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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1981:
Events January - January 3 – Pan American World Airways makes its final Boeing 707 flight.
- January 7 – A Boeing 747 of CAAC lands at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, marking the first flight from the mainland of China to the United States time since 1949.
- January 11 13 – Max Anderson and Don Ida make a failed attempt to circumnavigate the world by balloon, although their craft, the Jules Verne, makes a flight of 2,900 miles (4,667 km) from Luxor, Egypt, to New Delhi, India, in 48 hours before they give up.
- January 25 – Bell Helicopter delivers its 25,000th production helicopter, a Bell 222 to Omniflight Helicopters.[1]
- January 28 – Pan Am commences a weekly New York-Beijing service.
February March - March 2 – Japan Air Lines is the first airline to use a computerised flight simulator to train its crews.
- March 26 – The keel of the first aircraft carrier designed as such to be built in Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, is laid by Italcantieri in Monfalcone.[2]
- March 28 – Members of the group Komando Jihad hijack the Douglas DC-9 Woyla, operating as Garuda Indonesia Flight 206 with 57 passengers on board, during a flight from Palembang to Medan on Sumatra in Indonesia, ordering the plane to fly to Colombo, Sri Lanka. After refueling at Penang, Malaysia, the aircraft flies to Don Muang, Thailand, where commandos of the Royal Thai Air Force and Indonesian Army Kopassus unit storm it. Four hijackers and a Kopassus commando are killed and two people are injured; the two hijackers who surrender are killed on an aircraft taking them and the Kopassus troops to Djakarta.
- March 28 – Air France pilot Michel Breton flies the airline's last Sud Aviation Caravelle service, from Amsterdam to Paris.
- March 29 – British Airways makes its last Vickers VC10 flight.
April May - May 2 – A 55-year-old Australian man, Laurence James Downey, enters a lavatory aboard Aer Lingus Flight 164, a Boeing 737-200 with 107 other people on board, five minutes before landing at London Heathrow Airport in London, England, douses himself with petrol (gasoline), and walks into the cockpit with a cigarette lighter in his hand. He demands that the airliner fly to Iran, then specifies France when the flight crew tells him that the aircraft lacks the fuel to fly to Iran. The plane lands at Le Touquet C te d'Opale Airport in Le Touquet, France, where Downey demands that Pope John Paul II make public the Third Secret of Fatima. After 10 hours, French police storm the plane and arrest Downey without injury to anyone.
- May 9 – After modifications, the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes reenters service with the Royal Navy as the worlds first carrier with a ski-jump ramp. Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander D. R. Taylor had developed the ramp.[3]
June - June 7 - In Operation Opera, eight Israeli Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons armed with two 2,000-pound (907-kg) bombs each, escorted by six F-15 Eagles, make a long-range strike into Iraq to destroy the nuclear reactor at Osirak. A French technician and a number of Iraqis are killed. It is the first time any air force uses the F-16 in combat.[4][5]
- June 26 – Dan-Air Flight 240, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 series 2A cargo aircraft, crashes near Nailstone, Leicestershire, England, killing the entire crew of three, after the failure of a cabin door causes a major structural failure.
July August - August 13 – All 13 people on board die when a Bristow Helicopters Westland Wessex 60 helicopter carrying workers from the offshore Leman Gas Field to Bacton Gas Terminal at Bacton, Norfolk, England, loses power and crashes into the North Sea.
- August 19 – Indian Airlines Flight 557, a HAL 748, is damaged beyond repair when it overruns the runway at Mangalore Airport at Mangalore, India, but all 26 people on board – among them Karnataka state and future Indian government official Veerappa Moily – are uninjured.
- August 19 – Two United States Navy F-14 Tomcats of Fighter Squadron 41 (VF-41) aboard the aircraft carrier shoot down two Sukhoi Su-22s (NATO reporting name "Fitter") of the Libyan Air Force over the Gulf of Sidra 60 nautical miles (111 km) off the coast of Libya using AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. They are the first and second of the five kills F-14s will score in U.S. Navy service during the Tomcats career.[6]
- August 22 – Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103, a Boeing 737-222, suffers explosive decompression shortly after departure from Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, after severe corrosion leads to a pressure hull rupture. The plane breaks up in mid-air and crashes, killing all 110 people on board.
September - September 3 - McDonnell Douglas delivers the 1,000th DC-9 produced; it was ordered by Swissair.
- September 10 - British Airways CEO Roy Watts announces a financial crisis for the airline. He states that the company is losing UK 200 per minute.
October November December First flights January March April June September November December Entered service January April December Retirements References cs:1981 v letectv fr:1981 en a ronautique hu:1981 a l gi k zleked sben ja:1981 ru:1981 vi:H ng kh ng n m 1981
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