1970 in aviation

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Template:Short description Template:Yearbox Template:Portal This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970.

Events

January

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  • January 4 – Fascinated with the kind of communism practiced in Albania under its leader Enver Hoxha, 18-year-old Mariano Ventura Rodriguez pulls out a toy pistol aboard an Iberia Convair CV-240 ten minutes before it lands at Zaragoza, Spain, after a domestic flight from Madrid. He demands to be flown to Albania. When the airliner lands at Zaragoza, Spanish soldiers armed with submachine guns surround it. During negotiations between Rodriguez and the police, the local police chief tells him that he will be "shot at dawn" if anything happens to any of the plane's passengers or crew, prompting Rodriguez to surrender peacefully soon afterward.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • January 8 – To protest an Israeli military operation that resulted in the capture of several Lebanese nationals, Christian Bellon, armed with two handguns and a rifle, hijacks Trans World Airlines Flight 802, a Boeing 707 with 20 people on board flying from Paris to Rome, and demands to be flown to Damascus, Syria, spraying the airliner's instrument panel with gunfire to emphasize how serious he is. After the airliner lands in Rome to refuel, Bellon changes his mind and demands that the plane fly him to Beirut, Lebanon, instead. When the airliner lands at Beirut International Airport, Bellon surrenders to Lebanese police, who slap him across the face several times.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 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.<ref name="aviation-safety.net">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 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 Template:Convert 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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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.<ref>Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The God of the Sea's Namesake", Naval History, October 2011, pp. 16, 17.</ref>
  • 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • February 16 – Flying with his wife, 10-year-old daughter, and eight-year-old son aboard Eastern Airlines Flight 1 – a Boeing 727 flying from Newark, New Jersey to Miami, Florida, with 104 people on board – Daniel Lopez jumps up with a flaming "Molotov cocktail" and a pistol equipped with a crude bayonet when the airliner is 80 miles south of Wilmington, North Carolina, shouts "Viva Cuba!" and demands to be flown to Havana, Cuba. The flight crew agrees to fly him there as long as he extinguishes his Molotov cocktail. Lopez and his family disembark at Havana, and the airliner returns to the United States after about five hours on the ground in Havana. An investigation reveals that Eastern Airlines did not screen any of the passengers boarding the flight.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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March

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  • March 11
    • Four passengers hijack an Avianca Boeing 727-59 (registration HK-1337) with 78 people on board 20 minutes after takeoff from Bogotá, Colombia, for a domestic flight to Barranquilla, demanding to be flown to Cuba. The airliner refuels at Barranquilla before proceeding to Havana, Cuba.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • March 12 – A hijacker commandeers Varig Flight 862, a Boeing 707-345C (registration PP-VJX) during a flight from Santiago, Chile, to London and forces it to fly to Cuba.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • March 17 – Unable to pay his fare aboard Eastern Air Lines Flight 1340 – a Douglas DC-9-31 (registration N8925E) with 73 people on board operating a shuttle service from Newark, New Jersey, to Boston, Massachusetts – John DiVivo pulls out .38-caliber revolver and orders the pilot to "just fly east until we run out of gas." After about 15 minutes, the captain convinces DiVivo that the airliner will crash into the Atlantic Ocean soon if it does not refuel. Although DiVivo approves a refueling stop, he shoots both pilots when they start to turn the plane. A struggle ensues in the cockpit, during which the mortally wounded copilot knocks the revolver from DiVivo's hand and the captain, despite serious wounds in both arms, picks it up and shoots DiVivo in the chest. The captain then lands the DC-9 at Logan International Airport in Boston, where DiVivo is arrested. The copilot is the first pilot killed in a U.S. hijacking. DiVivo hangs himself in his jail cell on October 31.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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April

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  • April 22 – Twenty-six-year-old Ira David "Orrie" Meeks and his 17-year-old girlfriend hire pilot Boyce Stradley to take them on a sightseeing flight in a Cessna 172 over Gastonia, North Carolina, during which Meeks pulls a gun on Stradley and orders him to fly them to Cuba so that Meeks can "get away from racism in the United States." During the 11-hour trip to Havana, Cuba, the plane makes refueling stops at Rock Hill, South Carolina, Jacksonville, Florida (where Meeks requests but is denied a bottle of Scotch whisky), and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Upon arrival in Cuba, Meeks and his girlfriend are arrested, and Stradley flies back to a hero's welcome in Gastonia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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May

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    • A hijacker seizes control of a VASP Boeing 737-200 during a domestic flight in Brazil from Brasília to Manaus and demands to be flown to Cuba. Instead the airliner diverts first to Guyana and then to Curaçao.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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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.<ref>Miskimon, Christopher, "Weapons: The AC-47 Gunship Proved the Concept of the Aerial Gunship As a Close-Support Weapon in the Skies Over Vietnam," Military Heritage, November 2015, pp. 17-18.</ref>
  • June 4 – Angry over the refusal of the United States Supreme Court to hear his case in a dispute with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service which had begun in 1963, Arthur Gates Barkley walks into the cockpit of Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 486 – a Boeing 727 flying from Phoenix, Arizona, to Washington National Airport in Arlingtnn, Virginia – armed with a .22-caliber pistol, a straight razor, and a can of gasoline (petrol), and threatens to set the plane and its passengers on fire if $100 million is not taken from the Supreme Court's budget and given to him, the first time that an American airline hijacker has demanded a ransom. He forces the airliner to land at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, where TWA gives him $100,750 in the hope that he will accept the smaller amount. Enraged at the small amount, Barkley orders the plane to take off and sends a message of complaint addressed directly to President Richard Nixon. During the next two hours, while the plane circles the airport, Barkley makes numerous suicidal threats, and TWA turns the matter over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which talks Barkley into returning to the airport to collect the rest of his ransom. When the plane lands, Barkley finds the runway lined with 100 sacks supposedly containing $1 million each but actually containing scraps of paper, and an FBI sniper shoots out the plane's landing gear. A panicked passenger opens an emergency exit, and the rest of the passengers follow him out of the plane while FBI agents storm it, engage in a gun battle with Barkley in which Barkley and the copilot are wounded, ad arrest Barkley.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • June 9 – Two armed passengers attempt to hijack a LOT Polish Airlines airliner making a domestic flight in Poland from Katowice to Warsaw and divert it to Vienna, Austria, but they are overpowered and the flight continues to Warsaw.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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July

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    • Six Palestinian commandos hijack Olympic Airways Flight 255, a Boeing 727, during a flight from Beirut, Lebanon, to Athens, Greece, demanding the immediate release of seven Arab terrorists from Greek prisons and threatening to blow up the plane if their demands are not met. The airliner lands at Athens, where its passengers are released, then flies to Cairo, Egypt.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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August

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  • August 3 – A 28-year-old male passenger aboard Pan American World Airways Flight 742, a Boeing 727 flying from Munich, West Germany, to West Berlin with 125 people on board, pulls out a gun and demands to be flown to Hungary. The airliner continues to West Berlin and lands at Berlin Tempelhof Airport, where police arrest the hijacker.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • Five hijackers force a LOT Polish Airlines Ilyushin Il-14 making a domestic flight in Poland from Gdańsk to Warsaw to fly them to Bornholm, Denmark.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • August 20 – On an unauthorized absence from the United States Marine Corps and saying he faced racist insults while undergoing Marine Corps training, 20-year-old Gregory Graves claims to have several sticks of dynamite in what is actually his empty briefcase aboard Delta Air Lines Flight 435 – a Douglas DC-9 with 82 people on board flying from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia – and forces it to fly to Havana, Cuba, where he believes he will find racial harmony. He will be imprisoned under harsh conditions in Cuba, not finally leaving the island until 1975.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • August 26 – Three hijackers demand that a LOT Polish Airlines Antonov An-24 departing Katowice for Warsaw, Poland, take them to Austria.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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September

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  • September 11 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the immediate deployment of armed federal agents aboard U.S. commercial aircraft to combat hijackings.
  • 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.
    • A hijacker commandeers an Egyptian airliner scheduled to fly from Tripoli, Libya, to Cairo, Egypt, but is subdued.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • Over Salinas, California, Donald Irwin, armed with a starting pistol, hijacks Trans World Airlines Flight 15, a Boeing 707 flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco, California, with 63 people on board, demanding to be flown to North Korea. The pilot convinces him that the airliner needs to stop at San Francisco to refuel. After the plane lands at San Francisco International Airport, Irwin releases 35 passengers. Brink's security guard Robert DeNisco, aboard the airliner as a passenger to protect a shipment of cash the plane is carrying, then draws a .38-caliber handgun and shoots Irwin in the stomach. The wounded Irwin is arrested.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • September 16 – Armed with a gun and a dagger, a passenger hijacks a United Arab Airlines Antonov An-24 during a domestic flight in Egypt from Luxor to Cairo and demands to be flown to Saudi Arabia. A security guard aboard the plane overpowers him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • September 19 – Shortly after Allegheny Airlines Flight 730 – a Boeing 727 with 98 people on board – takes off from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a flight to Boston, Massachusetts, 19-year-old Richard Witt, puts a gun to the throat of a stewardess and demands to be flown to Cairo, Egypt, claiming he has a homemade bomb and a bottle of nitroglycerine and saying he is a Marxist who hates Jews and wants to help Palestinian guerrillas fight them. The airliner lands at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Witt releases its 90 passengers – among them professional wrestler Charlie "Professor Toru Tanaka" Kalani Jr. – and the flight crew talks him out of going to Cairo because the plane lacks the range and flight charts needed to get there. Witt decides he wants to go to Havana, Cuba, instead. During the one-hour stop in Philadelphia, police smuggle a gun to the flight crew, but they decline to use it for fear that Witt will shoot the stewardess or detonate his bomb. The plane takes off and flies to Havana, where Witt disembarks and is imprisoned by Cuban authorities. The airliner then flies to Miami, Florida. Witt will return to the United States in 1978.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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October

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  • October 25 – National Airlines expands Boeing 747 service at Miami, introducing flights to Los Angeles, California.<ref name="sundowners"/>
  • October 27 – Two hijackers commandeer an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-14 during a domestic flight in the Soviet Union from Kerch to Sevastopol and force it fly them to Sinop, Turkey.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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November

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  • 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 Template:Convert and crashes into the jungle, killing 42 of the 44 people on board.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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December

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    • As Continental Airlines Flight 144 – a Douglas DC-9 with 30 people on board making a flight from Denver, Colorado, to Wichita, Kansas – is flying somewhere between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Wichita, passenger Calos Denis passes a note to a stewardess indicating that he has a gun and wants to be flown to Cuba. When the captain asks if the passengers can disembark during a refueling stop at Tulsa, Denis agrees. After the other 26 passengers disembark at Tulsa International Airport, the crew sneaks off the plane while Denis uses the lavatory. Tulsa police then board the airliner, find Denis hiding in the lavatory, and arrest him. He turns out to be unarmed.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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    • 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

March

May

June

July

August

September

November

December

Entered service

January

June

September

October

Retired from service

Deadliest crash

The deadliest crash of this year was Dan-Air Flight 1903, a De Havilland Comet which crashed in mountainous terrain near Barcelona, Spain on 3 July, killing all 112 people on board.

References

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

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