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7607-0592-5}}, p. 114.
  • February 26 - Issoire Iris

=April=

=May=

=June=

=July=

=August=

=September=

  • September 5 – Aérospatiale SA 331, prototype of the Aérospatiale SA 332 Super PumaDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7607-0592-5}}, p. 24.
  • September 7 — Aviafiber Canard 2FL

=October=

=November=

=December=

  • December 1 - Lockheed Have Blue
  • December 14 - Mil Mi-26
  • December 22 - Aérospatiale EpsilonDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7607-0592-5}}, p. 20.
  • December 22 - Antonov An-72 ("Coaler")Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7607-0592-5}}, p. 57.

Entered service

=March=

=September=

=November=

Retirements

=June=

= December =

Deadliest crash

The Tenerife airport disaster on 27 March heavily defined 1977 in aviation; it is the deadliest accident in aviation history. Two Boeing 747's collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife, Spain in heavy fog; 583 people were killed, far exceeding the death toll of any previous accident and unbeaten since. This included all 248 people aboard KLM Flight 4805, whose pilot committed the main factor in the accident of taking off without a clearance; and 335 of the 396 people on board Pan Am Flight 1736, the other 747 involved in the accident. The crash is arguably the most famous of all time; it changed the history and training of aviation in the years that followed. Elsewhere, 1977 had relatively few accidents in comparison to the years immediately preceding and succeeding it.

References

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

  • {{cite book |editor-last=Taylor |editor-first=John W. R. |editor-link=John W. R. Taylor |title=Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1977–78 |year=1977 |publisher=Jane's Yearbooks |location=London |isbn=0-354-00551-0}}
  • {{cite book |editor-last=Taylor |editor-first=John W. R. |title=Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1978–79 |year=1978 |publisher=Franklin Watts Inc |location=New York|isbn=0-531-03298-1}}

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