1976 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1976:

[edit] Events

January 1 - Middle East Airlines Flight 438, a Boeing 720, aircraft over Saudia Arabia when bomb exploded in the forward baggage compartment, aircraft destroyed killing 81.

March 17 - A Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 makes the first non-stop flight from Tokyo to New York, taking 11.5 hours for the 10,139 km (6,300 mile) journey.

May 3 - A Pan Am Boeing 747SP makes a record around-the-world flight, taking 1 day 22 hours.
May 24 - Three hijackers and seven hostages die as Filipino troops storm a hijacked Philippines Airlines Douglas DC-9.

July 1 - Clive Canning arrives in the United Kingdom, having flown from Australia in a Thorp T-18 homebuilt aircraft.
July 3 - Three Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules carry commandos to Entebbe, Uganda to rescue the 258 passengers of an Air France Airbus hijacked six days earlier

August 1 - October 1 - After his 1973 RTW attempt was aborted by bad weather between Hokkaido and the Aleutian Islands, Don Taylor of California successfully circumnavigates the world (Oshkosh eastbound to Oshkosh) in his Thorp T-18, the first aviator to do so with a homebuilt aircraft.

September 6 - Viktor Belenko of the Soviet Union defects to the West, landing his MiG-25 FoxBat in Japan.
September 10 - In the worst mid-air disaster to this point, the 1976 Zagreb mid-air collision , 176 people die when a British Airways BAC Trident and an Inex Adria Douglas DC-9 collide over Zagreb.
September 14 - A F-14 Tomcat rolls off the deck of USS John F. Kennedy and sinks in international waters. A major salvage operation is launched to retrieve the fighter lest it fall into Soviet hands.
September 18 - Death of legendary test pilot Albert Boyd
September 19 - A THY Boeing 727 crashed into a mountain in Turkey killing 154.