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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1989:

Events

January

• January 4 - US Navy F-14 Tomcats shoot down two Libyan Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23s
• January 8 - a British Midland Boeing 737-400 crashes on the M1 motorway near Kegworth, killing 32 people.

February

• February 8 - a misunderstanding between the crew of a Boeing 707 and Air traffic control leads to a crash on Pico Alto mountain on the Azores
• February 24 - a piece of fuselage detaches from a United Airlines Flight 811 over Hawaii. 9 people are sucked to their deaths.

March

• March 22 - an Antonov An-225 sets a total of 106 world and class records during a 3 hour 30 minute flight carrying a Buran orbiter. Its total weight at take-off was 508,200 kg (1,129,370 lb)

April

• April 12 - a British Airways Concorde loses a large piece of its rudder on a flight between Christchurch and Sydney
• April 21 - Lockheed SR-71A, 61-7974, Item 2025, outbound on operational sortie from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, suffers engine explosion, total hydraulic failure. Pilot Maj. Dan E. House and RSO Capt. Blair L. Bozek both eject safely. This was the final Blackbird loss before the type was withdrawn from service.^[1]

June

• June 7 - a Suriname DC-8 Super 62 crashes near Paramaribo Airport, Suriname, killing 168.
• June 8 - a Soviet Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29 suffers a birdstrike during a display at the Paris Air Show. Pilot Anatoli Kvochur manages to prevent the plane from injuring anyone, and saves himself by ejecting at only 400 feet.

July

• July 4 - Crash of an unmanned MiG-23 in Kortrijk, Belgium. The pilot had believed he was experiencing an engine failure shortly after take-off from the Soviet airbase near Kolobzreg, Poland and had ejected, while the aircraft continued on autopilot for 900 km, until running out of fuel. One 18-year-old man on the ground was killed in the crash.^[2]
• July 16 - European air traffic is halted due to industrial action by French air traffic controllers.
• July 19 - A United Airlines DC-10 crashes on landing following a decompression in the number 2 engine. 111 people were killed.

August

• August 5 - Piedmont is merged into USAir.
• August 18 - a Qantas Boeing 747, the Spirit of Australia, flies non-stop from London to Sydney, setting a world record for a four engine jet, after having flown 11,000 miles in 20 hours.
• August 21 - Rare Bear sets a new piston-powered speed record of 528.33mph
• August 22 - Alexander Yakovlev dies, aged 84

September

• September 3 - a Varig Boeing 737 crashes in Brazil killing 53 passengers. The pilots had not noticed an autopilot malfunction because they were listening to a football match.
• September 8 - a chartered Partnair flight crashes into the sea off the coast of Denmark killing 55 people.
• September 20 - a USAir Boeing 737 aborts a takeoff in New York and slides into the East River. Two people are killed.
• September 20 - a UTA DC-10 is destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Niger. 117 passengers are killed.

October

• October 9: Nancy joins United Airlines

November

• November 12 - California Polytechnic State University flies the first human powered helicopter
• November 21 - a British Airways Boeing 747 narrowly misses crashing into the Penta hotel near Heathrow Airport

First flights

January

• January 2 - Tupolev Tu-204
• January 11 - AASI Jetcruzer 450

March

• March 19 - V-22 Osprey

April

• April 30 - SOCATA Omega

May

• May 28 - AIDC Ching-Kuo

July

• July 17 - B-2 Spirit

October

• October 7 - Enstrom 480

December

• December 26 - NAMC N-5

Entered service

• February 9 - Boeing 747-400 with Northwest Airlines
• October 27 - ATR-72 with Kar Air

References