This is a list of
aviation-related events from 1975.
Events
January
A specially modified McDonnell Douglas
F-15 Eagle sets eight time to climb records, including one of 3 minutes 27 seconds from standstill on the runway to a height of 30,000 metres (98,000 feet).
January 6 – An
Argentine Armyde Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 200 (registration AE-259) on a reconnaissance flight in poor weather crashes into the side of the mountain Nuñorco Chico in
Argentina's Sierra del Aconquija at an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,600 feet), killing all 12 people on board.[2]
January 7 – A male passenger hijacks a
British AirwaysBAC One-Eleven shortly after it lands at
London′s
Heathrow Airport after a domestic flight from
Manchester,
England. He initially demands a ransom of
US$230,000 and a
parachute, then changes hs mind and instead demands to be flown to
Paris, where he says he will surrender 48 hours after arriving, giving him time to fulfill a purpose he does not reveal. The flight crew tricks him into letting them fly him to
London Stansted Airport, and he is arrested there.[3]
January 22 – A lone hijacker commandeers a
VASPBoeing 737-200 during a domestic flight in
Brazil from
Goiânia to
Brasília, demanding ransom money and the release of prisoners. Security forces storm the airliner and arrest the hijacker.[8]
February 1 – U.S. Air Force Major R. Smith sets a new world absolute time-to-height speed record, flying a
McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle to 30,000 meters (98,000 feet) in 207.80 seconds.[7]
February 8 – Hastily developed
Larnaca International Airport opens just outside
Larnaca,
Cyprus, as Cyprus's only commercial airport; it replaces
Nicosia International Airport, permanently closed and abandoned during the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus in
July 1974.
Cyprus Airways, which had suspended flight operations in July 1974 when Nicosia International closed and all five of its aircraft were stranded there, resumes flight operations the same day. Cyprus Airways and
Olympic Airways are the first airlines to serve the new airport; its runways are not yet long enough to accommodate jet aircraft, so Cyprus Airways uses
Vickers Viscount 800 airliners there, while Olympic uses
NAMC YS-11s.
February 22 – A lone hijacker commandeers a
VASPBoeing 737-2A1 (registration PP-SMU) during a domestic flight in
Brazil from
Goiânia to
Brasília, demanding ransom money. The hijacker is taken down.[12]
April 4 – The cargo door of a U.S. Air Force
C-5A Galaxy making the first flight of
Operation Babylift opens explosively while the plane is flying over the
South China Sea off
Vũng Tàu,
South Vietnam. The plane
crashes while attempting an emergency landing at
Tan Son Nhut Air Base near
Saigon, South Vietnam, killing 153 of the 328 people on board. Seventy-six of the dead are South Vietnamese orphans being airlifted to join caregivers in the United States. It remains the deadliest accident involving a U.S. military aircraft.
April 19 – Making the last flight by a
fixed-wing aircraft out of
Saigon, a Republic of Vietnam Air Force
C-130 Hercules normally configured to seat 92 passengers and a crew of five carries a record load for a C-130 of 452 passengers – South Vietnamese and Americans fleeing the North Vietnamese – and the pilot. Thirty-two of the passengers ride on the flight deck.[22]
April 25 – After drinking heavily aboard
United Airlines Flight 344 – a
Boeing 727 with 67 people on board flying from
Raleigh,
North Carolina, to
Newark,
New Jersey – 44-year-old Frank Page Covey announces that he is carrying explosives and demands that the airliner fly him to
Cuba because he "wanted to see
Castro." After the plane lands in
Atlanta,
Georgia, Covey releases all the passengers and
flight attendants. While he is negotiating with United Airlines officials over the radio, the pilot, copilot, and
flight engineer sneak out the plane's rear exit, leaving Covey alone on the plane. Agents of the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation then board the airliner and arrest Covey.[23][24]
April 30
United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft conduct
Operation Frequent Wind, evacuating 7,000 American and at risk South Vietnamese from
Saigon.
South Vietnam surrenders to North Vietnam, bringing the Vietnam War to an end. With the collapse of South Vietnam, its air force, the
Republic of Vietnam Air Force, disintegrated, with dozens of helicopters flying out to the ships of U.S. Navy Task Force 76 and fixed-wing aircraft flying to
Thailand. South Vietnam's national
flag carrier,
Air Vietnam, ceases operations; North Vietnam's
Vietnam Airlines takes control of only two of Air Vietnam's airliners, a
Boeing 707 and a
Boeing 727-100.
May 13–14 - U.S. Navy
P-3 Orion patrol aircraft discover Mayaguez off
Cambodia's
Puolo Wai island. For two days, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aircraft exchange fire with Khmer Rouge ground and sea forces in the vicinity of Mayaguez.
The
United States Navy reclassifies all of its "attack aircraft carriers" (CVA) as "aircraft carriers" (CV); "nuclear-powered attack aircraft carriers" (CVA(N)) become "nuclear-powered aircraft carriers" (CVN).
July 28 – A 17-year-old male passenger
hijacks a
Japan Air LinesLockheed L-1011 Tristar with 286 people on board during a domestic flight in
Japan from
Tokyo′s
Haneda Airport to
Sapporo. The
captain flies the plane back to Haneda Airport, where the passengers all disembark. After the plane is refueled, the hijacker demands to be flown to
Hawaii; when the captain explains that the plane cannot fly that far, the hijacker demands to be flown to
Okinawa. The police then board the plane and arrest him.[30]
August 15 – An Aeroflot
Yakovlev Yak-40 (registration CCCP-87323) encounters a strong
downdraft at an altitude of 300 meters (980 feet) during a night approach to
Krasnovodsk Airport in
Krasnovodsk in the Soviet Union's
Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. The airliner almost
stalls and banks heavily before its
fuselage strikes cliffs along the
Caspian Sea coast 4.7 kilometers (2.9 miles) short of the runway. Its right wing and engine separate, it bounces off the cliff, and then it crashes into another cliff and catches fire. The crash kills 23 of the 28 people on board. It is the worst aviation accident in the history of
Turkmenistan.[33]
September 1 – Too low on approach to
Leipzig/Halle Airport in
Schkeuditz,
East Germany, an
InterflugTupolev Tu-134 (registration DM-SCD) strikes a radio mast at an altitude of 2 to 3 meters (6.6 to 9.8 ft), damaging its left wing and causing its left engine to detach. It crashes short of the runway, killing 27 of the 34 people on board.[34]
September 2
The unified
Canadian Armed Forces merges its aviation services into a single command, the Canadian Forces Air Command.
September 15 – A 24-year-old gunman rapes a woman, attempts to rob a store, and goes to
Reid–Hillview Airport in
San Jose,
California, accompanied by two hostages. At Reid-Hillview Airport he takes a security guard hostage, and then goes to
San Jose Municipal Airport, where he takes two
Continental Airlines mechanics hostage and boards a parked Continental Airlines
Boeing 727. Two hostages escape, and after negotiations between the authorities and the gunman, a
sniper shoots and kills him.[36]
October 5 –
Leftist guerrillas
hijack an
Aerolineas ArgentinasBoeing 737-287C (registration LV-JNE) during a domestic flight in
Argentina from
Buenos Aires to
Corrientes. They force the airliner to divert to
Formosa, Argentina, where they allow all the passengers to disembark. Another group of guerrillas who had staged an armed raid on a police garrison in Formosa join the hijackers aboard the plane. The hijackers then order the plane to fly to
Brazil, but it runs low on fuel and lands at
Rafaela, Argentina, where the guerrillas disembark and escape.[39]
A
Hawker Siddeley HS.125 operated by
Hawker Siddeley Aviationstrikes a flock of
lapwings while taking off from
Dunsfold Aerodrome in
Surrey,
England, in the
United Kingdom. Returning to the airport, it runs off the end of the runway, crosses fields, runs through hedges, strikes a ditch, and bounces across a road, colliding with a
Ford Cortina automobile, before coming to rest after crossing another field. All nine people aboard the aircraft survive, but all six people in the car die.[50]
November 25 – Flying through clouds at night during a military exercise, an
Israeli Air ForceLockheed C-130H Hercules crashes into the mountain
Gebel Halal (also known as Jebel Halal) 56 kilometers (35 miles) south-southeast of
El Arish,
Egypt, killing all 20 people on board.[51]
The deadliest crash of this year was the
Agadir air disaster, the crash of an
AliaBoeing 707 which crashed in mountainous terrain on approach to
Agadir,
Morocco on 3 August, killing all 188 people onboard.
^
abAngelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 318.
^
abMondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978,
ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 58.
^McCabe, Scott, "Crime History: "Bomb at LaGuardia Kills 11, Injures Another 75," The Washington Examiner, December 29, 2011, Page 8.