2000 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 2000.

Events

January

• January 8 – American musician Joe Dan Petty, former
  guitar technician for The Allman Brothers Band and former member of the band Grinderswitch, is one of two people killed when a Beechcraft Model 23 Musketeer loses engine power just after takeoff from Macon, Georgia, strikes trees, and bursts into flame.^[1]
• January 9 – The
  Operation Desert Fox took place in mid-December 1998.^[2]
• January 10 –
  Zurich-Kloten Airport, killing all 10 people on board. This is Crossair
  's first fatal accident in its history.
• January 30 –
  Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan, killing 169 of the 179 people on board and injuring all 10 survivors. This is Kenya Airways
  first fatal accident, and the deadliest aviation accident of 2000.
• January 31 – Due to inadequate maintenance, the
  Tom Stockley, wine columnist for The Seattle Times; and columnist Jean Gandesbery, author of Seven Mile Lake.^[1]

• During the month,
  Boeing 717-200 airliners it has ordered. The airline also has options on 50 more Boeing 717-200s.^[3]
• February 8 – A
  Waukegan Regional Airport in Waukegan, Illinois, with a Cessna 172 Skyhawk piloted by a student pilot. Collins' plane crashes onto the roof of a hospital, killing him and his passenger; the student pilot's Cessna crashes three blocks away, killing her as well. There are no other deaths or injuries in the accident.^[1]
• February 10, a group of hijackers hijacked an Ariana plane and forced the plane to travel overseas, to the United Kingdom. The plane landed at London Stansted airport and the hijackers surrendered to authorities there. [4]
• February 11 –
  JetBlue Airways
  commences operations.
• February 14 – A Beechcraft Baron 58 piloted by American race car driver and team owner Tony Bettenhausen Jr., crashes near Leesburg, Kentucky, killing him, his wife, and two of his business associates.^[1]
• February 16 - - Emery Worldwide Airlines Flight 17 crashes right after takeoff and kills all 3 people on board. The cause was a jamed right elevator.

March

• March 5 –
  Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport in Burbank, California, injuring forty-four passengers and crew. This is the first major accident since Southwest Airlines was founded.^[5]
• March 9 – A
  stalls on takeoff and crashes at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, killing all nine people on board. Among the dead is Russian journalist Artyom Borovik who had accepted a seat on the plane after his scheduled flight was delayed.^[1]
• March 26 – Austrian Airlines, Tyrolean Airways, and Lauda Air join the Star Alliance.

April

• April 1 – Singapore Airlines joins the Star Alliance.
• April 5 –
  Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
  in 1974.
• April 16 –
  Yukon Territory, Canada.^[1]
• April 19 –
  Davao International Airport in Davao
  , killing all 131 people on board.

• May 15 – Helios Airways commences airline operations.
• May 22 – The
  Operation Desert Fox took place in mid-December 1998.^[2]
• May 25 – Reginald Chua
  Antipolo, Rizal. His body is found three days later near Llabac in Real, Quezon
  .

• June 1 –
  LAN Perú, and Aer Lingus join the Oneworld airline alliance, and Canadian Airlines
  leaves the alliance.
• June 2 – Russian ophthalmologist, politician, and professor Svyatoslav Fyodorov, a pioneer in refractive surgery, is killed along with the other three people aboard when a helicopter crashes on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia.^[1]
• June 17 – A passenger aboard
  London Gatwick Airport in England – grabs a flight attendant, holds scissors
  to her throat, and threatens to blow up the plane. Police arrest him after the plane lands safely at London Gatwick.
• June 19 – A de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver floatplane crashes on takeoff from Nipmo Lake in British Columbia, Canada, killing three of the 12 people aboard. One of the dead is political cartoonist and caricaturist, book author and illustrator, and watercolourist William Papas, who drowns while trying to swim to shore in 40-degree F (4.5-degree C) water.^[1]
• June 22
  • After circling
    Han River and a farmhouse
    , killing all 44 people on board and seven people on the ground.
  • The
    Awair begins operations, flying Airbus A300 and Airbus A310
    aircraft.
  • Skyteam airline alliance
    .
• June 30 – The
  Boeing 737-200
  .

• July 1 – British Midland International and Mexicana join the Star Alliance.
• July 2 – A
  Major General Santiago Madrid are among the dead.^[1][6]
• July 4 – With their
  gear-up touchdown. The airliner skids along the runway on its belly before the flight crew manages to get it airborne again, perform a go-around
  , put its landing gear down, and make a normal landing with no injuries to anyone on board.
• On July 5, a hijacker stormed the cockpit of a Royal Jordanian plane as it was flying from Queen Alia Airport in Jordan to Damascus Airport, Syria. He made the plane return to Jordan. The hijacker attacked a flight attendant too and an air marshal shot him dead.[7]
• July 8 –
  Carlos Rovirosa Pérez International Airport in Villahermosa
  , Mexico. All 19 people on board die.
• July 10 –
  Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA)
  .
• July 12 – After
  written off
  .
• July 17 – After coming in too high to make a successful landing at
  stalls
  and crashes, killing 55 of the 58 people on board and injuring all three survivors. On the ground, five more people die and two are injured.
• July 25 – A Concorde of Air France, operating as Air France Flight 4590, catches fire during takeoff then crashes at Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and all nine crewmembers on board and four people on the ground.

August

• August 4 – Former Georgia State Senator Thomas Allgood, Sr., is among three people killed when an overloaded Piper PA-46-350P Malibu Mirage strikes a utility pole, bus stop, and brick wall while attempting to take off at Augusta, Georgia. His wife also is among the dead.^[1]
• August 23 –
  Al Muharraq, Bahrain
  , killing all 143 people on board. At the time, it is the deadliest accident involving an A320, and it will remain so until 2007.
• August 31 – Virgin Australia begins airline operations as Virgin Blue.

September

• The
  Korean Air Cargo
  .
• September 4 – A
  Burketown after running out of fuel. All eight people on board – the pilot and seven passengers – die.^[8]

• October 6 – Former
  State Senator Charles B. Yates, his wife, and their two children are killed when the Mitubishi MU-2B-26A Peacock he is piloting crashes at Edgartown, Massachusetts, while on approach to Martha's Vineyard Airport.^[1]
• October 8 – The final flight of Alliance Air, a multinational airline based in Uganda, departs London bound for Johannesburg, South Africa. When it arrives, the airline is dissolved.
• October 12 – Taking off from a grass strip at a lodge in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, a Piper PA-24 Comanche piloted by Colorado State Representative Gary McPherson is unable to gain altitude and crashes into trees, killing McPherson and two of the other three people on board.^[1]
• October 16 –
  Cessna 335 he is aboard reports instrument problems, then goes into a high-speed dive and crashes in a densely wooded area near Hillsboro, Missouri. Also killed is Carnahan's son, who was piloting the plane, and a campaign aide.^[1]
• October 31 – During heavy rain caused by
  Taiwan, using the wrong runway. During its takeoff roll, the plane is destroyed when it collides with construction equipment parked on the runway and bursts into flame, killing 83 of the 179 people on board and injuring 71 of the 96 survivors. It is the first fatal accident involving a Singapore Airlines aircraft other than the 1997 crash of an airliner operated by the Singapore Airlines subsidiary SilkAir. Among the injured survivors is William Wang, later the founder of Vizio
  .

• November 3 – The last flight of an
  PMEE), to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
  .
• November 19 – During the
  Angolan Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name "Flanker") as it comes in for a landing at an air base in Angola.^[9]

• Lauda Air becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Austrian Airlines.
• December 3 – Legend Airlines ceases flight operations due to mounting losses.
• December 5 – Reeve Aleutian Airways ceases flight operations and goes out of business after over 53 years of service.
• December 29 – On British Airways Flight 2069, a mentally ill Kenyan passenger stormed into the cockpit and attempted to take control of the plane. Grabbing the yoke, a struggle ensued between the would-be hijacker and the pilots, causing the plane to stall and plunge towards the ground. Passengers and crew members assisted in restraining the man and the plane landed safely at Nairobi.^[10]

First flights

• Sukhoi Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name "Flanker-H")

January

• RQ-8A Fire Scout
  first autonomous flight

February

• February 29 – Mikoyan Project 1.44^[11]

March

• Adam M-309 CarbonAero

May

• May 2 – Boeing X-45^[12]

July

• July 18 – Dassault AVE-D Petit Duc stealth UAV

Entered service

• Mitsubishi F-2 with Japan Air Self-Defense Force

October

• October 1 – Mitsubishi MH2000 with Excel Air Service, Japan

Deadliest crash

The deadliest crash of this year was Kenya Airways Flight 431, an Airbus A310 which crashed shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 30 January, killing 169 of the 179 people on board.

References