2015 in aviation

• After taking off from
  Solar Impulse 2, with Bertrand Piccard at the controls, completes the sixth leg of its around-the-world flight, landing at Nanjing Lukou International Airport in Nanjing, China. Solar Impulse 2 is airborne for 17 hours 22 minutes and reaches a maximum altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 meters). The flight covers 1,344 kilometers (835 miles) at an average speed of 77.4 km/h (48.1 mph). The flight takes place after a three-week weather-related delay in Chongqing.^[108][170]
• Round-the-clock airstrikes in Yemen cease as the
  Operation Decisive Storm, which has conducted punishing airstrikes daily since it began on 26 March. Although air raids will continue, the intervention is to begin emphasizing humanitarian relief, anti-terrorism operations, and a political solution to the conflict in Yemen in a new operation called Operation Restoring Hope.^[171]

• An unmanned aerial vehicle carrying traces of
  radioactive material is discovered on the roof of the residence of Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Japan.^[172]
• Hours after the Saudi announcement of the end of Operation Decisive Storm, aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition resume heavy airstrikes in Yemen. Targets include Houthi rebel command sites around Taiz and Houthi and other rebel forces around Aden.^[173]
• An
  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.^[173]
• Syrian government aircraft bomb rebel positions in Harasta and Douma, killing 11 people, as well as a hospital in Dayr Hafir and villages surrounding Dayr Hafir in Aleppo Governorate, killing another 15 to 23 people and wounding 40.^[174]
• An unmanned aerial vehicle refuels in mid-air for the first time in history when the U.S. Navy Northrop Grumman X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstrator (UCAS-D) Salty Dog 502 takes on over 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of fuel from an Omega Aerial Refueling Services Boeing KC-707 tanker over the Chesapeake Bay before returning to its base at
  Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The flight brings the U.S. Navy's X-47 program to a successful conclusion.^[175]

• Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeting rebel forces strike six cities in Yemen.[176]

24 April

• The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) leaves waters near Yemen to return to the Persian Gulf and the air campaign in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State.^[177]

25 April

• According to Arab media reports,
  Government of Israel does not respond to the reports.^[178]
• tail strike results, followed by a hard landing on the starboard landing gear and substantial damage to the starboard wing. The crew conducts a go-around, during which the damaged wing catches fire. Upon landing after the go-around, the starboard landing gear collapses and the aircraft spins almost 180 degrees and slides off the runway. All 102 people on board evacuate without injury via evacuation slides
  and the airport's fire department extinguishes the fire.

• After the weather clears enough to allow helicopter operations, rescuers in Nepal begin to airlift survivors from Mount Everest's base camp – where an avalanche had killed at least 19 people during a major earthquake the previous day – at an altitude of 17,700 feet (5,400 meters).^[179]
• After Israeli troops observe four men attempting to emplace a bomb in the fence between Syrian territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, an Israeli Air Force aircraft conducts an air-to-ground missile attack against the men, killing them.^[180]
• The Saudi-led coalition conducts airstrikes in Yemen against rebel forces and facilities in
  Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.^[181]

• Three helicopter pilots working in rotation use a small helicopter to rescue about 100 people trapped at Mount Everest's Base Camp 1, at an altitude of 19,600 feet (6,000 meters), and Base Camp 2, at an altitude of 21,300 feet (6,500 meters), and carry them to safety in groups of four and five, completing the evacuation of the mountain in the aftermath of 25 April earthquake in Nepal. On 26 and 27 April combined, helicopters reportedly airlift 150 to 170 people off Mount Everest.[182]
• According to Arab media reports, Israeli Air Force airstrikes again hit Hezbollah sites and Syrian Arab Army divisions near the Qalamoun Mountains. Israel denies the reports, blaming any attacks that did happen on the combatants in the
  Syrian Civil War.^[178]

• Throughout the day,
  Indian military helicopters airlift people injured in 25 April earthquake from remote parts of Nepal to Kathmandu for treatment at General Birendra Military Hospital.^[183]
• The arrival of international rescuers and aid workers in large numbers in Nepal combined with poor weather overwhelms the facilities at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu causing back-ups in air traffic, with up to ten aircraft at a time waiting on the tarmac at New Delhi, India, for permission to take off and proceed to Kathmandu.^[183]
• A glitch in the
  Arlington, Virginia, and stop functioning forces American to ground dozens of flights. Groundings and delays continue into 29 April before the airline resolves the problem.^[184][185]

• On the day of the announcement of Operation Jalisco – a Mexican Army operation to take back control of the state of Jalisco in western Mexico from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel narcotics-trafficking organization – gunmen shoot down a Mexican military helicopter, which makes an emergency landing. Initially, three soldiers are reported killed and 10 soldiers and two police officers injured in the incident;^[186] later reports place the death toll at six.^[187]

1–2 May (overnight)

• According to claims by the activist group
  chlorine gas attack against Nareb and Saraqib in Idlib Governorate, killing one child and injuring about 40 people. The Government of Syria does not respond to the claim.^[188]

• The
  Kobanî.^[189]
• Syrian Air Force aircraft kill 13 civilians in strikes against rebel positions in Deir ez-Zor Governorate.^[188]

3 May

• Runway damage forces the Government of Nepal to close Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu – Nepal's only international airport and only airport capable of handling jetliners – to large aircraft delivering aid following the 25 April earthquake. Cracks have appeared in the main runway, which was designed to handle medium-sized jetliners but not the large jets arriving in the aftermath of the earthquake.^[190]

4 May

• The
  Sa'dah.^[191]

• Houthi rebel forces in Yemen fire artillery rockets and mortar rounds into southern Saudi Arabia, prompting the Saudi state airline, Saudia, to cancel flights into Saudi Arabia's Najran area.^[192]
• Saudi attack helicopters fire on Houthi rebels near the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.^[192]

7 May

• China announces that it reserves the right to establish an air defense identification zone over the South China Sea, saying that a decision to do so will depend on its assessment as to whether aviation safety there is threatened.^[193]
• The
  Government of Saudi Arabia offers to suspend airstrikes for five days for a "humanitarian pause" in its campaign against rebel forces in Yemen to allow aid to reach refugees in Yemen, and also suggests that the suspension could last longer if rebel forces abide by a ceasefire and do not use it to gain additional territory.^[194]

• A
  Domingo Lucenario, Jr.
  , and the wives of the ambassador from Indonesia and the high commissioner from Malaysia. The ambassadors from Indonesia, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania and the high commissioners from Malaysia and South Africa are injured.
• The Government of Saudi Arabia announces that it will treat all of Yemen's Saada Governorate as a military target and advises civilians there to evacuate by nightfall.^[195][196] Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition drop leaflets over the governorate urging civilians to leave and assuring them that roads in the governorate would remain safe from attack until 19:00 local time.^[196]
• The Saudi government announces that it will begin a five-day ceasefire in its air campaign in Yemen at 23:00 local time on 12 May to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees, but adds that it will resume air attacks before the five-day period is over if Yemeni rebel forces continue their attacks.^[195]
• To commemorate the 70th anniversary of
  Arlington, Virginia.^[198]

• An
  San Pablo Airport in Seville
  , Spain, killing four people and seriously injuring two. Germany and the United Kingdom ground their A400M aircraft pending an investigation of the crash.
• Airstrikes in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition hit several areas in the city of
  Sa'dah in Saada Governorate, including the government compound and a market, as well as targets in 'Amran Governorate and Hajjah Governorate.^[200] The Government of Saudi Arabia announces that the coalition has conducted 130 airstrikes over the previous 24 hours, including attacks on hospitals and schools the Saudis claim the rebels are using as storage sites for weapons.^[201]
• The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, asserts that Saudi Arabia's designation of all of Yemen's Saada Governorate as a military target and the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes against the city of Sa'dah violate international humanitarian law.^[200][201]
• Russia celebrates the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender to the
  Tupolev Tu-22M3, Tupolev Tu-95, Tupolev Tu-160, Antonov An-124 Ruslan, and Antonov An-22. Also appearing are Yakovlev Yak-130s from the new aerobatic group Crimean Wings and Sukhoi Su-27s and Mikoyan MiG-29s of the Russian Knights and Swifts
  aerobatics teams.

• Australia urges the China not to establish an air defense identification zone over the South China Sea, adding that such an action would raise deep concerns among the
  Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).^[202]
• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition strike suspected rebel weapon depots on the outskirts of Sana'a, Yemen.[203]
• Rebel
  F-16 Fighting Falcon taking part in a reconnaissance mission over a mountainous region along the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It is the second coalition plane lost during operations over Yemen and the first to be shot down by rebel forces.^[203]
• An
  Islamic militants in Mukalla, Yemen, who had recently taken possession of the city's presidential residence, killing four members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.^[204]
• Human Rights Watch accuses the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen of blocking air and sea routes into Yemen, "keeping out fuel needed for the Yemeni population's survival, in violation of the laws of war.".^[204]

12 May

• A United States Marine Corps Bell UH-1Y Venom helicopter with six U.S. Marines and two Nepalese soldiers aboard disappears while delivering humanitarian aid to people in Nepal's Dolakha District on the day of a second major earthquake in Nepal.^[205] A Nepali Army helicopter discovers its wreckage on 15 May in rugged, heavily forested terrain at an altitude of approximately 11,000 feet (3,400 meters) with no sign of survivors.^[206]
• A Syrian government helicopter drops a barrel bomb onto a crowded bus depot in Aleppo, destroying buses, cars, and motorcycles and killing at least 28 and perhaps as many as 50 people.^[207]
• The Saudi-led coalition conducts airstrikes in Yemen targeting three rebel weapon depots in Sana'a, as well as three airstrikes against bases for
  Houthi rebel positions in Aden. At 23:00 local time, it begins a previously announced, unilateral five-day ceasefire to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in Yemen.^[204]

• Although the ceasefire in Yemen begun the previous day generally holds, the Saudi-led coalition conducts an airstrike against Houthi rebels attempting to reinforce their forces in Aden.[208]

14 May

• On the second full day of the ceasefire in Yemen, an attack helicopter belonging to the Saudi-led coalition attacks a truck in northern Yemen, killing nine people.^[209]
• The U.S.
  Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, are manned at just 63 percent of authorized levels, that Air Force UAV pilots are trained mostly in surveillance and reconnaissance without receiving training in other mission areas such as interdiction, that most U.S. Army UAV pilots do not complete their training because they are assigned to other duties too often, that the Army does not have a method of keeping track of the training records of its UAV pilots, and that some UAV instructors themselves lack sufficient UAV training.^[210][211]

• Seventeen-year-old
  pathogens by 55 times and increase the availability of fresh air to passengers by 190 percent.^[212]

• cell phones, and archaeological and historic items without suffering any casualties, after which the aircraft successfully extract them.^[213]
• A U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle-launched air-to-ground missile strike in
  Islamic militants.^[214]
• Two
  F-16 Fighting Falcons shoot down a Syrian aircraft that violates Turkey's airspace. The Government of Turkey claims the aircraft was a helicopter, while the Government of Syria asserts that it was an unmanned aerial vehicle.^[215]

• A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey carrying 21 U.S. Marines and one
  Waimanalo, Hawaii, and catches fire, killing one Marine and injuring the other 21 people aboard, all of whom are sent to hospitals.^[216]

• The Saudi-led coalition resumes airstrikes in Yemen early in the morning – targeting rebel positions and tanks in Aden – after the expiration at 23:00 local time on 17 May of the coalition's unilateral five-day ceasefire to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in Yemen.^[217] Strikes later in the day hit additional targets in Aden, including Aden International Airport, and in Saada Governorate.^[218]

20 May

• patrol aircraft eight times as it flies over the South China Sea with a team of CNN journalists aboard, ordering it to leave what China claims to be its territorial waters, a claim which includes most of the South China Sea. The P-8A's crew replies each time that they are flying over international waters and continue their flight.^[219]

• Islamic State by the U.S.-led coalition have killed civilians, reporting that the strikes have killed at least two civilians since they began in 2014. The two dead civilians were two children probably killed during strikes against Harem, Syria, on 5 and 6 November 2014. It also reports that it continues to investigate the killing of one other civilian in Syria and two civilians in Iraq.^[220]
• The U.S.-led coalition has conducted 2,458 airstrikes in Iraq and 1,593 strikes in Syria since August 2014, mostly against Islamic State targets.^[220]

22 May

• Air Lituanica ceases flight operations. It will file for bankruptcy on 8 June.

24 May

• A Syrian military helicopter crashes while taking off from an airbase at Kweiras in Aleppo Governorate, killing its entire crew. Syrian government television claims it crashed due to technical problems, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights asserts that Islamic State forces shot it down.^[221]
• On American television, United States Senator John McCain says that 75 percent of U.S. air combat missions against the Islamic State over Iraq and Syria return to base without firing their weapons or dropping any bombs because of a lack of U.S. special operations forces on the ground to provide targeting information.^[222]

25 May

• Anonymous phone threats, perhaps from the same source, prompt searches of six international flights in the United States:
  Saudi Arabian Airlines flight arriving there also receive threats; a United Airlines jet arriving from Madrid is evacuated at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey; and two Delta Air Lines airliners, one flying from Paris to Boston and the other from London to Newark, receive threats. Searches of the six aircraft find no threats.^[223]

• An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition strikes a headquarters for police commandos in Sana'a, Yemen, where hundreds of people have gathered to prepare to fight on the rebel side against forces loyal to Yemen's ousted president, killing at least 45 people and wounding at least 286.[224]

28 May

• Eastern Airlines begins flight operations, flying charter flights from Miami International Airport in Miami, to José Martí International Airport in Havana. A new airline, it uses the trademarks of the original Eastern Air Lines, which had gone out of business in 1991 in aviation#1991; the new Eastern's ownership group had purchased the intellectual property, including trademarks, of the original Eastern in 2009.

30 May

• After a 39-day stay at
  Solar Impulse 2 departs Nanjing Lukou International Airport with André Borschberg at the controls for the seventh leg of its attempt to become the first solar-powered aircraft to fly around the world, a planned 144-hour non-stop flight to Honolulu, covering 9,132 kilometers (5,674 miles).^{[225][226][227]}
• Syrian government airstrikes in northern Syria kill at least 85 people. In the deadliest of the strikes, Syrian government helicopters drop two barrel bombs on a farmers market in Islamic State-held
  Zawiya Mountain area kills 14.^[228]

• Deteriorating weather along its route forces
  Solar Impulse 2 to cut short its planned 144-hour non-stop flight from Nanjing Lukou International Airport in Nanjing to Honolulu. Instead, pilot André Borschberg diverts to Nagoya Airfield in Nagoya, landing there after a flight of 44 hours 9 minutes, covering 2,852 kilometers (1,772 miles) at an average speed of 64.6 km/h (40.1 mph), and reaching a maximum altitude of 28,000 feet (8,500 meters).^{[225][226][227]}
• United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announces that he has reassigned the acting administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, Melvin Carraway, after media reports that TSA inspectors had failed to detect mock explosives and weapons smuggled through TSA checkpoints at airports in the United States in 67 out of 70 tests by undercover agents, a greater than 95 percent failure rate.^[229]

2 June

• A spokesman for
  Ukrainian armed forces must have shot it down. Russian officials previously had alleged that a Ukrainian Air Force aircraft shot down the airliner.^[230]
• A computer automation problem grounds 150 United Airlines flights – about eight percent of United's morning schedule – nationwide in the United States for about 40 minutes until the airline can ensure that all flights depart with proper dispatching information.^[231]
• Landing his
  pilot's license since 1936 and flown 15,000 hours on 150 different aircraft types.^[232][233]

• Solar Impulse 2 pilot André Borschberg announces that the aircraft will be delayed in Japan for at least a week while damage to its left aileron caused by wind gusts on the ground at Nagoya Airfield is repaired.^[234]
• siege of Kobane alone.^[235]
• Syrian government airstrikes hit Islamic State targets in al-Shaddadah, Syria.^[235]
• In the United States, the
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces that it has funded eight new studies covering a wide range of topics related to its plans to develop a quiet, "low-boom" supersonic demonstration passenger aircraft that will make only a soft thump instead of a loud and damaging sonic boom when flying at supersonic speeds, allowing it to fly over populated areas at such speeds.^[236]

• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition strike
  Sana'a, Ibb, Ataq, and the Dhi Na'im District.^[237]

• At least three predawn airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition hit the rebel-held headquarters of the
  Yemeni armed forces in Sana'a, badly damaging it and killing at least 22 people. The strikes also damage several nearby homes.^[238]

• Syrian government aircraft conduct two raids against a public square in the village of Janoudiyeh in Idlib Governorate, killing at least 49 and perhaps as many as 60 people.^[239]
• Air Lituanica files for bankruptcy. It had ceased flight operations on 22 May.

8–9 June (overnight)

• The Saudi-led coalition conducts heavy airstrikes against rebel positions in Aden, Ataq, and Saada, Yemen.^[240]

9 June

• A series of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition against targets in Sana'a hit the rebel-held Yemeni Ministry of Defense building and the homes of Yemeni military leaders allied with the Houthi rebels. Another 121 coalition aircraft strike rebel targets in eight other Yemeni governorates. The strikes kill dozens of people.^[240]

10 June

• The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues an "endangerment finding" suggesting that aircraft engines may "contribute to the air pollution that causes climate change and endangers public health and welfare,"^[241] its first move to start the process of regulating greenhouse gas emissions by airliners in the United States. The endangerment finding does not cover military aircraft or smaller commercial aircraft such as turboprops, but the EPA describes it as the initial step in adoption within the United States of international carbon dioxide emission standards for airliners that the International Civil Aviation Organization plans to promulgate in early 2016.^[241]

11 June

• The Syrian government reports that one of its combat jets has crashed in eastern
  Southern Front claims to have shot it down.^[242]

• A U.S. Central Intelligence Agency unmanned aerial vehicle strike in Yemen's Hadhramaut Governorate kills Nasir al-Wuhayshi, second-in-command of al-Qaeda and leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The United States Department of Defense will confirm his death on 16 June.^[243][244]

13 June

• Two
  Islamic militants, although the United States does not immediately confirm his death.^[245][246]

• A U.S. airstrike in Mosul, Iraq, kills Islamic State operative Ali Awni al-Harzi.^[247][248]

16 June

• A U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle conducts an
  Tariq bin al-Tahar bin al-Falih al-'Awni al-Harzi, the brother of Ali Awni al-Harzi, who a U.S. airstrike killed the previous day in Iraq.^[247][249]
• Airstrikes in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition hit rebel targets in
  Shabwa governorates.^[250]

• Two stowaways on board a British airways flight from South Africa escape from the aircraft while it is on its finals to London Heathrow. One survives but the other does not.[251]

18 June

• Over Moorslede, Belgium, wingsuit fliers set a new formation record, with a formation of 42 people.

22 June

• Two-time Academy Award-winning composer James Horner dies when the Short S.312 Tucano he is piloting crashes in central California in a remote region of the Los Padres National Forest about 60 miles (97 km) north of Santa Barbara. Horner was the sole occupant of the plane.^[252][253]

25 June

• A
  Ketchikan, killing all nine people on board.^[254]

• After a 27-day stay in
  Honolulu, Hawaii.^[255][256]
• SpaceX's planned third attempt to guide a Falcon 9 rocket booster to a soft landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida fails to take place after the rocket explodes during its boost phase two minutes after launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.^[257]

30 June

• An
  crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, just after takeoff from Soewondo Air Force Base, striking a busy road, homes, and a hotel. The crash kills all 122 people on the plane and 19 people on the ground.^{[258][259][260]}
• $30 million stake in Fulcrum BioEnergy. The two companies plan to build as many as five factories near United Airlines hub cities to convert garbage into jet fuel.^[261]
• As part of an intensified air campaign against
  U.S. armed forces have conducted 106 airstrikes in June, more than double the number in May. Since 1 January, the U.S. armed forces and international forces have carried out 305 airstrikes in Afghanistan.^[262]

• A new terminal for international civilian flights, Terminal 2, opens at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea.^[263]
• During
  AH-64 Apaches conduct airstrikes against concentrations of militants in the Sheikh Zuweid area.^[264]
• The United States Department of Justice confirms that it is investigating whether large airlines in the United States have colluded to keep air fares high by limiting routes and affordable seats. Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines confirm that they are among the airlines under investigation. Air fares in the United States are at a 12-year high even though airlines have saved billions of dollars in fuels costs thanks to historically low jet fuel prices.^[142]

2 July

• Dawn raids by Egyptian Air Force aircraft on Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula just south of Rafah kill 23 Islamic militants.^[265]
• Two days of Syrian government airstrikes against rebel forces begin during a rebel offensive against Aleppo, Syria.^[266]

3 July

• Iraqi jets drop hundreds of thousands of leaflets over
  Islamic State forces out of Mosul.^[267]
• Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition against rebel targets in
  Hodeida that kills eight Houthis to an airstrike.^[268]
• Colombian wingsuit flying multiple-record holder Jhonathan Florez dies in a BASE jumping training accident at Engelberg, Switzerland.^[269]
• With
  Honolulu, after a nonstop, solo flight from Nagoya Airfield in Nagoya, Japan. The flight lasts 117 hours 52 minutes, covers 7,212 kilometers (4,481 miles) at an average ground speed of 61.19 km/h (38.02 mph), and reaches a maximum altitude of 8,634 meters (28,327 feet).^[255][256] The flight sets new world records for non-stop distance and flight duration by a manned, solar-powered aircraft. Borschberg also sets a new world duration record for an unrefueled solo airplane flight, breaking the previous record of 76 hours 43 minutes set by Steve Fossett in January 2006 during a flight in a single-seat jet.^[270]

• During the morning,
  Hizbollah against rebel forces in al-Zabadani, Syria.^[271]
• Egyptian airstrikes kill 25 Islamic militants near Sheikh Zuweid in the northern Sinai Peninsula.^[272]

4–5 July (overnight)

• At least 16 airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition hit Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria, in what the coalition describes as "one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria." The Islamic State claims that the strikes killed 10 people and wounded 10 others.^[273]

5 July

• A U.S. airstrike near
  Khorasan Group.^[274]
• Suspected drug traffickers open fire on a patrolling Mexican Navy helicopter as it approaches a group of their vehicles near Falcon Lake in Tamaulipas, Mexico. The helicopter crew returns fire, killing six people on the ground.^[187]
• Aboard a
  Stampede Park and is arrested. Accused of endangering flights at Calgary International Airport, Boria will be fined for his stunt in March 2017.^[275][276]

• An Iraqi Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name "Frogfoot") returning from a raid against Islamic State forces in Iraq's Al Anbar Governorate with a bomb on board that had failed to drop accidentally releases the bomb over a residential area of Baghdad, killing at least eight people on the ground. Some reports place the death toll at 12.^[277] Later reports place the casualty figures at 76 dead and 38 injured in two airstrikes on markets during the day.^[278]
• A large airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting rebel forces in Yemen strikes a marketplace in Fayoush, a suburb of Aden, killing 45 civilians and wounding 50 others. The strike is one of many during the day that hit targets in Sana'a and elsewhere in nine of Yemen's governorates.^[279]
• A U.S. airstrike in northwestern Syria kills
  Khorasan Group, as he travels in a ground vehicle.^[274]

• An air-to-ground missile strike by a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle kills more than two dozen Islamic militants in
  Gul Zaman also dies in a strike on either 6 or 7 July.^[280]

• A U.S. airstrike kills
  Khorasan Group, as he rides in a vehicle near Sarmada, Syria. The United States Department of Defense does not announce his death in the strike until 21 July.^[281]
• At the request of
  Denver, Colorado.^[282]

• An eruption of
  Mount Raung in East Java, Indonesia, forces the closure of five airports on Java, Bali, and Lombok through 10 July because of volcanic ash in the atmosphere, greatly disrupting air traffic in the area as flights at the airports are cancelled through late in the day on 10 July. Coming when many Australians travel to Bali on vacation and many Indonesians travel for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, the airport closures strand thousands of travelers.^[283]
• An air-to-ground missile, suspected of being fired from a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle, kills four members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as they ride in a car in Mukalla, Yemen.^[284]

10 July

• A U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle strike in the Achin District of Afghanistan's Nangahar Province kills at least 30 Islamic militants. Although some reports claim the leader of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed Khan, is among the dead,^[285] he in fact survives.
• A United Nations-backed ceasefire of approximately one week – scheduled to end at the conclusion of Ramadan on 17 July – begins at midnight in Yemen to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in need in the country. Within an hour, the ceasefire is broken as fighting breaks out in Taiz and the Saudi-led coalition responds with airstrikes against rebel forces in the area.^[284]
• The U.S.-led coalition conducts 34 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, with 17 strikes in each country. Twelve of the strikes in Syria target Islamic State forces around al-Hasakah. In Iraq, four of the strikes hit targets near Mosul, while the other 13 strikes target Islamic States forces in or near seven other cities.^[286]
• The
  Louis Bleriot used made when he made the first crossing of the English Channel in an airplane on 25 July 1909, but in the opposite direction.^[287]

• The Saudi-led coalition conducts airstrikes against rebels in Aden, Sana'a, and Taiz, Yemen. A spokesman for the coalition explains that the coalition had never agreed to honor the one-week United Nations ceasefire imposed on 10 July because the government of deposed Yemeni president
  Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had not sent the coalition instructions to honor it.^[288]
• Syrian Arab Army helicopters drop barrel bombs on a residential area and a crowded market in al-Bab, Syria, killing at least 28 people.^[286]

• The Saudi-led coalition conducts airstrikes in Yemen's
  Houthi rebel commitment to it and because no United Nations observers had arrived in Yemen to monitor it.^[289]

• The U.S.-led coalition conducts 29 airstrikes against 67 Islamic State targets in
  Sunni tribal forces that begins the following day.^[290]
• The Saudi-led coalition conducts airstrikes in several governorates of Yemen. The strikes destroy a conference hall used by
  Lahj Governorate.^[291]

• An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting rebel forces in Yemen hits slums in the Sawan neighborhood of Sana'a several hundred meters from a rebel military camp, killing 25 civilians and wounding 50.[292]

14 July 2015

• Following several days of "preparatory airstrikes" by the Saudi-led coalition, pro-government forces in Yemen take control of Aden International Airport in Aden from Houthi rebels.^[278]
• Intense fighting breaks out between
  Ukrainian Army troops and rebel forces of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic over the destroyed Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport in Donetsk, Ukraine.^[293]

• To deter Europeans from travelling to fight for the Islamic State or returning to Europe from the Middle East to conduct terrorist attacks in Europe, the European Parliament passes the "Passenger Name Record" proposal requiring airlines to transfer passenger data such as seat numbers and payment information to law enforcement authorities for flights into and out of the European Union. The proposal must undergo a further period of negotiation with the governments of individual European Union member countries before becoming law.^[294]
• A U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle fires an air-to-ground missile at an
  Bardhere, Somalia, as it advances toward a joint U.S.-African Union ground force. The strike kills or wounds several al-Shabaab personnel; and senior al-Shabaab commander Ismael Jabhad is among the dead.^[295]
• Twelve days after Solar Impulse 2 arrived at Kalaeola, Hawaii, completing the eighth leg of its attempt to become the first solar-powered aircraft to fly around the world, the Solar Impulse team announces that it will not attempt the ninth leg of the flight until at least
  University of Hawaii hangar at Kalaeloa Airport in Kalaeloa while it makes repairs to the aircraft and researches and tests new cooling methods to prevent a recurrence of the damage.^[296]

• Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition support a drive by
  Kurdish forces that besieges Islamic State forces in al-Hasakah, Syria.^[297]

• The
  Commander, United States Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott H. Swift, rides aboard a United States Navy P-8A Poseidon as it flies a patrol mission over the South China Sea. Swift makes the flight in order to witness the capabilities of the P-8A, but observers believe that his presence aboard the P-8A will rankle China, which claims most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters.^[298]

• Aircraft of the U.S.-led coalition drop leaflets over Islamic State-held Raqqa, Syria, which serves as the de facto capital of the Islamic State. The leaflets promise that "freedom will come" to the area.^[299]

20 July

• A strike by a
  Afghan National Army outpost instead, killing eight and wounding five Afghan soldiers. Some reports put the death toll as high as 14.^[262]
• $9,000,000,000. The move will make Lockheed Martin a producer of helicopters for the first time.^[300]

• FedEx, the world's largest air cargo carrier, announces that it will buy 3,000,000 U.S. gallons (2,497,751 imperial gallons; 11,355,000 liters) of biofuels per year from Red Rock Biofuels beginning in 2017. Although it is only a fraction of the 90,000,000 U.S. gallons (74,932,530 imperial gallons; 340,650,000 liters) of jet fuel that FedEx uses each year, FedEx says that it is a first step toward its goal of using alternative fuels for 30 percent of its jet fuel by 2030. Southwest Airlines, the largest domestic air carrier in the United States, had signed a biofuel deal with Red Rock Biofuels in 2014.^[301]

22 July

• A Royal Saudi Air Force transport plane becomes the first aircraft to land at Yemen's Aden International Airport since March, carrying humanitarian aid for people in Aden. It is the first flight in what officials in Aden hope will become a regular series of military transport flights to assist people in Yemen.^[302]

23 July

• Significant fighting erupts between Islamic State and Turkish military forces for the first time as they exchange gun and
  F-16 Fighting Falcons to the area to support Turkish ground troops.^[303]
• In a major reversal of policy, the Government of Turkey announces that it will allow the United States to use Incirlik Air Base in Turkey as a base for airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria; previously, it had allowed U.S. aircraft to use Incirlik as a base only for surveillance flights over Syria. Basing at Incirlik will allow U.S. aircraft to move more quickly and efficiently against Islamic State targets in northwestern Syria.^[303]
• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition carry out airstrikes in Dar Saad, Yemen, north of Aden.
• Las Vegas, Nevada, arrives over its destination, Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota, low on fuel and finds the airport temporarily closed for training by the United States Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron. After a discussion between the pilot and tower about how Allegiant Air should have known about the closure and options for Flight 426 to circle or divert to another airport, the Allegiant Air pilot announces that he has insufficient fuel for either option, declares a fuel emergency, and lands safely at Hector International.^[304]

• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition target Houthi and other rebel positions in Yemen as ground fighting rages in
  Taiz Governorate, dozens of the airstrikes hit a residential area of Mokha, flattening many homes, starting a large fire, and killing at least 80 civilians and injuring at least another 150.^[305][306]
• Turkish Air Force jets bomb Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time, as three Turkish F-16 Fighting Falcons conduct early-morning strikes on two Islamic State headquarters and a gathering of Islamic State combat personnel. The strikes come two days after Islamic State forces fatally shot a Turkish soldier along the Turkey-Syria border.[307]
• The
  Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., including six of the busiest airports in the United States. The Department of Transportation says that it is its first such investigation in at least 12 years and that it may even be unprecedented.^[308]

• Turkish Air Force jets attack both Islamic State targets in Syria and weapons depots and camps of the
  Kurdistan Workers Party (KPP) in Iraqi Kurdistan. The strikes against the PKK end a two-year ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK, which the Turkish government declares null and void after repeated PKK violations.^[309]

• The Saudi-led coalition announces that it will begin a five-day ceasefire in Yemen at 23:59 Yemen time on 26 July, although it reserves the right to respond with force to rebel violations of the ceasefire. Deposed
  Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had requested the ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to reach people in Yemen.^[306]

• On the second full day of the Saudi-led coalition's five-day humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen, the coalition conducts airstrikes near
  Lahj Governorate and north of Aden in response to ground fighting that had broken out within minutes of the ceasefire taking effect. Two of the airstrikes around al-Anad mistakenly kill 15 troops allied with the coalition.^[310]

• Turkish Air Force jets bomb Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) positions in Turkey's Şırnak Province in after PKK forces fire on Turkish ground troops there.^[311]

29 July

• Aircraft wreckage which appears to be a flaperon – part of the flap system – of a Boeing 777 is found washed up on a beach on Réunion in the Indian Ocean, raising hopes that it is the first piece of wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to be found since the aircraft vanished in March 2014.^[312][313]
• An Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle strikes a car in
  Hader, Syria, with an air-to-ground missile. Various reports place the death toll in the strike at two (both militiamen who supported the Syrian government regime of Bashar al-Assad), three (all innocent villagers), and five (two members of Hezbollah and three pro-Assad militiamen).^[314]

• laser optics to bring Internet connectivity to parts of the world where conventional connectivity is impractical.^[315][316]

• U.S. aircraft strike
  Jabhat al-Nusra forces in Syria ins response to a Jabhat-al-Nusra attack against Division 30, a U.S.-trained Syrian opposition group. It is the first time U.S. aircraft have conducted an airstrike in Syria to protect forces the United States has trained.^[317]
• An
  Milan–Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy, and catches fire. The crash leaves all four occupants of the aircraft dead^[318]
  and destroys a number of cars.
• A
  Codazzi, Colombia, killing all 11 people on board.^[319]
• The
  F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, is combat ready and "ready for worldwide deployment." It is the first version of the F-35 to become operational.^[320]
• Over
  skydivers jumping from seven planes at an altitude of 19,700 feet (6,000 meters) and travelling head-down at speeds of up to 240 mph (390 km/h)r) form a flower-shaped formation for a few seconds. They set a new world record for the largest formation skydive, breaking the previous record set by a team of 138 skydivers in 2012. It was the team's 13th attempt to break the 2012 record.^[321]

• Yemenia resumes flights to Yemen with a flight from Saudi Arabia to Aden International Airport in Aden.

3 August

• During
  Ariha, Syria, a Syrian jet crashes into a crowded marketplace, killing at least 27 and perhaps as many as 30 people and injuring at least 55 and perhaps over 60 people.^[322]
• The United States Department of Defense announces that over the preceding weekend the United States has begun operating armed aircraft from Turkey's Incirlik Air Base over Syria. Previously, the Government of Turkey had allowed the United States to operate only unarmed surveillance aircraft from Incirlik.^[317]
• The independent monitoring group
  Islamic State personnel since they began in Iraq on 8 August 2014 and in Syria on 23 September 2014, and that 57 airstrikes killed civilians and caused 48 "friendly fire" deaths. In the 5,800 airstrikes the coalition has conducted, the United States has confirmed that coalition airstrikes have killed only two civilians and injured two others, although its investigations of other reported civilian deaths continue.^[323]
• On the day that the comment period on the complaint to the U.S. Government by
  Atlas Air Cargo, FedEx, Hawaiian Airlines, and JetBlue go on record as opposing the American-Delta-United coalition's complaint, claiming in a letter to United States Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and United States Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker that they and other smaller U.S. carriers have benefited from the existing "open skies" agreements and that American, Delta, and United are trying to coerce Qatar and the United Arab Emirates into reducing the access of Eirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways to the U.S. market.^[324]

• Les Munro, the last surviving pilot who participated in Operation Chastise, the 1943 "Dambuster" raid by the Royal Air Force's No. 617 Squadron, dies in New Zealand at the age of 96.^[325]
• Japan announces that it is suspending construction of a new airbase on
  Okinawa intended to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Naha to allow time for discussion between central and local government officials of the new base and the future of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa.^[326]
• The United States conducts its first airstrike in Syria from Turkish soil, an
  air-to-ground missile strike by an unmanned aerial vehicle operating from Turkey's Incirlik Air Base. The U.S. Department of Defense announces the strike the following day.^[327]
• A
  Clan Úsuga criminal organization crashes into the side of a mountain in northwestern Colombia, killing 16 policemen.^[328]

• Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak announces that a flaperon found on a beach on Réunion in the Indian Ocean on 29 July is from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 which vanished in March 2014.^[329]

6 August

• aluminum foil – that may be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been discovered washed up on Réunion.^[329]
• At least 17 people, including 12 Afghan Army soldiers, die in the crash of a helicopter in Afghanistan's Zabul Province.^[330][331]
• A Pakistani military helicopter crashes in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, resulting in at least 11 deaths.^[332]

11 August

• Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 have identified possible Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile parts mixed in with the airliner's wreckage. Ukraine and many in the West have accused pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine with shooting down the airliner using a surface-to-air missile system supplied by Russia, which Russia and the rebels deny.^[333]

• A suspected U.S.
  air-to-ground missile strike by an unmanned aerial vehicle kills five al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula members as they ride in a car on a coastal highway east of Mukalla, Yemen.^[334]
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announces that pilot sightings of unmanned aerial vehicles have increased from 238 in all of 2014 to "more than 650" between 1 January and 9 August 2015. Monthly sightings have increased from 16 during June 2014 and 36 during July 2014 to 138 – some at altitudes of up to 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) – during June 2015 and 137 during July 2015.^[335]

15 August

• The
  Arab brother states" to conduct airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Sirte, Libya.^[336]
• A major
  Baltimore, Maryland, particularly hard; dozens of their flights – about 25 percent – are canceled. Some stranded passengers do not reach their destinations until the next day.^[337] Overall, the outage delays 492 flights and prompts the cancellation of 476, cutting traffic at Baltimore-Washington to 70 percent, at Reagan National to 72 percent, and at Washington Dulles to 88 percent of normal, and Washington Dulles continues to experience two-hour delays the following day.^[338][339]

• Trigana Air Service, as well as the deadliest accident to date involving an ATR 72.^[341]
• In one of the deadliest airstrikes of the
  Syrian Civil war, Syrian government aircraft bomb a market in rebel-held Douma, killing at least 80 and perhaps as many as 100 people and injuring 300.^[342]
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration records an unprecedented 12 reported instances of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) interfering with air traffic over the United States in a single day.
  District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Texas. A boom in sales of small, largely unregulated, privately owned UAVs has led to a rapid increase in such incidents; only two years earlier, encounters between UAVs and conventional air traffic were unheard of.^[343]

• Pakistani airstrikes in
  Khyber Agency kill another 15 militants.^[344]
• French authorities call off an unsuccessful 10-day search employing a plane, helicopters, and a ship covering a 4,000 sq mi (10,000 km²) area of the Indian Ocean in Réunion's coastal waters and along Réunion's beaches looking for additional debris from Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.^[345]

18 August

• A U.S. airstrike kills the second-in-command of the Islamic State,
  Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, better known as Hajji Mutazz, as he rides in a ground vehicle near Mosul, Iraq.^[346]

• Two
  parachutists rehearsing for a nearby air show collide over Červený Kameň, Slovakia, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) and crash. The accident kills seven people – two crewmembers aboard each plane and three parachutists aboard one of them – but the other 31 people aboard the two planes parachute to safety. Five of them are treated for injuries. One of the dead crew members is former Slovak ice hockey player Michal Česnek
  .

• After four rockets are fired from Syrian territory into northern Israel on 20 August,
  Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine rocket-launch crew.^[347]
• A wave of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeting rebel forces during heavy fighting in Taiz, Yemen, over the course of two days beginning on 20 August kill as many as 65 people.^[348]

21 August

• The United Kingdom conducts its first military action in Syria, using a Royal Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle to conduct an air-to-ground missile strike against a car in Raqqa, killing three Islamic State members, two of them British citizens. Prime Minister David Cameron will announce the strike publicly on 7 September.^[349]

22 August

• A
  crash at the 1952 Farnborough Airshow which killed 31 people.^[350][351]

• Egyptian armed forces missile that had strayed from a military exercise. The aircraft's passengers are not informed of the incident, and the press does not report it until 6 November.^{[citation needed}
  ]

• Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition support an offensive by
  Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces that takes ten villages in Iraq's Kirkuk Governorate from the Islamic State.^[352]
• Russia and Syria sign a treaty which among other things grants Russia a permanent airbase in Syria at
  Khmeimim. Russia will ratify the treaty on 7 October 2016.^[353]

• In response to the Taliban's seizure of the Musa Qala District in Afghanistan's Helmand Province the previous day, U.S. aircraft conduct multiple strikes against Taliban forces in the district. Over a dozen U.S. airstrikes have taken place in the district between 25 and 27 August.^[354]

30 August

• The Saudi-led coalition conducts an airstrike against a building in Yemen's
  bottling plant, but the coalition responds that the raid killed people at a site the Houthi rebels use to make improvised explosive devices and train recruits.^[355]
• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition strike a house near a military base in
  Sana'a, Yemen, killing four people.^[355]

• In violation of U.S.
  computer software changes that it says will prevent future mix-ups between the A321S and Ameerican's fleet of ETOPS-certified A321H airliners.^[356]

• During the month, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration expands its prohibition of the flying of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Washington, D.C., area from within a 15-mile (24.2-km) radius of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport – put in place after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 – to within a 30-mile (48.3-km) radius of the airport. A lack of publicity for the expansion of the no-fly area leads to many UAV hobbyists remaining unaware of it until late December.^[357]
• During the month, the United States quietly closes its military unmanned aerial vehicle base at Arba Minch Airport in Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia. It will not publicly announce the closure of the base, which had operated since 2011, until January 2016.^[358]

1 September

• Islamic State there.^[359]

• The
  Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Airbus Defence and Space had manufactured the flaperon for Boeing.^[360]

• In response to an attack in
  Sana'a and Ibb.^[361]
• Over eastern
  Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where it lands safely. Aboard the air ambulance, the collision apparently disables everyone on board, and it flies on autopilot
  beyond Dakar, finally crashing in the Atlantic Ocean about 110 km (68 mi; 59 nmi) off the coast of Senegal, presumably when it runs out of fuel. All seven people aboard the air ambulance die.

• At least 11 Afghan
  counternarcotics police officers are killed and four others are injured in the Garmsir District of Afghanistan's Helmand Province in what the Government of Afghanistan claims was an international airstrike. Some reports place the death toll as high as 28. The United States denies any international involvement, countering that international coalition aircraft struck targets in Maiwand District in Kandahar Province but none in Helmand Province during the day.^[362]
• The
  F-16 Fighting Falcons it acquired in July to conduct its first strikes against Islamic State forces, hitting Islamic State positions in Iraq.^[363]
• Strikes by aircraft of the
  Houthi and other rebel positions in northern Yemen accidentally kill 20 people attending a wake for a person the Houthis had killed.^[364]
• After
  anti-aircraft machine guns.^[365]

• Pakistan uses an
  Shawal Valley in northwestern Pakistan.^[366]
• President of France François Hollande announces that France will begin aerial reconnaissance missions over Syria on 8 September and is considering conducting airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.^[367]

8 September

• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition bomb boats off the coast of Yemen. According to India's
  Coast Guard reports that warplanes attacked five boats, leaving it unclear whether the two reported incidents are separate events.^[368]
• The left engine of
  Las Vegas, Nevada for a flight to London. All 170 people on board escape the plane via inflatable evacuation slides; 14 of them suffer minor injuries.^[369]
• United Airlines announces that its chief executive officer, Jeff Smisek, and two other senior company officials have resigned amid a U.S. Government corruption probe. The probe is looking into allegations that United operated a money-losing nonstop flight – nicknamed the "chairman's flight" – between Newark, New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport and Columbia, South Carolina, from September 2012 until 1 April 2014 in order benefit David Samson, who was the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey during that period. Samson owned a vacation home near Columbia in Aiken, South Carolina, and was influential in decisions related to infrastructure improvements and cheaper lease rates at Newark Liberty that United desired.^{[370][371][372]}

9 September

• Aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition strike targets in Sana'a, Yemen, reportedly killing six civilians and wounding ten.^[368]

13 September

• After a convoy of four Egyptian tour company vehicles carrying Mexican tourists stops to hold a barbecue near the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert, Egyptian security forces mistake the group of 22 people for Islamic militants. An Egyptian airplane and helicopters attack the tour group, and Egyptian ground forces fire on its members as they try to flee. The attack kills eight Mexicans and four Egyptians and injures eight Mexicans and two Egyptians.^[373]
• Colombia claims that two Venezuelan Air Force jets violated its airspace on 12 September, claiming that they flew nearly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) into Colombia and passing over two military bases.^[374]

14 September

• President of France François Hollande announces that France will begin airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria. It previously had limited its airstrikes to Islamic State targets in Iraq.^[375]
• During a qualifying race at the
  National Championship Air Races at Reno Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, Tom Aberle sets a new biplane speed record, reaching 284.454 miles per hour (457.784 kilometres per hour) in his custom biplane Phantom.^[376][377]

• A South African Beechcraft King Air 200 becomes the first aircraft in history to land at Saint Helena's new Saint Helena Airport. The plane is visiting the island to conduct a series of flights to calibrate the airport's radio navigation equipment.^[378][379]

16 September

• Commercial satellite imagery reveals that eight Russian military helicopters have arrived at Bassel Al-Assad International Airport outside Latakia, Syria. Russia has improved the airport to support military operations and moved military equipment to it over approximately the previous two weeks.^[380][381]

18 September

• Four
  Russian Federation Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name "Flanker") fighters arrive at Bassel Al-Assad International Airport outside Latakia, Syria. A United States Intelligence Community official describes the Russian military build-up at the airport as the first major expeditionary deployment of Soviet or Russian forces outside of territory formerly constituting the Soviet Union since the conclusion of the Soviet–Afghan War in February 1989.^[381]
• Gunfire from a sheriff's helicopter kills a man leading police on a car chase in San Bernardino County, California. It is the seventh such incident since sheriff's deputies began receiving training in using weapons from helicopters in the mid-1980s and the first since a shooting in Apple Valley, California, in 2001.^[382]
• A
  drug interdiction mission crashes in Venezuela near the border with Colombia, killing its two-man crew, after an "illicit aircraft" is detected entering Venezuelan airspace from Colombia.^{[citation needed}
  ]

• Turkish Air Force jets strike Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq, killing at least 55 PKK members.[383]

19 September

• Israeli Air Force jets strike targets in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip against Israeli territory the previous evening.^[384]
• President of Russia Vladimir Putin announces that he has approved a Russian Ministry of Defense plan to establish a Russian military air base in neighboring Belarus. Russia has not had a full-fledged air base there since Russian forces withdrew from Belarus after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Russia plans to base Russian Federation Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name "Flanker") fighters at the base.^[385]

21 September

• An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition attempting to hit a rebel-controlled building in the al-Hasba neighborhood of Sana'a, Yemen, instead destroys an adjacent house, damaging several other buildings and killing at least 15 people. All the dead are members of the same family.^[386]

23 September

• Iran's Tasnim News Agency reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran Army has unveiled the Mohajem 92, a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufactured by the "self-suffiency department" of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. Tasnim reports that the new UAV is a reconnaissance vehicle with a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles) and a maximum speed of 200 km/h (120 mph).^[387]

25 September

• The Government of Ukraine announces that it will ban all Russian airlines from landing at airports in Ukraine beginning on 25 October and that it is banning Russian aircraft carrying military personnel or military cargo from flying through Ukrainian airspace. The Government of Russia responds with an announcement that it will retaliate by banning Ukrainian airlines from landing at airports in Russia.^[388]
• Turkish Air Force jets strike Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) camps in the Gara region of northern Iraq. Turkey claims that the raids kill 19 PKK members.^[389]

27 September

• France conducts its first airstrikes in Syria, with six jets destroying an Islamic State training camp near Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria which the Government of France says posed a threat to France and to Syrian civilians. Previously France had limited its airstrikes to Iraqi territory.^[390]
• Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition hit arms facilities in several
  Houthi rebels. The Houthis claim that the strikes killed 22 civilians and wounded 13.^[391]

• Taliban forces seize much of Kunduz, Afghanistan, despite the efforts of attack helicopters supporting Afghan government security forces in the city.^[392]
• Two
  Yemeni Civil War. Yemeni officials blame the Saudi-led coalition for the airstrike, but a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition denies involvement, saying that the coalition had not conducted air operations in the area in three days.^[393][394]
• The last airworthy Avro Vulcan makes its final air show appearance at the Yorkshire Air Show in Yorkshire, England.^[395]

29 September

• A U.S. airstrike against Taliban forces supports an Afghan government counterattack to drive the Taliban out of Kunduz.^[396]

30 September

• Russia conducts airstrikes in Syria for the first time, targeting rebel forces. Russia claims that the strikes hit Islamic State military vehicles, communications centers, weapons caches, and ammunition and fuel depots and the Assad regime's
  Ashton Carter says that the strikes occurred in areas in which the Islamic State does not have a presence and a Syrian opposition leader reports that the strikes targeted civilians and killed 37 people.^[397]

• SATA International is rebranded as Azores Airlines.

1 October

• Eight
  Basher al-Assad.^[398]
• Sergei Lavrov responds that Russia has no interest in expanding its air campaign beyond Syria.^[398]
• U.S. and Russian officials hold a
  video teleconference in which they have their first discussion over how to avoid incidents in Syrian airspace during their separate air campaigns in Syria, covering such issues as which radio frequencies and what languages to use when deconflicting their operations.^[399]
• Tracey Curtis-Taylor begins a 13,000 mi (21,000 km) solo flight from Farnborough Airport in Farnborough, England, to Sydney, Australia, in the Boeing-Stearman Model 75 open-cockpit biplane Spirit of Artemis, intending to recreate the first solo flight between the United Kingdom and Australia by a woman, the 1930 Croydon-to-Darwin flight of Amy Johnson. Curtis-Taylor will arrive in Sydney on 9 January 2016.^[400][401]
• $7,500,000 over the next three years in a new Aerospace Data Analytics Laboratory that Carnegie Mellon will establish. The new laboratory is to investigate the use of artificial intelligence and "big data" in improving the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of modern airplanes.^[402] Initially, the laboratory will involve more than 20 Carnegie Mellon faculty and student researchers exploring at least six Boeing-directed projects.^[403]

• Russian aircraft strike targets deep in Islamic State territory for the first time, with two strikes by Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name "Fullback") jets outside of Raqqa, Syria, hitting a training camp and a headquarters.^[404]

2 October

• Aviastar Flight 7503, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter (registration PK-BRM) crashes in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, soon after takeoff for a domestic flight from Andi Jemma Airport in Masamba to Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar, killing all 10 people on board. Its wreckage is not found until 5 October.
• A
  United States armed forces respond that enemy fire is highly unlikely to have caused the crash.^[405]
• Strikes by Russian during the day focus on targets in the Syrian
  United States urges Russia to cease targeting rebel groups in Syria other than the Islamic State and the Nusra Front.^[404]
• U.S.-backed rebels in Syria ask the United States to provide them with surface-to-air missiles for defense against Russian airstrikes.^[404]
• U.S. Government officials reveal that the United States Government has decided not to oppose the Russian air campaign in Syria directly in the belief that the Russians are immersing themselves in a "quagmire" there, and instead to increase pressure against the Islamic State by, among other things, conducting more airstrikes in Iraq west of the
  Euphrates River.^[406]

• A predawn airstrike targeting Taliban forces in
  Special Forces is implicated in the strike. The United States armed forces have been striking Taliban forces in and around Kunduz since 29 September.^[408][409]
• While Russian Federation Air Force jets are bombing rebel-held villages in Syria's
  North Atlantic Treaty Organization claims that the violation was deliberate.^[410][411]
• The Russian Ministry of Defense announces that Syria-based Russian aircraft have struck 20 targets in Syria over the previous 24 hours; the targets were in Hama and Idlib governorates and outside Raqqa. Russia claims that the strikes targeted the Islamic State and that the four-day-long Russian air campaign in Syria has "significantly decreased the fighting potential" of the Islamic State, causing "panic and desertion in [its] ranks," and that "more than 600 mercenaries have left their positions and are trying to get to Europe," although critics claim that many of the Russian strikes have targeted other Syrian rebels in areas from which the Islamic State was ejected a year-and-a-half earlier. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that the Russian air campaign has killed 39 civilians.^[412]

4 October

• An unidentified
  F-16 Fighting Falcons over the Syrian-Turkish border for more than five minutes.^[411]

• Radars in Syria supporting Syrian missile systems illuminate Turkish Air Force aircraft near the Syrian-Turkish border for more than four minutes. Turkey also claims that an unidentified aircraft locked its radar onto eight Turkish aircraft.[411]
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization warns Russia to avoid further violations of Turkish airspace.^[410]
• The
  United States armed forces have conducted airstrikes in and around Kunduz, Afghanistan, since 29 September, with two of the strikes within the city itself.^[409]
• The pilot of
  Boston, Massachusetts, with 152 people on board, dies in mid-flight. The copilot lands the airliner safely at Syracuse, New York.^[413]

• Syrian state television claims that Russian aircraft have struck Palmyra, Syria, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that 15 Islamic state members died in the airstrike. Russia reports that its aircraft flew 20 sorties over Syria during the day and struck 12 targets, but denies hitting Palmyra.^[411]
• Russia and the United States agree to resume talks on how to prevent conflicts between their military aircraft operating over Syria.^[414]
• A day after the death in flight of the pilot of
  San Francisco, California – passes out. The plane lands safely at Albuquerque, New Mexico.^[415]
• The U.S.
  Chicago, Illinois, for conducting 65 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights to take videos and photographs – 22 over Chicago and 43 over New York City – between 21 March 2012 and 15 December 2014 between without required air traffic control clearance, equipment, or registration and certification. It is the largest fine ever imposed against a UAV operator for illegal flights, far exceeding the previous record fine of $18,700 levied against Xizmo Media of New York.^[416]

• Russian airstrikes support a Syrian government ground attack against rebel forces defending the Syrian town of Kufranboudah.[417] The attack begins the first major air-and-ground offensive by Syrian forces in cooperation with the Russian Federation Air Force since the Russian air campaign in Syria began on 30 September.^[418]
• Members of United States Congress meet with U.S. Federal Aviation Administration officials and experts to discuss ways to avoid collisions with airliners and privately owned unmanned aerial vehicles in the United States. Airline pilot reports of near-collisions with UAVs over the United States have risen to an average of three per day.^[419]

8 October

• On
  Los Angeles, California. The flight is diverted to Anchorage, Alaska. The woman returns to Taiwan without her child after being denied entry into the United States.^[420]

• Russia's
  Islamic militants, including two Islamic State field commanders.^[421]
• Syrian government forces seize the villages of Atshan and Umm Hartein in central Syria amid intense Russian airstrikes in the region.^[418]

10 October

• The Russian Ministry of Defense reports that Syria-based Russian aircraft have flown 64 sorties in the past 24 hours and struck 54 targets in Syria, including rebel command posts in
  Salafist group in Saraqib, Syria.^[418]
• The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency claims that two F-16 Fighting Falcons of the U.S.-led coalition have violated Syrian airspace and bombed civilian infrastructure in Aleppo.^[418]
• U.S. and Russian defense officials hold a 90-minute secure
  videoconference to discuss steps to "promote safe flight operations over Syria."^[418]

• A Royal Air Force Westland Puma HC Mark 2 helicopter severs the mooring cable of an observation balloon and crashes while attempting to land at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Resolute Support Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing five people and injuring five others.^[422]
• In response to rocket fire from the
  Palestinian civilian deaths in an Israeli airstrike since 2014 – and injuring several other members of the family, and Israel launches an investigation into the reported civilian deaths.^[423]
• A technical problem with Southwest Airlines' online system forces the airline to issue tickets and process passengers manually. By the evening, 450 of Southwest's 3,600 flights scheduled for the day have been delayed. Delays are expected to linger into the following day.^[424]

12 October

• Russian aircraft intensify their strikes against rebel forces in central Syria as Syrian government and rebel ground forces contest control of the village of Kfar Nabudeh. The Russian Ministry of Defense reports that Russian Sukhoi Su-24M (NATO reporting name "Fencer"), Sukhoi Su-25SM (NATO reporting name "Frogfoot"), and Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name "Fullback") aircraft have struck 53 targets – including command centers, ammunition depots, fuel depots, and training camps – in Hama Governorate, Homs Governorate, Idlib Governorate, and Latakia Governorate over the past 24 hours, alleging that they were all Islamic State facilities.^[425] Russian aircraft have flown 250 combat sorties in Syria since the Russian air campaign there began on 30 September.^[426]
• The first 90 of a planned 300 U.S. military personnel arrive in Cameroon set up a base for unmanned aerial vehicles, which will fly reconnaissance missions targeting Boko Haram in neighboring Nigeria.^[427]

13 October

• The U.S. military announces that U.S. and Afghan forces have completed a major, week-long air and ground operation to dismantle al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan's Shorabak District, with U.S. aircraft conducting 63 strikes during the operation.^[428]
• President of Russia Vladimir Putin says that in response to U.S. criticism that the Russian air campaign in Syria is targeting moderate rebels rather than only Islamic State targets as Russia claims, he has asked the United States to provide examples of targets it considers legitimate and for information on targets it does not want Russia to hit, but has received no response.^[429]
• The
  Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, in which it concludes that a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile brought the Boeing 777 down, blowing its cockpit off and causing it to break up in mid-air over Ukraine before crashing. It adds that the aircraft should not have flown over the war zone in eastern Ukraine, but also notes that 160 other aircraft did so safely on the day Flight 17 was shot down. Although the report does not attempt to determine who shot the airliner down, the Russian government dismisses it as biased and the result of "political orders" to reach the conclusion that it did.^[430]
• Two
  Vince Reffet – wearing jet packs deploy from a helicopter flying at 5,500 feet (1,700 meters) and fly in formation with an Emirates Airbus A380 flying at an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above Dubai, flying one on either side and both on one side of the airliner before breaking away after about ten minutes.^[431][432] Their flight is documented by helmet-mounted cameras they are wearing and third-party videos showing the pair soaring and diving around the airliner; the videos will be released in early November 2015.^{[433][434][435][436]}

• The U.S.-led coalition conducts two airstrikes against Islamic State targets in the
  Iraqi government announces that its armed forces have seized control of the largest oil refinery in Iraq, located near Baiji, after fighting with the Islamic State over it since June 2014. Aircraft of the U.S.-led coalition have conducted airstrikes in support of the Iraqi forces throughout the battle; at one point, U.S. aircraft dropped supplies to Iraqi forces besieged in the refinery.^[437]
• A
  rotary-wing aircraft to land at Saint Helena Airport on Saint Helena.^{[438][439][440][441]}

• Russian aircraft in Syria strike rebel targets in
  Ghouta.^[442] Russian airstrikes against northern Homs Governorate kills 59 civilians – including 33 children – with one strike against a house in Ghantou killing 46 members of one family.^{[citation needed}
  ]
• A U.S. airstrike in northwestern Syria kills
  Khorasan Group. The United States Department of Defense will announce his death on 18 October. He becomes the fifth Khorasan Group leader killed in a U.S. airstrike in the past four months.^[274]
• Prosecutors in Scotland announce two new suspects – both
  Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.^[443]

• Turkish Air Force jets shoot down an unidentified unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) near Deliosman in Turkey's Kilis Province after it flies nearly two miles (3.2 km) into Turkish territory from Syria. Both the Syrian government and Russia deny that the UAV is theirs.^[444]
• According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, there have been 5,352 incidents of lasers striking aircraft flying over the United States since the beginning of the year, an increase from 3,894 during all of 2014 and 283 in all of 2005.^[445]

17 October

• An
  San Francisco, California. When it lands, the 76-year history of US Airways – which earlier had done business as All American Aviation, Allegheny Airlines, and USAir – comes to an end as it completes its merger with American Airlines. The merger leaves the United States with just four major domestic airlines – American, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines – down from ten in 2001; the four control 87 percent of the U.S. domestic market.^[446]
• An airstrike in Yemen's
  Jawf Governorate kill 13 Houthis.^[447]
• Jumping from 13,500 feet (4,100 meters) over Perris Valley Airport in Perris, California, an international team of wingsuit jumpers set a new world formation record, with 61 people forming a diamond formation. The formation travels about two miles (3.2 km) before landing.^[448]

19 October

• Russian aircraft strike the First Coastal Division rebel group in Syria for the third time since the Russian air campaign began on 30 September, hitting its headquarters in Jabal Akrad. According to the First Coastal Division, the strike kills five of its members, including its chief of staff, Basil Zamo, as well as 15 civilians.^[449]
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announces that it will begin to require the registration of privately owned recreational unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with the
  United States Government hoping to have the system in place and functioning by 25 December. American hobbyists are projected to purchase 700,000 UAVs during 2015, up 63 percent from 2014.^[450]

• The U.S. Department of Defense announces that the United States and Russia have signed an aviation safety agreement to keep their aircraft operating over Syria far enough apart to avoid hostile interactions and to ensure that they can communicate with one another if they approach one another too closely. Russian and U.S. aircraft come within 1,500 feet (460 meters) of one another over Syria. The agreement makes no provision for cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in targeting or other aspects of their air campaigns in Syria.[451]
• F-35 Lightning II fighter have boosted its third-quarter financial results.^[452]

• Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Houthi rebels combined with indiscriminate shelling by artillery kill at least 20 people and wound 140 in Taiz, Yemen.^[453]

22 October

• Residents of Yemen's Hajjah Governorate report that an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition against a small island in the Red Sea near the Midi District kills 10 fishermen.^[453]

23 October

• Talks in Brussels, Belgium, between Russia and Ukraine to avert a ban of each other's airliners from their airports scheduled to take effect on 25 October end unsuccessfully, setting the stage for a halt to direct air travel between the two countries.^[454]

25 October

• Ukraine bans Russian airliners from its airports, and Russia retaliates by banning Ukrainian airliners from its airports. The ban effectively ends direct air travel between the two countries,^[454][455] adversely affecting an estimated 700,000 travelers annually.^[456]
• The bankrupt Russian airline Transaero goes out of business.

27 October

• People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force also reacts, but Lassen concludes her patrol without incident.^[457]
• After dark, an
  Libya Dawn group. It crashes in the Mediterranean Sea just off Al Maya, Libya. Rescuers recover the bodies of 14 of the helicopter's occupants and find no survivors.^[458][459]
• The U.S. Department of Defense announces that it has awarded the contract for the U.S. Air Force's next-generation
  Joint Strike Fighter contract in 2001.^[460]

• A 74 meters (243 feet) unmanned United States Army aerostat making up part of the Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) breaks loose from its tether at Aberdeen, Maryland, and drifts over Pennsylvania, shadowed by two U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters. After several hours, in comes to earth in a ravine in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, but not before dragging its 6,000-foot (1,800 m) long heavy tether across the ground in the county for 20 miles (32 km), causing damage to electric lines and utility poles that cuts electric power to 35,000 people and forces the cancellation of classes at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. The following day, Pennsylvania State Police troopers fire about 100 shotgun blasts at the aerostat to deflate it.^[461][462]

29 October

• The left engine of
  Dynamic Airways Flight 405, a Boeing 767-200ER with 101 people aboard bound for Caracas, Venezuela, leaks fuel and bursts into flames as the aircraft taxis for takeoff at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Florida. The airliner's passengers and crew evacuate via evacuation slides in six minutes; 17 of them are injured. The airport is closed for about two-and-a-half hours, resulting in the cancellation of 43 flights and delays to more than 200 others.^[463]

• al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent training camp in the Shorabak District of Afghanistan's Kandahar Province covering 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) – probably the largest al-Qaeda training camp found during the war in Afghanistan – and another camp covering one square mile (2.6 km²), killing about 160 al-Qaeda members.^[464]

• Air France-KLM, Emirates, and Lufthansa nonetheless announce that their airliners will avoid flying over the Sinai Peninsula.^[466][467]
• The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that Russian airstrikes in Syrian have killed up to 27 civilians since they began on 30 September.^[468]

November

1 November

• Air Arabia, Emirates, flydubai, Gulf Air, Jazeera Airways, and Qatar Airways announce that they will reroute their aircraft to avoid flying over the Sinai Peninsula in the wake of 31 October crash of Metrojet Flight 9268. British Airways and Etihad Airways say that they will continue to fly over the Sinai.^[469]

2 November

• anti-aircraft artillery.^[470]
• Arlington, Virginia, begins a policy of closing its terminal nightly between 11:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The change is intended to prevent overnight stays in the terminal by homeless people. Previously, the terminal had been open 24 hours a day for many years.^[471]

• Boeing 737-4H6 carrying 119 people on a flight from Karachi, skids off the runway while landing at Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, Pakistan, and crashes, injuring 10 of those on board.^[472][473] On 13 November, the Government of Pakistan will charge the pilot with flying while unlawfully fatigued and intoxicated.^[474]

• Volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount Rinjani on Lombok in Indonesia forces Ngurah Rai International Airport on Bali to close until 5 November, prompting the cancellation of 59 international and 47 domestic flights. Lombok International Airport in Mataram on Lombok also closes because of the ash.^[475]
• The United Kingdom announces a halt to service at
  Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport that destroyed the airliner.^[476]
• The Government of Ireland announces that it will advise Irish airlines to avoid Sharm El-Sheikh.^[476]
• An overloaded
  crashes into a farming village on an island in the White Nile shortly after takeoff from Juba International Airport in Juba, South Sudan. The crash kills a combined 37 people aboard the plane and on the ground; two people aboard the plane survive.^[477]
• A gunman firing at the street from an apartment window in
  San Diego, California, under the approach path to San Diego International Airport prompts the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to halt landings at the airport; the lack of arriving flights also affects departures, although departures continue during the incident. The gunman surrenders after more than five hours, by which time 30 arriving and departing flights have been cancelled and 30 other flights have been diverted to other airports.^[478]

• Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He does not specify when the ship, in port at Toulon at the time, will deploy. Charles de Gaulle previously had deployed to the Persian Gulf from February to April.^[479]
• The
  December 1988 submitted by a group of relatives of victims who believe that he was unfairly convicted of the crime.^[480]
• Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom says that "more likely than not a terrorist bomb" destroyed Metrojet Flight 9268. In the evening, President Barack Obama says that it was "a possibility" that a bomb brought the plane down.^[481]

• President of Russia Vladimir Putin halts all Russian airline flights between Russia and Egypt and orders the Russian government to take steps to ensure that the estimated 45,000 Russians vacationing in Russia are returned safely to Russia. More than 25 flights a day had traveled between Russia and Egypt prior to the flight ban.^[482]
• Working with
  Thomson Airways, British authorities begin the evacuation of approximately 20,000 British citizens stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh, controversially requiring them to leave all checked luggage – about 120 tons of it – behind to undergo extensive security screening before being shipped to them at home. On the first day, only eight of an originally scheduled 29 flights depart Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport for the United Kingdom, carrying about 4,000 people.^[482]
• The U.S.
  Department of Homeland Security announces that it will enhance the security of airline flights between the Middle East and the United States, using unspecified measures.^[482]
• The U.S.
  balloon tour operators and make them subject to FAA safety inspections, regulating them in a manner similar to the way it regulates commercial airplane and helicopter tour operators. The FAA argues that such regulation is unnecessary, explaining that "Since the amount of ballooning is so low, the FAA believes the risk to all pilots and participants is also low given that ballooners understand the risks and general hazards associated with this activity." In March 2016, the NTSB will inform the FAA that it finds this response unacceptable and that its recommendation remains open.^{[483][484][485][486]}
• Long-Range Strike Bomber to Northrop Grumman, claiming there were irregularities in the selection process.^[487]

• Fifty-one Russian aircraft fly about 11,000 Russian tourists home from Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, Egypt, as an airlift of Russian citizens stranded in Egypt begins. They are required to leave their checked baggage behind in Egypt for special screening and later shipment to Russia by cargo aircraft.^[488]

8 November

• Venezuelan
  Bombardier Dash 8 – violated Venezuela's airspace near the Los Monjes Archipelago on 6 November. The United States does not comment on his claim.^[489]

• Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich announces that 25,000 Russians have been airlifted home from Egypt since 7 November, and that he expects it to take about two weeks to fly all remaining Russians in Egypt home. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reports that during the day four Russian cargo planes have transported 130 tons of luggage to Russia that Russian tourists had left behind in Egypt for special security screening.^[488]

10 November

• Akron Fulton International Airport in Akron, Ohio. No one on the ground is injured, but all nine people – two pilots and seven passengers – aboard the plane die.^[490]

• During the evening,
  Los Angeles, California, and New York City.^[445]

• Aircraft of the U.S.-led coalition – including U.S. and
  Kurdish peshmerga forces to take Sinjar, Syria.^[491]
• Three U.S.
  air-to-ground missiles at the vehicle. The next day, the U.S. Department of Defense announces that the strike destroyed the vehicle and that it is "reasonably certain" that Emwazi was killed.^[492][493]
• $875,000 in jewels newly flown in from West Germany from the Lufthansa cargo handling area at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.^[494] The robbery had been dramatized in the 1990 movie Goodfellas.^[495]

• Two
  F-15 Eagles strike a building containing several people in a compound outside Derna, Libya. The strike is believed to have killed Abu Nabil al-Anbari, the leader of the Islamic State affiliate in Libya. It is the first time that the United States has struck an Islamic State target outside of Iraq and Syria.^[496] The United States Department of Defense will confirm his death on 7 December.^[497]
• The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reports that 480 tons of luggage left behind in Egypt by Russian tourists for additional security screening since the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 has been flown to Moscow for delivery to its owners.^[498]

14 November

• An unmanned aerial vehicle
  Nangahar Province kills 12 Taliban members.^[499]
• Russian aircraft have conducted more than 1,600 sorties in support of
  lift the rebel siege of Kuweires air base and capture two towns southwest of Aleppo, but otherwise has accomplished little, with rebel forces even capturing ground in some areas.^[500]

• Two days after
  French Air Force planes including 10 fighter aircraft take off from airfields in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and drop at least 30 bombs on Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria, hitting a command center, a recruitment and training center, an ammunition storage depot, and a training camp. Among the targets is a museum, medical facilities, and the city's sports stadium, which the Islamic State uses as its headquarters and as a prison. The French strikes knock out electrical power in the city of about 200,000 people.^[501][502]

• The United States makes its first attack against the fleet of trucks the Islamic State uses to smuggle oil to finance itself when six
  F-15 Eagles fly over the area about an hour before the strike dropping leaflets warning the truck drivers to abandon their trucks and take cover, followed by strafing runs to reinforce the point. The attack is part of Operation Tidal Wave II, a new campaign to destroy the Islamic State's oil distribution network.^[503]
• Russian aircraft support a Syrian Arab Army offensive against rebel forces in Syria's Aleppo Governorate.^[504]
• Rosturizm reports that Russian aircraft have evacuated 70,000 Russians from Egypt and flown them back to Russia since the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 and that 5,000 remain in Egypt, about 3,000 in Hurghada and about 2,000 in Sharm El-Sheikh.^[498]
• The deputy director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB),
  hand cream.^[505]
• aviation security.^[506]

• The
  Naha, to a less populated part of the island at Camp Schwab in Nago.^[507]
• The director of the Russian
  United Nations Charter and orders the Russian armed forces to intensify their air campaign in Syria where Russian aircraft conduct a "significant number of strikes" in the vicinity of Raqqa during the day.^[508][509]
• Russian Federation Air Force
  land-attack cruise missiles.^{[citation needed}
  ]
• Russian military helicopters fly in personnel to
  Gozarto Protection Force, an Assyrian Christian militia, in fighting the Islamic State in the town.^{[citation needed}
  ]
• Ten French Air Force aircraft –
  French Minister of Defense, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announces that when Charles de Gaulle arrives on station, France's force of fighter aircraft within range of the Islamic State will rise to 36 aircraft.^[510][511]
• The United States has conducted 8,253 airstrikes against Islamic State targets since U.S.-led coalition began its air campaign against the Islamic State in August 2014, accounting for 95 percent of the coalition's strikes.^{[citation needed]}
• Government of Egypt is detaining 17 people in connection with the destruction of Metrojet Flight 9268, including two employees of Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport suspected of helping terrorists plant a bomb on the plane, although Egypt's Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Civil Aviation deny it.^[508][509]

• Since the U.S.-led coalition began its air campaign against the Islamic State in August 2014, its aircraft have dropped an average of 2,228 bombs per month at an average cost of
  $11,100,000 per day. The strikes have killed an estimated 20,000 Islamic State personnel.^[512]
• A strike over pay and
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – is expected to last until at least 19 November.^[513]

• The United States has conducted more than 3,768 airstrikes in Iraq, with the tempo of strikes increasing.[514]

21 November

• A Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil sightseeing helicopter operated by Alpine Adventures crashes on Fox Glacier on the South Island of New Zealand, killing all seven people on board.

23 November

• The search for
  Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 missing since March 2014, shifts to a remote part of the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia where an experienced British Boeing 777 captain, Simon Hardy, estimates that it may have made a controlled water landing and sunk largely intact. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau reports that the shift is occurring because of improved Southern Hemisphere spring weather in a 120,000-square-kilometer (46,000-square-mile) priority search area rather than because of Hardy's analysis. Although a flaperon from Flight 370 found in July 2015 washed up on a beach on Réunion was from Flight 370, the search for Flight 370 on the Indian Ocean floor, taking place more than 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) off the Australian coast since October 2014, has covered 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) without finding any trace of the airliner.^[515]
• Dozens of Russian airstrikes support an offensive by Syrian government troops that captures the Syrian towns of
  Hawwarin in western Homs Governorate from Islamic State forces.^[516]
• Russian missile strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria disrupt civilian air traffic in the area, with airports in northern Iraq closed for a second straight day and aircraft arriving at or departing from Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, routed around a Russian-declared exclusion zone over the northeastern Mediterranean Sea.^[516]
• New Shepard space vehicle achieves a milestone in an unmanned test flight when it is launched to an altitude of 329,839 feet (100,535 meters) over West Texas, where its crew capsule and rocket booster separate. While the capsule descends to earth by parachute, the rocket booster descends separately, passing through 119-mph (192 km/h) high-altitude crosswinds and navigating its way to a point 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above its landing pad, fires its rocket engine to slow itself to 4.4 mph (7.1 km/h)r), and touches down on the pad just 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) off center. The landing is considered a major step forward in the development of a fully reusable rocket booster that will allow cheap space travel.^[517]

• Two
  naval infantryman – is killed; the rest of its crew is rescued.^[519][520]
• Since its intervention in Syria began on 30 September, Russia has conducted over 4,000 airstrikes in Syria, where it has based at least 32 fixed-wing aircraft – including 12 Sukhoi Su-24 (NATO reporting name "Fencer"), 12 Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name "Frogfoot") and four Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name "Fullback") strike aircraft and four Sukhoi Su-30 (NATO reporting name "Flanker-C") fighters – and 16 helicopters at Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia.^[519]

25 November

• In the aftermath of Turkey shooting down one of its Syria-based Su-24s the previous day, Russia says that it will take new measures to protect its aircraft operating in Syria, including the deployment of
  S-400 (NATO reporting name "SA-21 Growler") surface-to-air missile systems to Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. The S-400s, with a range of 250 miles (400 km) will be only 20 miles (32 km) from the Turkish border.^[520]
• After Russia cuts off all deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine, Ukraine retaliates by banning Russian airliners from flying in its airspace. The Ukrainian ban expands upon a 25 October Ukrainian prohibition of Russian airliners landing at Ukrainian airports.^[521]
• The commander of the
  Special Forces personnel on the ground, who mistook the hospital for a Taliban-held building several hundred yards (meters) away due to fatigue and a high operating tempo. He also announces that several American military personnel have been suspended over the incident and may face additional disciplinary measures.^[522]

• Russian aircraft strike a
  flour mill and a bakery in Saraqib, Syria, that serve 50,000 people in Syria's Idlib Governorate^[523]

• President of Russia Vladimir Putin signs sweeping economic sanctions against Turkey into law in retaliation for Turkey shooting down a Russian Federation Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 (NATO reporting name "Fencer") on 24 November. Included in the sanctions is a ban on air charter flights from Russia to Turkey.^[524]

29 November

• Strikes by jet aircraft, presumed to be Russian, on rebel-held
  Ariha, Syria, hit a busy market, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens; one report puts the death toll at 40 and the number of injured at over 70. It is one of the deadliest airstrikes since the Russian air campaign in Syria began on 30 September.^[525]
• Israel's
  Israel Defense Force had not shot it down and it had returned to Syrian airspace after being contacted by Israeli forces.^[526]
• The last Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, intended for delivery to the United Arab Emirates Air Force in 2017, takes off from the Boeing assembly plant at Long Beach, California, conducting a flyover of the facility before departing. Boeing, which delivered the U.S. Air Force's last C-17 in September 2013, plans to close the Long Beach plant by the end of 2015 – except for small sections left open for one to two more years to provide engineering support for C-17s – because of insufficient foreign orders for the C-17 to justify keeping the assembly line open.^[527]

30 November

• A U.S. Air Force-funded
  air pressure in an airborne aircraft's interior is a major reason for the increased inflammation, as is overuse of 100 percent supplemental oxygen in such a lower-pressure environment.^[528]

• During the month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs releases a report that finds that Russian airstrikes against border crossings and highways in Syria used to deliver humanitarian supplies from Turkey – including one instance in which Russian aircraft struck a hub at the Bab al-Salameh border crossing where truck drivers collect humanitarian supplies for Syria three times in five days – have forced humanitarian agencies to reduce or halt aid to Syrian civilians living in areas of conflict between the Government of Syria and rebel forces. The report also states that Russian aircraft have struck 20 medical facilities, 10 bakeries, a grain silo, and a water treatment plant in Syria since the Russian intervention there began on 30 September.^[523]

2 December

• A U.S. airstrike in Somalia kills senior Al-Shabaab leader Abdirahman Sandhere, also known as "Ukash." The United States Department of Defense will confirm his death on 7 December.^[497]
• After more than 10 hours of debate, the
  Islamic State in Syria. British aircraft previously had only attacked Islamic State targets in Iraq in a campaign they had begun just over a year earlier.^[529]

• The German
  tanker aircraft – at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to provide reconnaissance and refueling support to other aircraft of the U.S.-led coalition. Germany's constitution prohibits German aircraft from participating directly in airstrikes.^[530][531]