This is a list of aviation-related events from 1986.
Events
January January 9 – The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, resigns amidst a political furore over the future of Westland Helicopters. Two weeks later, Leon Brittan, the Trade and Industry Secretary, also will resign. January 14 – French singer and songwriter Daniel Balavoine, French motorcycle racer Thierry Sabine, and French search-and-rescue helicopter pilot François-Xavier Bagnoud die when their Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil crashes into a sand dune in Mali during a sandstorm. The other two people on board, a reporter and her photographer, also die.planecrashinfo.com Famous People Who Died in Aviation Accidents: 1980s January 28 – VASP Flight 210, a Boeing 737, accidentally tries to take off from a taxiway, and slams into a dyke, killing 1 passenger. January 28 – The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds later after the launch. The explosion killed all seven crew members inside the shuttle.Mondey 1987, p. 59 January 31 – Boeing completes its purchase of de Havilland Canada.
February French Air Force Jaguar ground-attack aircraft help the government of Chad beat back an invasion from Libya by Chadian rebel and Libyan troops.Brogan, Patrick, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Conflict Since 1945, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, , p. 23. February 6 – Last flight of the Airlink helicopter shuttle service between London Gatwick and London Heathrow Airports. February 7 – A United States Air Force C-141B Starlifter departs François Duvalier International Airport outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti, carrying Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier into exile in France.Hanes, Stephanie, "Jean-Claude Duvalier, ex-Haitian leader known as Baby Doc, dies at 63," washingtonpost.com, October 4, 2014. February 12 – United States Navy aircraft carriers commence exercises in the Gulf of Sirte, off the coast of Libya, challenging that country's territorial claims to those waters. February 17 During the first week of an Iranian ground offensive against al-Faw, Iraq, Iraq claims to have flown up to 355 fighter and 134 attack helicopter sorties per day against Iranian forces, losing 15 to 30 aircraft. Bad weather and Iranian use of the cover of darkness have made the Iraqi air operations ineffective.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , pp. 220–221. Using thermals, American pilot Robert Harris sets a world altitude record for gliders, piloting a Burkhard Grob 102 to 49,000 feet (14,935 meters).Ruffin, Steven A., Aviation's Most Wanted: The Top Ten Book of Winged Wonders, Lucy Landings, and Other Aerial Oddities, Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005, unpaginated. The record will stand until August 2006. February 21 – On February 21, 1986, USAir Flight 499, a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31, overran the runway and crashed at Erie International Airport. One passenger suffered minor injuries, while the other 17 passengers and 5 crew were uninjured. February 25 – A small fleet of American military helicopters evacuates deposed President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos and his entourage from Manila to Clark Air Force Base. The following day, he goes into exile in Hawaii.Brogan, Patrick, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Conflict Since 1945, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, , p. 219.
March March 3 – An Iranian helicopter attacks a Turkish tanker in the Persian Gulf. It is the first of several Iranian helicopter attacks against ships in the Persian Gulf.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , p. 226. March 13 – The Iraqi Air Force bombs the Qotar Bridge, an important link between Iran and Turkey.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , p. 227. March 24 – Combat breaks out in the Gulf of Sidra between Libyan military forces and an American naval force which includes the aircraft carriers , , and . Two Libyan MiG-23 fighters engage in a dogfight with two U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats, although none of the aircraft involved fire at each other; Libyan forces ashore fire surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) at American aircraft, scoring no hits; and U.S. Navy aircraft attack Libyan radars, SAM sites, and warships, sinking two vessels. March 25 – An Antonov An-32 belonging to the Indian Air Force disappeared somewhere over the Arabian Sea along with seven occupants on board. March 31 Since fighting over al-Faw, Iraq, began on 9 February, Iran claims to have shot down an average of seven Iraqi fighters a day, while Iraq claims to have shot down several Iranian F-4 Phantom II fighters. The Iraqi Air Force has flown several hundred sorties per day during the fighting, and claims to have flown 18,648 sorties over al-Faw since 9 February.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , p. 223. The center landing gear tire of the Mexicana Boeing 727-264 Veracruz, operating as Flight 940, explodes in flight after being inappropriately filled with compressed air instead of nitrogen. Before the plane can reach an airport to make an emergency landing, it breaks in half, catches fire, and crashes on El Carbón mountain near Maravatío, Michoacán, Mexico, killing all 167 people on board. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in Mexican history and the deadliest involving a Boeing 727.
April April 2 – A bomb planted by the Arab Revolutionary Cells terrorist group explodes over Argos, Greece, aboard Trans World Airlines Flight 840, a Boeing 727-231 with 122 people on board on a flight from Rome, Italy, to Athens, Greece. The explosion blows four passengers, all Americans and one of them a nine-month-old baby, out of the plane and they fall to their deaths; the rapid decompression of the cabin that follows injures seven other passengers, and the aircraft makes an emergency landing. April 14–15 (overnight) – 18 United States Air Force F-111Fs of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing and a United States Navy force of 15 A-6E Intruders, six A-7E Corsair IIs, and six F/A-18 Hornets from the aircraft carriers , , and attack Libya in Operation El Dorado Canyon, with the loss of one F-111 and its two-man crew. The U.S. Air Force component of the raid is the first U.S. bomber mission launched from British soil since 1945; refused permission to fly over France and Spain, the F-111s make a 2,800-mile (4,500-km) flight down the Atlantic Ocean and across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Libya from England; they must be refueled several times in the air and their round-trip flight takes 14 hours.Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Hermes House, 2006, , p. 292-293.Brogan, Patrick, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Conflict Since 1945, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, , pp. 42–43. April 17 – Israeli security guards at London Heathrow Airport discover explosives in the luggage of an Irish woman attempting to board an El Al airliner. Her Jordanian fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, is arrested for planting the bomb without her knowledge in an effort to destroy the airliner. April 18 – French aircraft industrialist Marcel Dassault (born Marcel Bloch) dies at 94. April 27 – Jane Dornacker survives her first crash, with the pilot Bob Banes, of an Enstrom F-28C into the Hackensack River. April 28 – Pan American World Airways resumes service to the Soviet Union, using a Boeing 747 from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
May May 3 A bomb believed to have been planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam detonates aboard Air Lanka Flight 512, the Lockheed L-1011-385 TriStar City of Colombo, while it is on the ground at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka, with 148 people on board. The explosion rips the plane in two, killing 21 people and injuring 41. China Airlines Flight 334, a Boeing 747-2R7F/SCD registered as B-198, was hijacked by the captain after subduing the first officer and the flight engineer. He diverted the aircraft to China to defect over there. A year later, in 1987, the other pilots were reunioned with their families. May 7 The Iraqi Air Force carries out a major air raid against Tehran, Iran, setting Iran's largest oil refinery ablaze and damaging one of its processing units. It is the last Iraqi air attack against Tehran until December 13.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , pp. 227, 244, 268n. Self-taught American aircraft designer Al Mooney dies, aged 80. May 16 – The movie Top Gun, which glamorizes United States Navy aviation, opens in theaters in the United States. May 23 – The Iraqi Air Force raids Iran's Yarchin arms factory. May 24 – American astronaut Stephen Thorne is riding as a passenger in an Aerotec Pitts S-2 aerobatic plane performing maneuvers near Santa Fe, Texas, when its pilot becomes distracted by a short circuit in the electrical system. The plane spins into the ground, killing both Thorne and the pilot.planecrashinfo.com Famous People Who Died in Aviation Accidents: 1980s May 26 – Michel Vaujour escapes from a jail in Paris, France, in a helicopter flown by his wife, a newly graduated helicopter pilot. May 29 – June 1 – The 5th FAI World Rally Flying Championship takes place in Castellón de la Plana, Spain. Individual winners are 1. Krzysztof Lenartowicz and Janusz Darocha (Poland), 2. Carlos Eugui Aguado and Jose Anizonda (Spain), 3. (tie) Wacław Nycz and Marian Wieczorek (Poland) and Witold Świadek and Andrzej Korzeniowski (Poland). Team winners are 1. Poland, 2. West Germany, 3. Spain.
June Iran takes delivery of night vision goggles for its AB-212 helicopter pilots and subsystems giving the AB-212s the capability to fire AS.12 air-to-surface missiles in night anti-ship attacks.Cordesman, Anthony H., and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, , pp. 230–231. June 4 – Los Angeles, California's KFI radio "Eye in the Sky" traffic reporter Bruce Wayne is killed when his Cessna 177B Cardinal suffers engine problems just after takeoff from Fullerton Municipal Airport in Fullerton, California, strikes the top of an unoccupied semi-trailer truck, and crashes and explodes in an industrial area one-half mile (0.8 km) from the runway. Two weeks later, he would have celebrated his 25th year as a Los Angeles-area flying traffic reporter.Jarlson, Gary, "'Eye in the Sky' Reporter Killed:KFI's Bruce Wayne Dies in Flaming Airplane Crash," latimes.com, June 4, 1986. June 9 – The Iraqi Air Force launches the first of two raids against Iran's satellite dish at Assadabad. June 17 – The last flight ever by a Boeing B-47 Stratojet takes place when B-47E-25-DT 52-0166, restored to flight status for a one-time-only ferry move, flies from Naval Weapons Center China Lake, California, to Castle Air Force Base, California, for museum display.Lloyd, Alwyn T., "Boeing's B-47 Stratojet", Specialty Press, North Branch, Minnesota, 2005, , pages 167–168.