January ;7 January •
Divers and an
unmanned underwater vehicle discover and photograph the
tail section of
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 resting on the bottom of the
Java Sea. It is the first discovery of a major piece of wreckage of the
Airbus A320-216 since it disappeared from radar on
28 December 2014 during a flight from
Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. ;10 January • The first major piece of wreckage from Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, a piece of the Airbus A320-216's tail section, is brought to the surface from the bottom of the Java Sea. ;12 January • A
volcanic eruption in
Tonga sends
ash into the sky, prompting the cancellation of all international flights to and from the country. Flights do not resume until 14 January. • Divers retrieve the
flight data recorder from Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501s wreckage on the bottom of the Java Sea. ;13 January • Divers retrieve the
cockpit voice recorder from Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501s wreckage on the bottom of the Java Sea. ;18 January • A
Syrian Air Force Antonov An-26 crashes at
Abu adh Dhuhur Air Base in Syria, killing all 30 people on board. The
Government of Syria says that it crashed due to fog, but the
al Nusra Front claims to have shot it down. ;19 January •
Indonesia AirAsia X, an airline created as a joint venture of
AirAsia X and
Indonesia AirAsia to provide long-haul service from
Bali's
Ngurah Rai International Airport, makes its first flight, from Bali to
Taipei, Taiwan. ;20 January •
Olimp Air Flight 4653, an
Antonov An-2 biplane crashes, killing six. ;26 January • A
Hellenic Air Force General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon crashes into a flight line, killing 11. ;28 January • The
United States Air Force announces that
Boeing will build the next
Air Force One. The aircraft is to be a
Boeing 747-8 that is to become operational by 2023. ;29 January • A
Bombardier Challenger 600 is
shot down over
Aruba, killing 3.
February ;4 February •
TransAsia Airways Flight 235, an
ATR 72-600 with 58 people on board, experiences an engine
flameout just after takeoff from
Taipei Songshan Airport in
Taipei, Taiwan. After clearing an apartment building, the aircraft rolls sharply to the left at low altitude, and its left wingtip strikes a taxicab on the Huangdong Viaduct and the viaduct's guardrail before it crashes into the
Keelung River in Taipei. Among people on the plane, the crash kills at least 35, with another eight missing and all 15 survivors injured. Two people in the taxicab also suffer injuries.
Dashcams in several vehicles driving on the viaduct record the crash. ;8 February • Chilean mountaineers announce that they have discovered the wreckage of
LAN-Chile Flight 621, a
Douglas DC-3 carrying 24 people, including eight members of the Chilean
football (soccer) team
Club de Deportes Green Cross, which disappeared over the
Andes Mountains in
Chile during a domestic flight from
Osorno to
Santiago on
3 April 1961. The wreckage is in the Andes at an altitude of about about south of Santiago.
March ;5 March • Landing during a
snowstorm at
LaGuardia Airport in
Queens,
Delta Air Lines Flight 1086, a
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 carrying 132 people, skids off the end of Runway 13, crashes through a perimeter fence, and comes to rest on an earthen embankment along
Flushing Bay. Twenty-four people on board suffer injuries. ;9 March • Two Argentine
Eurocopter AS350B3 Écureuil helicopters (registration LQ-CGK and LQ-FJQ) involved in filming the French
reality television series
Dropped, each carrying a pilot and four passengers,
collide in mid-air at an altitude of about seconds after takeoff at
Villa Castelli, Argentina, crash about apart, and burst into flame. All 10 people on board the two helicopters – the two Argentine pilots and eight French passengers – die. Among the dead are French athletes
Florence Arthaud,
Camille Muffat, and
Alexis Vastine. ;10 March • Flying in dense fog, a
United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter carrying an
Army National Guard crew of four and seven
United States Marine Corps personnel
crashes in
Florida's
Santa Rosa Sound near
Okaloosa Island, killing all 11 men on board. ;13 March • A
Serbian Army Mil Mi-17 crashes, killing 7. ;24 March •
Germanwings Flight 9525 – an
Airbus A320-200 (registration D-AIPX) flying from
Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport in
Barcelona, Spain, to
Düsseldorf Airport in
Düsseldorf, Germany, crashes near
Prads-Haute-Bléone, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France. Evidence recovered from both the cockpit voice and flight data recorders suggests that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, intentionally crashed the aircraft after preventing the
captain from returning to the cockpit. All 150 people on board are killed. ;27 March • After the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, the
European Aviation Safety Agency issues a temporary recommendation for airlines to ensure that at least two crew members, including at least one pilot, are in the cockpit at all times of the flight. ;29 March •
Air Canada Flight 624, an
Airbus A320-211 (registration C-FTJP) with 138 people on board, lands short of the runway in snow and poor visibility at
Halifax International Airport in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It smashes through an antenna array, loses its landing gear, severs the power line that supplies all of the airport's electricity, and slides to a stop on its belly, suffering severe damage. All aboard survive, but 23 people suffer injuries. ;30 March •
Yemenia suspends flight operations due to military conflict at its home base,
Sanaa International Airport in
Sanaa, Yemen. ;31 March • Since 1 January,
Airbus has booked gross orders for 121 aircraft, while
Boeing has booked 116. However, after cancellations and conversions, Boeing has 110 net orders since 1 January compared with Airbus's 101. Since 1 January, Airbus has delivered 134 aircraft to customers, including one
A350 and four
A380s.
April ;13 April •
Carson Air Flight 66, a
Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner, suffers an
in-flight breakup and crashes, killing all on board. ;14 April •
Asiana Airlines Flight 162, an
Airbus A320-200 (registration HL7762) with 82 people on board, loses height on final approach to
Hiroshima Airport in
Mihara, Japan, strikes an
instrument landing system localizer antenna, and skids onto the runway on its tail, spinning 180 degrees before coming to a stop. Its landing gear collapses and it suffers damage to its left wing and left engine. No one is killed, but 20 of the people on board suffer injuries.
May ;8 May • To commemorate the 70th anniversary of
Victory in Europe Day – when
Nazi Germany surrendered to the
Western Allies at the end of
World War II in Europe on 8 May 1945 – the Arsenal of Democracy Flyover takes place over
Washington, D.C. Fifty-six aircraft of the World War II era take part; aircraft types represented are the
Piper L-4 Grasshopper,
Boeing-Stearman Model 75,
Fairchild PT-19,
North American AT-6 Texan,
Beechcraft Model 18,
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk,
North American B-25 Mitchell,
Consolidated PBY Catalina,
Douglas SBD Dauntless,
Grumman F4F Wildcat,
Lockheed P-38 Lightning,
Consolidated B-24 Liberator,
North American P-51 Mustang,
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress,
Douglas C-47 Skytrain,
Curtiss SB2C Helldiver,
Grumman TBF Avenger,
Douglas A-26 Invader,
Vought F4U Corsair, and
Boeing B-29 Superfortress. One Avenger suffers a mechanical malfunction as it passes the review area over the
World War II Memorial and makes an immediate emergency landing at nearby
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in
Arlington County, Virginia. ;8 June •
Air Lituanica files for bankruptcy. It had ceased flight operations on
22 May. ;30 June • An
Indonesian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules 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.
July ;1 July • A new terminal for international civilian flights, Terminal 2, opens at
Pyongyang International Airport in
Pyongyang, North Korea. ;9 July • 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. ;10 July • The
Airbus E-Fan X makes a flight from
Lydd, England, to
Calais, France, in approximately 37 minutes, flying at an altitude of around , becoming the first twin-engine, all-electric plane to cross the
English Channel. The flight is made on the same route as that
Louis Blériot used made when he made the first crossing of the English Channel in an airplane on
25 July 1909, but in the opposite direction. ;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. ;30 July •
Facebook announces that it will begin testing the full-size version of its Aquila unmanned aerial vehicle later in the year. The 1,000-pound (454-kg) aircraft has a wingspan of and is designed to fly for up to 90 days at an altitude of up to and use
laser optics to bring
Internet connectivity to parts of the world where conventional connectivity is impractical. ;31 July • An
Embraer Phenom 300 crashes, killing four.
August •
Yemenia resumes flights to
Yemen with a flight from
Saudi Arabia to
Aden International Airport in
Aden. ;4 August •
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. • A
Colombian government UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter involved in a
counter-narcotics operation against the
Clan Úsuga criminal organization
crashes into the side of a mountain in northwestern
Colombia, killing 16 policemen. ;5 August •
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. ;6 August •
Malaysia's
Minister of Transportation,
Liow Tiong Lai, announces that more aircraft debris – including a window and some
aluminum foil – that may be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been discovered washed up on Réunion. ;16 August •
Trigana Air Flight 267, an
ATR 42-300 with 54 occupants aboard on a domestic flight in
Indonesia from
Sentani Airport in
Jayapura to
Oksibil crashes into a mountain in the Bintang highlands region of the Indonesian province of
Papua on
New Guinea. All on board die, making it the deadliest accident in the history of
Trigana Air Service, as well as the deadliest accident to date involving an ATR 72. ;20 August • Two
Let L-410 Turbolet aircraft carrying
parachutists rehearsing for a nearby
air show collide over
Červený Kameň, Slovakia, at an altitude of about 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. ;22 August • A
Hawker Hunter T7 performing
aerobatics at the
Shoreham Airshow at
Shoreham Airport in
Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England,
crashes onto the
A27 road, striking several ground vehicles. The crash destroys eight ground vehicles and kills at least 11 people – including two players from the
English football team
Worthing United F.C. – and injures 16 others. It is the deadliest air show accident in the United Kingdom since a
crash at the 1952 Farnborough Airshow which killed 31 people.
September ;3 September • The
Paris prosecutor in France announces that a technician from
Airbus Defence and Space in Spain had confirmed that a
flaperon found washed up on
Réunion in the
Indian Ocean on
29 July was from the
Boeing 777 that disappeared in
March 2014 while operating as
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Airbus Defence and Space had manufactured the flaperon for
Boeing. ;5 September • Over eastern
Senegal,
Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines Flight 71, a
Boeing 737-8FB (registration 3C-LLY) flying from
Dakar, Senegal, to
Cotonou, Benin, collides with a
Senegal Airlines Hawker Siddeley HS125-700A air ambulance (registration 6V-AIM) flying from
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to Dakar. The Boeing 737 suffers only minor damage and diverts to
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 off the coast of Senegal, presumably when it runs out of fuel. All seven people aboard the air ambulance die. ;8 September • The left engine of
British Airways Flight 2276, a
Boeing 777-236ER (registration G-VIIO), catches fire while the aircraft waits to take off from
McCarran International Airport in
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. ;15 September • 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. ;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 and a maximum speed of .
October • SATA International is rebranded as
Azores Airlines. ;1 October> •
Tracey Curtis-Taylor begins a 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. ;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 Air Force C-130J Hercules crashes at
Jalalabad Airport in
Jalalabad, Afghanistan, killing all 11 people – six U.S. Air Force members and five civilians – on board. A further three on the ground were also killed. The
Taliban claims to have shot it down, but the
United States armed forces respond that enemy fire is highly unlikely to have caused the crash. ;13 October • The
Dutch Safety Board releases its report on the crash of
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. ;17 October • An
Airbus A321 operating as
US Airways Flight 1939 – commemorating the year of the airline's founding – lands before dawn at the airline's
hub in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, completing a journey begun from Philadelphia on 16 October that stopped at all of US Airways' other hubs – at
Charlotte, North Carolina;
Phoenix, Arizona; and
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. ;25 October • The bankrupt Russian airline
Transaero goes out of business. ;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. ;31 October •
Metrojet Flight 9268, an
Airbus A321-231 operated by the Russian airline
Kogalymavia bound for
Saint Petersburg, Russia, breaks apart in midair near its cruising altitude of 23 minutes after takeoff from
Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport in
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and crashes in the central
Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State claims to have brought the plane down, but does not describe how, and experts claim that the Islamic State has no weapons capable of hitting the airliner at the altitude at which it was flying when the incident occurred; after the crash,
Air France-KLM,
Emirates, and
Lufthansa nonetheless announce that their airliners will avoid flying over the Sinai Peninsula.
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. ;4 November •
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. • An overloaded
Antonov An-12 cargo aircraft (registration EY-406) operated by Allied Services, Ltd., carrying a crew of six and at least 12 passengers
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. ;10 November •
Execuflight Flight 1526, a
Hawker 800 business jet, crashes into an apartment complex while on approach to land at
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. ;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. ;22 November •
Avia Traffic Company Flight 768, a
Boeing 737 Classic, crashed following a runway overrun, injuring 14. ;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 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 off the Australian coast since October 2014, has covered without finding any trace of the airliner. ;24 November • A
Turkish Air Force General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon shot down a
Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24, killing one. ;29 November • 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.
December ;22 December • A
Beechcraft King Air operated by the
Indian Border Security Force crashes, killing 10. ;30 December • A South African teenager finds a piece of debris on a beach in
Mozambique and takes it home to
South Africa. In
March 2016, his family will turn the debris in to South African aviation officiaLs, who plan to examine it to see if it is from
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, a
Boeing 777 missing since
8 March 2014. ==First flights==