2014 in aviation

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 2014:

Events

January

1 January

• To express his patriotic support for the People's Republic of China's claim to the Diaoyu Islands – also claimed by Japan as the Senkaku Islands – Chinese balloonist Xu Shuaijun attempts to fly his hot-air balloon from Fujian Province, China, to the islands. After nearly 7½ hours in the air, he encounters severe air turbulence, his balloon malfunctions, and he is forced down in the East China Sea 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the islands. A Japan Coast Guard ship picks him up unharmed and transfers him to a Chinese patrol ship.
• Syrian Air Force aircraft conduct a cross-border strike into Lebanon, bombing barren hills in the Jroud Arsal area which Syrian refugees and rebels use to move between the two countries. The raid kills or injures 10 Syrians.

2 January

• A helicopter from the Chinese icebreaking research vessel Xuě Lóng rescues 52 passengers aboard the Russian research ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy – trapped by thick sea ice off Cape De la Motte, George V Land, Antarctica, since 24 December 2013 – and carries them 12 at a time to the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis. Akademik Shokalskiy's 22 crew members remain behind to await a chance to free their ship. A previous attempt by Xuě Lóng to rescue Akademik Shokalskiy's passengers on 28 December 2013 had failed.

6 January

• A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 with 494 people on board makes an emergency landing in Baku, Azerbaijan, due to cabin depressurization while en route from London to Singapore. There are no injuries, but oxygen masks deploy.

7 January

• The Iraqi Air Force strikes a rebel operations center on the outskirts of Ramadi, Iraq. According to Iraqi officials, the strike kills 25 al-Qaeda militants.
• A Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter from the United States Air Force's 48th Fighter Wing crashes at a nature reserve in Cley next the Sea, United Kingdom, killing all four people on board.

8 January

• The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency bans liquids in hand luggage in the country's airports until 1 April 2014, requiring them to be placed in checked baggage instead.

10 January

• Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo successfully completes its third test flight, reaching an altitude of 71,000 feet (21,641 meters) and a top speed of Mach 1.4 over the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. It is the highest altitude SpaceshipTwo has reached thus far.

12 January

• Thinking that they are landing at Branson Airport in Branson, Missouri, the pilots of Southwest Airlines Flight 4103, a Boeing 737-700 with 129 people on board, mistakenly land at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport eight miles (13 km) to the northwest. Although the runway is some 3,400 feet (1,036 meters) shorter and not intended for large commercial aircraft, the pilots are able to stop the plane without damage and with no injuries to passengers or crew, missing tumbling down a steep embankment at the end of the runway by only about 300 feet (91 meters). The 737 takes off safely the following day.

19 January

• An Israeli Air Force aircraft fires a missile at Ahmad Saad as he rides his motorcycle in the Gaza Strip in Israel's first targeted killing attempt there since April 2013. Israel claims that Saad is a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative who specializes in the launching of rockets and was responsible for five rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at Ashkelon, Israel, on 16 January. The Israeli missile strike injures Saad and a 12-year-old boy.

20 January

• Pakistani aircraft begin strikes against targets in North Waziristan. The strikes continue into 21 January, reportedly killing 40 suspected Pakistani Taliban militants.
• A Romanian Superior School of Aviation Britten-Norman BN-2A-27 Islander registered YR-BNP and carrying an organ-harvesting medical team, crashes in bad weather in the Apuseni Mountains in Romania during a domestic flight from Bucharest to Oradea, killing two of the seven people on board.

22 January

• An Israeli Air Force aircraft fires a missile into Beit Hanoun in the northeastern Gaza Strip, killing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member Ahmed Zaanin and his cousin, Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine member Mohammed Zaanin.

23 January

• Five men finally are indicted for the robbery on 11 December 1978 of the Lufthansa cargo handling area at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, New York.

25 January

• Islamic militants shoot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the northern Sinai Peninsula with a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile, killing all five of its crew members. The Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group claims responsibility.

26 January

• An American unmanned aerial vehicle conducts a missile strike against a car in the village of Hawai in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia, killing al-Shabaab commander Sahal Iskudhuq.

30–31 January (overnight)

• Egyptian Apache attack helicopters fire dozens of missiles at houses, shops, vehicles, and other targets in Sheikh Zuweyid in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, reportedly killing 13 suspected members of the Islamic militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

February

1 February

• Syrian military helicopters drop "barrel bombs" – barrels packed with explosives, fuel, and debris capable of leveling residential buildings – on rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo, killing 13 people in the Al-Bab District and at least 10 more elsewhere in the Aleppo area.

4 February

• Syrian aircraft drop barrel bombs on five Aleppo neighborhoods, killing at least five people.

5 February

• More than 700 people have died in Aleppo since 22 January, the vast majority of them civilians killed in barrel-bomb attacks by Syrian aircraft. One estimate places the death toll at 1,242.

7 February

• A man attempts to hijack a Pegasus Airlines flight from Ukraine, saying he has a bomb on board and demanding to be flown to Sochi, Russia, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which had begun the previous day. The pilots turn off the in-flight monitors and land at Sabiha Gökçen Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, fooling the man into thinking he was landing in Sochi. The plane, a Boeing 737-800, is escorted to Istanbul by two Turkish Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters. The man, apparently severely intoxicated, is detained by police and taken to the Istanbul Security Headquarters.

11 February

• An Algerian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft carrying Algerian military personnel and their families crashes in bad weather into Djebel Fertas mountain near Aïn Kercha, Oum El Bouaghi Province, Algeria, killing 77 of the 78 people on board.

16 February

• Nepal Airlines Flight 183, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, crashes into a hill at Dhikura, Nepal, during a domestic flight to Jumla from Pokhara Airport, killing all 18 people on board.

17 February

• Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn, the co-pilot of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 – a Boeing 767-3BGER with 202 people on board bound from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Rome, Italy – locks the cockpit door while the pilot is out of the cockpit to use the toilet and flies the plane to Geneva, Switzerland, where he uses a rope to climb from the cockpit window to the runway. He surrenders to authorities and requests asylum.
• The 748 Air Services Hawker Siddeley HS 748 5Y-HAJ, chartered by the International Organization for Migration on a humanitarian aid cargo flight in South Sudan from Juba International Airport in Juba to Bentiu, touches down too fast at Bentiu Airport, veers off the runway, and crashes. The aircraft runs across a ditch and strikes two parked vehicles, breaks up, and catches fire, killing one of the four people on board. It is the first civil aviation accident in South Sudan since the country became independent from Sudan in 2011.

19–20 February (overnight)

• Pakistani jet fighters and attack helicopters strike Islamic militant hideouts in six locations in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan, Pakistan, and in Nullah and Yousaf Talab in the Bara Tehsil of the Khyber Agency. Estimates of the number of militants killed in the strikes range from 15 to at least 35.

23 February

• Pakistani airstrikes kill at least 38 Islamic militants and destroy six of their hideouts in the Tirah Valley in Pakistan's Khyber Agency.

24 February

• Israeli Air Force aircraft conduct two strikes in Lebanon in the eastern Bekaa Valley along the Israeli border near the Lebanese villages of Janta and Yahfoufa, targeting what a human-rights activist group describes as a Hezbollah "rocket launcher."

25 February

• Pakistani aircraft carry out early morning airstrikes in South Waziristan and in the Shawal valley and Dattakhel areas of North Waziristan, Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 30 people which Pakistani security officials describe as terrorists.

26 February

• A Piper PA-31 Navajo crashes in Hawaii, killing three of the six people aboard.

27 February

• Pakistan conducts its first airstrike against targets in the settled area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as attack helicopters strike Islamic militants in Kulachi Tehsil ijn the Dera Ismail Khan District, killing three suspected militants.
• After three months of civil unrest in Ukraine result in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia places fighter aircraft along the border with Ukraine, and Russian fighters begin flying continual patrols along the border.

28 February

• Unidenitified armed men wearing unmarked Russian-style military uniforms take control of Simferopol International Airport and Belbek Airport, both on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine.
• Approximately 10 Russian Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO reporting name "Candid") military transport aircraft fly about 2,000 Russian troops through Ukrainian airspace without Ukrainian government permission, disembarking them at a military base at Gvardiysky, Ukraine.
• Ukraine reports that eleven Russian military helicopters have flown over the Crimean Peninsula without Ukrainian government permission.
• At nightfall, Ukraine's national airline, Ukraine International Airlines, is denied access to airports on the Crimean Peninsula, and the airspace over the peninsula is declared closed.

March

5 March

• The United States announces that it will increase joint training by United States Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon and C-130 Hercules aircraft with the Polish Air Force to demonstrate the commitment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the defense of Poland during the Crimean crisis in Ukraine.

6 March

• A NATO aircraft mistakenly strikes an Afghan National Army outpost in Logar Province, Afghanistan, killing five and wounding seven Afghan soldiers.
• More than 40 women, members of the Code Pink antiwar activist group, stage a sit-in at Cairo International Airport in Cairo, Egypt, to protest their detention there. They had been detained since arriving there on 4 March, preventing them from traveling to the Gaza Strip. The detainees include Medea Benjamin, Mairead Maguire, and Ann Wright.
• At the request of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the U.S. Air Force transfers six F-15 Eagle fighters and a KC-135 Stratotanker tanker aircraft from RAF Lakenheath, England, to Šiauliai International Airport in Šiauliai, Lithuania – reinforcing four U.S. Air Force F-15s already based there for a routine NATO deployment – as a show of NATO's commitment to the defense of the three countries during the Crimean crisis.

7 March

• Russian troops ram a truck through the gate of a Ukrainian Air Force base outside Sevastopol, Ukraine, seize part of the base, and threaten to shoot the base's Ukrainian personnel if they do not surrender the rest of the base. The Russians withdraw after the Ukrainians refuse to surrender.

8 March

• Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – the Boeing 777-2H6ER 9M-MRO – vanishes over waters where the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea meet while it is flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) with 239 people on board.

10 March

• NATO officials announce that NATO aircraft will fly reconnaissance missions over Poland and Romania that will peer into Russia. NATO apparently intends the announcement of the otherwise routine flights to signal to Russia that NATO is monitoring Russian actions closely during the Crimean crisis.

11 March

• An Israeli military Skylark unmanned aerial vehicle suffers a technical malfunction and crashes in the southern Gaza Strip. Hamas members claim to have captured it and handed it over to security forces.
• An Israeli airstrike against the southern Gaza Strip kills three members of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. The Israeli military says that the strike was in response to mortar attacks from the area against Israeli territory.

12 March

• As the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine fires 60 rockets into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, Israel retaliates with 29 airstrikes, but neither side suffers casualties.

13 March

• Israel conducts airstrikes against a Popular Resistance Committees camp in the southern Gaza Strip and three other sites north of it after the group launches eight rockets against Israeli territory during the day.
• An AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter operated by Haughey Air crashes in the United Kingdom shortly after take-off from Gillingham, Norfolk, for a flight to Rostrevor, County Down, killing all four people aboard, including Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond.

15 March

• After 60 Russian troops and three Russian armored personnel carriers seize a natural gas pumping station on Arabat Spit in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast in the first Russian military action of the Crimean crisis against Ukrainian territory outside the Crimea, Ukrainian aircraft scramble in response and Ukrainian pataroopers take up positions to contain the Russians. Two hours after the initial Russian incursion, Russian helicopters land 60 more Russian troops at Strilkove; they seize the village to reinforce the Russian position at the pumping station.

18 March

• A Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter operated by Helicopters, Inc., under lease to KOMO-TV crashes into the street below immediately after takeoff from its rooftop helipad in downtown Seattle, Washington, exploding and setting three cars on fire. Both men in the helicopter die, and a man in one of the cars suffers life-threatening burns.
• Air Canada suspends flights to Caracas, Venezuela, claiming that it can no longer guarantee safe operations there in the face of civil unrest in Venezuela.

19 March

• In retaliation for the explosion of a bomb that Israel claims the Syrian Army planted or assisted Hizbollah in planting that wounded four Israeli soldiers the previous day, Israeli Air Force planes strike three Syrian Army targets – a military headquarters, a training facility, and an artillery battery – near Quneitra in the Golan Heights, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding seven.

22 March

• Russian ground forces storm and capture the Ukrainian Air Force base at Belbek Airport and the Ukrainian Navy air base at Novofedorivka. Their capture makes Russian control of the Crimean Peninsula virtually complete.

23 March

• A Turkish Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon shoots down a Syrian Air Force jet fighter that Turkey claims violated its airspace. The Syrian pilot ejects safely, and his plane crashes inside Syria near the town of Keseb.

24 March

• An Airbus A330-300 flying as Malaysia Airlines Flight 066 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Seoul, South Korea, makes an emergency landing in Hong Kong, China, due to the failure of its main power generator. An auxiliary power unit is deployed and 271 passengers are put on flights with other carriers.

27 March

• World Airways ceases operations after 66 years of service.

28 March

• Venezuelan Airlines Association President Humberto Figueroa announces that President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro has authorized the release of dollars Venezuela owes to 24 airlines, whose earnings in Venezuela have been trapped there, denominated in Venezuelan bolívars that are losing value quickly due to inflation and frequent currency devaluations, by Venzuelan currency exchange laws.

April

1 April

• A 28-year-old Kosovar man being deported from Germany to Hungary aboard a Lufthansa airliner bound from Munich to Budapest becomes unruly and threatens the crew with a razor blade after takeoff, slightly injuring one flight attendant. The plane returns to Munich, where the other 76 passengers disembark and police negotiate with the man, arresting him without further incident.

3 April

• Tragedy strikes as 222 people attempt to set a skydiving record over Eloy, Arizona, for formation jumping when one of them, 46-year-old German skydiver Diana Paris, falls to her death after her parachute malfunctions.

13 April

• A 14-year-old Dutch girl identified as "Sarah" tweets to American Airlines pretending to be a member of Al-Qaeda and claiming that she plans to "do something really big" on 1 June 2014. Within six minutes, the airline responds, saying that it has forwarded her IP address to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On 14 April, Rotterdam police arrest her; they release her on 15 April. The incident sparks a debate on Twitter between those criticizing the girl for the prank and those criticizing authorities for reacting harshly to pranks and prompts at least a dozen other teenagers to tweet prank terrorist threats to American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
• A man acting strangely aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago, Illinois, to Sacramento, California – at one point emerging from a lavatory soaking wet – attempts to open the aircraft's door while in flight, seeking to jump out. Passengers and air marshals subdue him, and the plane makes an emergency landing in Omaha, Nebraska, where the man is taken into custody.

14 April

• Google confirms that it has purchased Titan Aerospace, a manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Google plans to use Titan Aerospace to develop UAVs capable of bringing Internet connectivity to remote parts of the world. The UAVs are to supplement Google's Project Loon, which employs huge helium balloons for the same purpose. Titan Aerospace can produce UAVs which can remain airborne for up to five years without refueling or landing.

15 April

• Heavy gunfire erupts when a Ukrainian jet attempts to land at Kramatorsk, Ukraine, at an airfield under blockade by pro-Russian forces. Ukrainian troops arrive by helicopter and repeatedly open fire on pro-Russian protesters to keep them away from the airfield's perimeter fence.

16 April

• In the Syrian Civil War, Syrian Air Force jets bomb opposition-held areas in the Old City of Homs, Syria.
• Royal Jordanian Air Force warplanes destroy several ground vehicles, possibly belonging to Syrian rebel forces, trying to cross the border from Syria into Jordan.

19 April

• A missile strike by an American unmanned aerial vehicle against a ground vehicle at Al Bayda', Yemen, kills at least nine suspected members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the vehicle and three civilians in a passing car.
• A Mexican Hawker 700A crashes into a building on final approach to Plan de Guadalupe International Airport, killing all eight people on board, including Mexican newscaster Antonio Davila.

20 April

• An airstrike in the Mahfad Mountains in Yemen against suspected al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula training facilities kills several suspected members of the group.
• A small plane crashes at the Jämijärvi airfield in Finland, killing eight parachutists on board. Three people survive after parachuting from the aircraft.
• At San Jose International Airport, a 16-year-old boy stows away in the wheel well of a Boeing 767 operating as Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 from San Jose, California, to Kahului, Maui, Hawaii. Although the wheel well is unpressurized and the aircraft reaches an altitude of 38,000 feet (11,583 meters), the boy survives low atmospheric pressures and subfreezing temperatures and emerges unharmed at Kahului Airport after about 5½ hours in the air.

21 April

• A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737-800 operating as Flight 192 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Bangalore, India, experiences a right-hand landing gear malfunction upon takeoff and makes a successful emergency landing.
• Yemeni forces supported by American unmanned aerial vehicles continue attacks against a major al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula training camp in Yemen. The Government of Yemen claims that 55 of the terrorist group's members have been killed in the two days of attacks.

24 April

• Pakistan Air Force aircraft attack two Islamic militant hideouts in the Tirah Valley in Pakistan's Khyber Agency, killing 37 suspected militants and wounding 18.
• Petro Poroshenko, the leading candidate for the presidency of Ukraine, claims that three Russian helicopters have violated Ukrainian airspace and that the Government of Ukraine is investigating the incident.
• Russia begins military drills along its border with Ukraine, and Sergei Shoygu, Russia's Minister of Defense, announces that the drills will include aerial exercises.

25 April

• Pro-Russia separatists destroy a Ukrainian government helicopter at a restricted airfield near Kramatorsk, Ukraine, using a rocket-propelled grenade.
• Late in the day, the United States Department of Defense announces that Russian aircraft have violated Ukrainian airspace several times over the previous 24 hours, apparently to test the capabilities of the Ukrainian radar system.

26 April

• A British helicopter crashes in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, killing five North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soldiers on board. It is the greatest loss of life among NATO personnel in Afghanistan in a single incident since six American military personnel died in a helicopter crash on 17 December 2013.
• Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk tells reporters that Russian military aircraft violated Ukrainian airpsace seven times overnight on 25–26 April in an attempt "to provoke Ukraine to start a war."

29 April

• Tunisian Air Force jets and military helicopters support Tunisian Army troops and marines as they begin an operation to destroy an Islamic militant stronghold in Tunisia's Chaambi Mountains harboring members of Ansar al-Sharia and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
• The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announces in The Hague in the Netherlands that it will send a fact-finding mission to Syria to investigate allegations that Syrian Air Force aircraft had dropped chlorine gas on Syrian civilians in at least two villages in northern Syria in recent weeks.
• The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announces that Venezuela has done little to to pay its dollar debt to 24 airlines despite its pledge to do so on 28 March. The IATA reports that the equivalent of $3,900,000,000 owed to the airlines is trapped in Venezuela by Venzuelan currency exchange laws, and that at least 11 airlines have cut service, sales, or routes to Venezuela over the previous year because of their inability to repatriate earnings. Some airlines have cut capacity to Venezuela by as much as 78 percent.

30 April

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) jets support Afghan security forces in an attack on the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. The attack kills 60 Islamic militants.
• Syrian Air Force jets hit the Ain Jalout elementary school in the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo, Syria, with at least six bombs as teachers and students are setting up an exhibit of children's drawings of the Syrian Civil War, killing 20 people, 17 of them children.
• A failure of the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) computer system at a Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control facility at Palmdale Regional Airport in Palmdale, California, grounds flights at airports in the Los Angeles, California, area for over an hour. At Los Angeles International Airport over 200 flights are delayed and 23 cancelled, and departures from Bob Hope Airport in Burbank are delayed for 90 minutes. Planes also are grounded at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dozens of inbound flights are diverted to other airports, and flights to the Los Angeles area are held on the ground throughout the United States until the problem is corrected. Twenty-seven flights to Los Angeles International are canceled, 212 are delayed, and 27 are diverted to other airports, including 15 that land at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, and five that land at Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. The flight disruptions affect tens of thousands of passengers.

May

1 May

• A Syrian government helicopter drops three barrel bombs on a marketplace in the rebel-held Hillok district of Aleppo, killing at least 33 people. One report places the death toll at 44.

2 May

• Pro-Russian separatists shoot down two Ukrainian military Mil Mi-24 (NATO reporting name "Hind") helicopters, one reportedly with a surface-to-air missile, as Ukrainian troops attack separatists in Sloviansk, Ukraine. Two crewmen aboard the helicopters die and the separatists capture and hospitalize the pilot of one of the downed helicopters. A Ukrainian Mil Mi-8 (NATO reporting name "Hip") helicopter reportedly carrying medics is damaged during the fighting, with one person on board wounded.

3–4 May (overnight)

• Airstrikes and Yemeni military ground operations combine to kill 37 suspected al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula members in Meyfaa, Yemen.

4 May

• Airstrikes support Yemeni military ground operations against an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula stronghold in the Naqba Hills in Shabwah Governorate in southern Yemen. Six suspected Islamic militants and four Yemeni soldiers are killed.

5 May

• Heavy machine gun fire from pro-Russian separatists shoots down a Ukrainian military Mil Mi-24 (NATO reporting name "Hind") helicopter near Sloviansk, Ukraine. The helicopter crashes in a river, and Ukrainian security personnel rescue its crew.

12 May

• United States Government officials announce that American aircraft are flying surveillance missions over Nigeria to assist the Nigerian government in its search for victims of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in April by Boko Haram.

13 May

• In Yemen, a Yemeni Air Force jet attacks three trucks carrying explosives from the Shabwa Governorate to the Marib Governorate as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula forces retreat in the face of a Yemeni government offensive. All three truck drivers die, as do five other people believed to be Islamic militants.
• Smoke from an overheated lavatory exhaust fan forces air traffic controllers to evacuate the control room of the Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility in Elgin, Illinois, disrupting air traffic into and out of Chicago, Illinois. Before they return three hours later, more than 600 flights at O'Hare International Airport and 75 flights at Midway International Airport are cancelled, and although a back-up facility in Aurora, Illinois, takes over the control of inbound aircraft, some inbound flights headed for the two airports are diverted elsewhere.

15 May

• A tornado touches down one mile (1.6 km) from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, and another funnel cloud is spotted nearby 20 minutes later, prompting the cancellation of at least four flight and delays for dozens of others.

17 May

• At the end of a flight from Vientiane, Laos, the Lao People's Liberation Army Air Force Antonov An-74TK-300 (NATO reporting name "Coaler") RDPL-34020 crashes in a wooded area between 1,500 and 2,000 meters (4,900 and 6,600 feet) short of the runway while on final approach to Xieng Khouang Airport in Phonsavan, Laos. Between 14 and 20 people reportedly are aboard and only three survive. Among the dead are Douangchay Phichit, the Laotian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense, and his wife, as well as Thongbanh Sengaphone, the Laotian Minister of Public Security; Cheuang Sombounkhanh of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and chairman of the Propaganda Training Committee; Pany Yathotou, a member of the Laotian National Assembly and its president from 2010 to 2014; and Soukanh Mahalath, the governor of Vientiane Province. It is the second-deadliest aviation accident in Laotian history, exceeded only by the crash of Lao Airlines Flight 301 in October 2013.

21 May

• Pakistan Air Force jets and Pakistani military helicopters attack Islamic militant hideouts, killing 60 Islamic militants. Most of the strikes take place around Mir Ali in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

24 May

• During a joint maritime exercise involving the armed forces of Japan and Russia, Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force fighter aircraft scramble to intercept Japanese military planes operating within China's expanded air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, which Japan does not recognize. The following day, the Japanese government accuses the Chinese aircraft of having come dangerously close to Japanese aircraft, claiming that Chinese Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name "Flanker") fighters came within 50 meters (164 feet) of a Japanese Lockheed OP-3C Orion surveillance plane near the disputed Senkaku (or Diaoyu) Islands and within 30 meters (98 feet) of a Japanese NAMC YS-11EB electronic intelligence aircraft. China responds that Japan's violation of a Chinese "no-fly" order for foreign military aircraft in China's air defense identification zone during the Japanese-Russian exercise justifies the actions of the Chinese aircraft.

26 May

• After two days of fighting, Ukrainian troops supported by Ukrainian Air Force MiG fighters and Mil Mi-8 (NATO reporting name "Hip") and Mil Mi-24 (NATO reporting name "Hind") military helicopters retake Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport in Donetsk, Ukraine, from pro-Russian separatists.
• Venezuela reaches deals with six airlines – Aeroméxico, Aruba Airlines, Avianca, Insel Air, TACA, and TAME – to pay dollar debt held up by Venezuelan currency controls and prevent them from ending service to Venezuela.

29 May

• Russian separatists shoot down a Ukrainian Mil Mi-8 (NATO reporting name "Hip") military transport helicopter with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, killing between 12 and 14 of the Ukrainian military personnel aboard, including General Serhiy Kulchitskiy, who was in charge of combat training for the National Guard of Ukraine. Ukrainian Air Force jets join Ukrainian artillery in a counterattck, bombing the forest from which the missile was launched.

31 May

• A private Gulfstream IV business jet catches fire while taking off from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts, and crashes, killing all seven people on board. Lewis Katz, co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, is among the dead.

June

1 June

• A Libyan Air Force jet bombs positions hled by Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, Libya. In a separate raid, Libyan aircraft strike a palace in the western section of Benghazi reportedly held by Islamic militants, apparently in support of renegade General Khalifa Hifter.

2 June

• Libyan Army helicopters strike Islamic militant targets in eastern Benghazi, Libya.

8-9 June (overnight)

• Ten members of the Pakistani Taliban attack Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 26 people. Pakistan Army commandos repond, killing seven of the attackers. The three other attackers commit suicide.

10 June

• Pakistan announces that it has resumed air attacks s against Islamic militants and that airstrikes in the Tirah Valley have killed 25 militants.
• Three or four Islamic militants attack a Karachi Airport Security Force base at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, shutting down the airport for the second time in two days. Security forces repel them.

First flights

• 9 April – Bombardier Aerospace Learjet 85.