2017 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events in 2017.

Events

January

12 January
16 January
  • After a missed approach in thick fog while attempting to land at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Turkish Airlines Flight 6491, a Boeing 747-412F cargo aircraft (registration TC-MCL) belonging to and crewed by MyCargo Airlines, crashes in the village of Dachi Suu while attempting a go-around, killing all four people on the plane and 35 people on the ground, and injuring 36 people on the ground. The plane, breaking into pieces, plows through several hundred meters of the town, destroying at least 32 houses and damaging dozens of buildings.
17 January
  • Australia, China, and Malaysia announce that they have suspended indefinitely the underwater search they have led for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board. The most complex and expensive search effort in aviation history, searchers using sonar towfish and unmanned submarines have covered 120,000 km (46,000 square miles) of the Indian Ocean about 1,100 miles (1,800 km) west of Australia over more than 34 months at a cost of between US$150 million and US$160 million without finding any trace of the airliner or its passengers or crew. Rejecting a December 2016 Australian Transport Safety Bureau suggestion that the search zone move 200 miles (320 km) farther north, the three countries announce that they do not plan to resume the search unless convincing new evidence surfaces that identifies the likely location of the aircraft.[2][3][4]

February

17 February

March

4 March
14 March
29 March
  • The largest variant of the Embraer E-Jet E2 family, the E195-E2, makes its first flight. The flight, previously scheduled for the second half of 2017, takes place ahead of schedule.[7]
31 March

April

3 April
  • Boeing announces a tentative agreement to sell 30 Boeing 737 MAX airliners to Iran's Iran Aseman Airlines for a total of US$3,000,000,000, with the airline also holding rights to purchase an additional 30 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for an additional US$3,000,000,000. Deliveries are to begin in 2022.[10]
5 April
  • Zunum Aero announces that it is working with Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures to develop electric aircraft that could compete with private automobiles, trains, and buses on trips of up to 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in terms both of operating costs for airlines and the cost and time of travel for passengers. The company envisions electric aircraft capable of seating 10 to 50 passengers that would operate at lower speeds and altitudes than current commercial aircraft but allow airlines to operate profitably from local airports that had lost airline service as airlines consolidated passengers onto larger aircraft to save on operating costs. The company also envisions the new generation of aircraft drawing people away from cars, buses, and trains by allowing airlines to offer lower fares and by operating from general aviation airports with passengers loading their baggage into the planes directly from their cars without going through time-consuming security lines or having to change planes at airline hubs. Zunum Aero hopes its aircraft can begin service by the early 2020s, although some independent observers doubt that such service could begin before 2030 and perhaps not before 2050.[11]
9 April
  • After no one volunteers to give up his or her seat to make room aboard overbooked United Express Flight 3411 – an Embraer 170 with 70 passengers aboard operated by Republic Airline boarding at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, for a flight to Louisville, Kentucky – to make room for four United Airlines employees requiring transportation to Louisville, United employees select four passengers to be involuntarily bumped from the flight. Three comply, but the fourth, David Dao, refuses. After United employees deem Dao "disruptive" and "belligerent," Chicago Department of Aviation security officers board the plane, slam a screaming Dao's head against an armrest, and drag him from his seat, apparently unconscious. After the United employees take the vacated seats, Dao reboards the airliner with a bloody face, collapses, and is removed on a stretcher. The incident is captured on video and causes outrage. Although United chief executive officer Oscar Munoz initially defends his employees' actions, he apologizes two days later and promises such an incident will not occur again.
13 April
20 April
22 April
  • Uber announced plans to launch a flying taxi service called Elevate using extremely quiet, pilotless, autonomous, electric-powered VTOL vehicles capable of carrying four passengers, with takeoffs and landings to take place at "vertiports" located in large cities, perhaps on the tops of buildings. Uber hopes that Elevate will begin operations by 2023 and perhaps as soon as 2020, followed by a full-scale rollout by 2027. Dallas, Texas, has already committed to hosting the initial Elevate operations, and Uber hopes that Dubai also will participate when Elevate is introduced. Uber has approached Aurora Flight Sciences, Bell Helicopter, Embraer, the Mooney International Corporation, and Pipistrel for designs for the proposed VTOL vehicle.[16][17]
27 April
29 April

May

1 May
5 May
10 May
  • Five days before it is scheduled to make its first delivery of its new Boeing 737 MAX airliner to a customer, Boeing halts test flights and grounds the aircraft due to quality problems in a large metal disc used in the low-pressure turbine at the rear of the aircraft's CFM International LEAP-1B engines.[24]
16 May
27 May
  • Goma Air Flight 409, a Let L-410 Turbolet, registration 9N-AKY, crashes when it lost altitude on final approach in poor visibility on final approach to runway 06 of Tenzing–Hillary Airport in Lukla, Nepal, about 14:04 Local Time (08:19Z) and contacted a tree short of the runway before impacting ground about 3 metres (10 ft) below runway threshold level. The captain was killed on impact and the first officer died in hospital almost eight hours later. The third crew member received injuries and was evacuated to Kathmandu the following day after the weather had cleared.[26][27][28]
  • A major computer outage blamed on a power failure forces British Airways to cancel all flights at Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport in the London area. The outage prevents departures from and transfer between flights at the airports, disrupting flights worldwide.[29] Although service will resume on 28 May, delays and cancellations will linger into 29 May.[30]
31 May

June

7 June
9 June
16 June
19 June
  • At the Paris Air Show, Boom Technology announces plans to develop a 45-passenger supersonic airliner capable of flying from New York City to London in 2+12 hours, from San Francisco to Tokyo in 5+12 hours, and from Los Angeles to Sydney in just under seven hours, in all three cases cutting current flight times in half. Boom hopes to have the new airliner – which will offer only first- and business-class seating – in service by no later than 2023 if it receives all required certifications. Boom also announces that Virgin Atlantic has ordered 10 of the airliners, four other airlines have ordered another 66, and that it will announce orders by an additional four airlines in the next few months.[34]
21 June
  • At the Paris Air Show, Boeing has received orders for or expressions of interest in ordering 370 aircraft worth $52,000,000,000 since 19 June, including a boost in interest in its Boeing 737 MAX 10 airliner. Airbus has posted sales of 229 airliners worth $25,000,000,000 at the show over the same period. The combined total of $77,000,000,000 in airliner deals passes the $50,000,000,000 in deals at the 2016 Farnborough Airshow in England.[35]
22 June

July

7 July
10 July

August

15 August
16 August

September

2 September
  • Flying the modified P-51D-25BA Mustang Voodoo over Clarks Ranch, Idaho, Steve Hinton Jr., sets a new world speed record for a piston-engine aircraft over a 3-km (1.863-mile) closed circuit, achieving an average speed over four laps of 531.53 mph (855.41 km/h), although the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale does not accept it as displacing the previous record because of a requirement that a new record exceed the previous one by at least one percent in order to displace it, which would have required an average speed of at least 533.6 mph (858.7 km/h). During one lap, Hinton sets an absolute world speed record for a C-1e-class piston-engine aircraft, reaching 554.69 mph (892.69 km/h).[41]
3 September
30 September

October

1 October
14 October
  • The first scheduled commercial airline service in history to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean begins as an Airlink Embraer E190-100IGW with 78 passengers aboard arrives at Saint Helena Airport after a flight of about six hours from Johannesburg, South Africa, with a stop at Windhoek, Namibia. The flight inaugurates once-a-week scheduled service between Johannesburg and Saint Helena. Previously, with the exception of a single charter flight Airlink made in May, the island had relied for its connection with the outside world on visits once every three weeks by a British Royal Mail Ship, the cargo liner RMS St Helena, making a six-day voyage between South Africa and Saint Helena. Boosters hope the flights will establish Saint Helena as a tourist destination, but critics maintain that more extensive commercial service will be necessary to make the construction of the airport worthwhile.[21]
  • An Antonov An-26 operated by the Moldovan airline Valan International Cargo Charter, chartered by the French government in support of Operation Barkhane, crashes in the sea off Abidjan, Ivory Coast, killing four and injuring six more.[47]
16 October
  • Airbus and Bombardier Aerospace announce a partnership on the CSeries program, with Airbus acquiring a 50.01% majority stake, Bombardier keeping 31% and Investissement Québec 19%, to expand in an estimated market of more than 6,000 new 100-150 seat aircraft over 20 years. Airbus' supply chain expertise should save production costs but headquarters and assembly remain in Québec while U.S. customers would benefit from a second assembly line in Mobile, Alabama. This transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in 2018.[48] While assembling the aircraft in U.S. could circumvent the 300% duties proposed in the Cseries dumping petition by Boeing, Airbus CEO Tom Enders and Bombardier CEO Alain Bellemare assured that this factor did not drive the partnership, but negotiations began in August after the April 2017 filing and the June decision to proceed and, as a result, Boeing was suspicious.[49]
17 October
  • After carrying only 13 percent of intra-Hawaii seats in the first three-quarters of 2017 – competing against Hawaiian Airlines, which carried 80 percent – and posting an operating loss of US$4.9 million and a net loss of US$8.2 million for the second quarter of 2017, Hawaii Island Air files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it fails to find new investors to satisfy lessors Wells Fargo Bank Northwest and Elix 8, who want to repossess its five Bombardier Q400s. It will cease operations on 11 November.[50]
18 October
19 October

November

7 November
8 November
11 November
12 November
15 November
21 November
27 November
28 November

December

7 December
13 December
14 December
18 December
21 December
  • Boeing and Embraer confirmed to be discussing a potential combination with a transaction subject to Brazilian government regulators, the companies' boards and shareholders approvals.[71]
22 December
23 December
24 December
25 December
29 December
  • IAG announces it will buy assets of Niki, previously part of the Air Berlin group, for €20 million for up to 15 A320s and slots at Vienna, Düsseldorf, Munich, Palma and Zurich airports; providing up to €16.5 million in liquidity, 740 former NIKI employees will run an Austrian Vueling subsidiary.[77]
31 December

First flights

March

April

May

July

August

October

November

December

Entered service

May

Retirements

December

Deadliest crash

The deadliest crash of this year was a military accident, namely the 2017 Myanmar Air Force Shaanxi Y-8 crash which crashed into the Andaman Sea near Myanmar on 7 June 2017 killing all 122 people on board. The deadliest civil aviation crash of this year was Turkish Airlines Flight 6491, a Boeing 747 cargo freighter that crashed during landing in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 16 January, killing all four people on board, as well as 35 on the ground.

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Further reading