This is a list of aviation-related events from 1968.
Events In the 1968, White Paper on Defence, the British Labour government announces that the Royal Navys aircraft carrier force will be phased out as soon as the United Kingdom has completed its withdrawal from Malaysia, Singapore, and the Persian Gulf, scheduled for the end of 1971.Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, , p. 27. The original Golden West Airlines is founded, headquartered at Van Nuys, California. Bonanza Air Lines, Pacific Air Lines, and West Coast Airlines merge to form Air West. It will be renamed Hughes Airwest in 1970.
January North Vietnamese Antonov An-2 utility biplanes conduct bombing raids into Laos and fly night missions against ships and craft of the South Vietnamese Navy.Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, , p. 156. After the Soviet Union complains about damage to a Soviet merchant ship in Haiphong Harbor by American air attack, President Lyndon B. Johnsons administration promises to make every effort to avoid a recurrence of such damage. January 1 – East Germany – the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – abolishes its national civil aviation authority, the Hauptverwaltung der Zivilen Luftfahrt (Central Administration for Civil Aviation), and replaces it with the Staatliche Luftfahrt-Inspektion der DDR (Public Department of Aviation of the GDR), which assumes its functions. January 6 – Aeroflot Flight 1668, an Antonov An-24B (registration CCCP-47733) breaks up at an altitude of and crashes from Olyokma in the Soviet Union′s Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, killing all 45 people on board. An errant antiaircraft missile is suspected of having accidentally shot it down. January 8 – A United States Marine Corps CH-53A #65-100 crashed in the Hải Lăng Forest, South Vietnam, killing all 46 personnel on board. January 10 – A United States Navy C-54P Skymaster encounters severe turbulence, goes into an uncontrolled descent, crashes into Mount Tobin in Pershing County, Nevada, below its summit, and slides down the mountain's side, killing all 19 people on board. January 16 – A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3A-50-LO Orion crashes into a mountain near Iwakuni, Japan, killing all 12 people on board. January 17 – A United States Air Force KC-135A-BN Stratotanker overrotates during takeoff from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, in a snowstorm, stalls, and crashes, killing all 13 people on board. United States Air Force Major General Charles M. Eisenhart is among the dead. January 18–19 (overnight) – A U.S. Navy UH-2 Seasprite piloted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Clyde E. Lassen makes a daring rescue of downed fliers in North Vietnam. For his actions, Lassen will become the only U.S. Navy helicopter pilot to be awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, , p. 91. January 19 – A C-130 Hercules of U.S. Navy Air Transport Squadron 24 (VR-24) and U.S. Navy helicopters from Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy, deliver relief supplies to 40,000 people rendered homeless around Montevago by the Belice earthquake in western Sicily. January 21 – A United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress carrying four nuclear weapons crashes in the sea near Thule Air Base in Greenland. January 27 – The left wing of an Air Comores de Havilland DH.114 Heron (registration F-OCED) strikes a light alongside the runway while landing at Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport in Moroni, Comoros. The plane climbs with its flaps down, crashes into rocks, and plunges into the Indian Ocean, killing 15 of the 16 people on board.
February February 1 – The Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy are disestablished as they merge with the Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Armed Forces. February 6 – A United States Navy P-3B Orion flying an antisubmarine patrol crashes into the Gulf of Thailand off Phú Quốc island, South Vietnam, killing all 12 people on board. February 7 – An Indian Air Force Antonov An-12BP (NATO reporting name "Cub") flying over India in deteriorating weather crashes at an altitude of on Dhaka Glacier near Chandrabhaga Peak 13, killing all 102 people on board. It is the deadliest accident involving an An-12 and at the time it is the deadliest aviation accident in Indian history. The aircraft's wreckage is not found until August 2003. February 7 – A Standard Airways Boeing 707-138B, registration N791SA, operating Canadian Pacific Air Lines flight CP322 from Honolulu with 9 crew and 52 passengers on board, crashed on landing in fog at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The aircraft veered off the runway and hit several small aircraft before coming to rest with its nose embedded in a building. A member of the cabin crew died, as did an airport employee.Crash Probe Opens, Vancouver Sun, 7 February 1968 While there was no fire, the aircraft was a writeoff. The crew was fatigued, the captain made an unwise decision to continue landing in poor visibility conditions and it was unclear who was in control of the aircraft in its last moments.Pilots fought over wheel as 707 crashed, killing 2, Toronto Star, 15 January 1969 February 9 – Claiming to be a civilian employee of a U.S. airline, 19-year-old United States Marine Corps 1st Marine Division Private First Class William Lee Clark is allowed to board a Pan Am Douglas DC-6 with 83 people on board as it prepares to depart Da Nang Airport in Da Nang, South Vietnam, for a charter flight carrying U.S. military personnel to Hong Kong for rest and recreation. He enters the cockpit brandishing a pistol and orders the flight crew to fly him to Hong Kong as well. They shut down the engines but restart them when he threatens to shoot them. During 2 hours and 45 minutes of negotiations, he releases all the passengers, after which the commander of U.S. military forces in Vietnam, United States Army General William Westmoreland, orders tear gas to be shot into the plane. With Clark distracted by the tear gas attack, the copilot disarms and overpowers him. February 10 – .50-caliber (12.7-mm) machine gun fire hits a U.S. Marine Corps KC-130F Hercules carrying a cargo of flamethrowers and rubber bladders filled with jet fuel while it is on final approach to Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, setting one of the fuel bladders and one of its engines on fire. The pilot lands the plane at Khe Sanh, but the rubber bladders explodes into flames after the plane touches down, killing eight of the 11 people on board. February 16 – A Civil Air Transport Boeing 727-92C lands short of the runway at Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, rolls for , becomes airborne again, then crashes into trees and a farmhouse, killing 21 of the 63 people on board and one person on the ground. February 17 – Deciding that he is a Communist who hates the United States, 31-year-old Thomas Boynton charters a Piper Apache to fly him from Marathon to Miami, Florida, then points a gun at the pilot's head shortly after takeoff and orders him to fly to Havana, Cuba, instead. Boynton requests political asylum upon arrival in Havana, but Cuban authorities arrest him and he will spend 20 months in Cuba, mostly in jail. He will be allowed to travel to Canada in October 1969 and will return to the United States in November 1969. February 21 – Seven minutes after Delta Air Lines Flight 843 – a Douglas DC-8 with 109 people on board, including professional golfer Barbara Romack, bound for Palm Beach, Florida – takes off from Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida – Lawrence Rhodes pulls a pistol on a female flight attendant and forces it to fly to Havana, Cuba. After the airliner spends three hours on the ground at Havana, Cuban authorities allow it to return to the United States. February 24 – A Royal Air Lao Douglas DC-3 strikes a mountain and crashes into the Mekong River near Ban Napa, Laos, about north of Vientiane, killing everyone on board. The number of people on board is somewhere between 22 and 37, according to different sources. February 29 – Aeroflot Flight 15, an Ilyushin Il-18D (registration CCCP-74252), experiences an in-flight emergency at an altitude of . Its crew initiates an emergency descent, but the airliner breaks up in mid-air as it passes through and crashes in flames northwest of Parchum in the Irkutsk Region of the Soviet Union′s Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, killing 83 of the 84 people on board. Miraculously, one passenger survives, falling to earth with a large piece of airframe skin.
March The U.S. Air Force conducts reconnaissance flights over South Vietnam and Laos using Lockheed U-2s and over North Vietnam using SR-71 Blackbirds.Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, , p. 157. The United States plans air strikes against North Korea in retaliation for the January 30 North Korean seizure of the United States Navy technical research ship , but then cancels them. March 5 Three hijackers commandeer an Avianca Douglas C-54A-15-DC Skymaster (registration HK-136) with 32 people on board during a domestic flight in Colombia from Valledupar to Barranquilla and force it to fly to Santiago de Cuba in Cuba. After the flight crew of Air France Flight 212, a Boeing 707-328C (registration F-BLCJ), mistakes the lights of Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, for those of Pointe-à-Pitre and begins its descent to a night landing at Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport on the wrong course, the airliner crashes into the volcano La Soufriere on Guadeloupe, killing all 63 people on board. March 6 – After a Republic of Vietnam Air Force C-123K Provider carrying troops and spare parts aborts its approach to Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, because of a light plane on the runway and circles for another approach, ground fire shoots it down. The C-123K spirals into the ground, killing all 49 people on board. March 7 – Aeroflot Flight 3153, a Tupolev Tu-124 (registration CCCP-45019) stalls and crashes just after takeoff from Volgograd Airport in Volgograd in the Soviet Union after its crew inadvertently activates its spoilers. The airliner is destroyed and one crew member dies, but the other 48 people on board survive. March 8 After Air Manila International Flight 507, a Fairchild F-27 (registration PI-C871) flies into a cumulonimbus cloud, it encounters severe turbulence, loses both horizontal stabilizers and part of its right wing, catches fire, and crashes into the Sibuyan Sea off Ibajay in the Western Visayas in the Philippines, killing all 14 people on board. The United States Army announces that Bell Helicopters Model 206A has won the Light Observation Helicopter competition. It will go into production for the Army as the Bell OH-58 Kiowa.David, Donald, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Nobles Books, 1997, , p. 111. March 9 – When the flight crew of a French Air Force Douglas DC-6B fails to follow the normal procedure of turning out over the Indian Ocean after takeoff from Gillot Airport on Réunion and instead flies in a straight line, the aircraft crashes into a hill, killing 16 of the 17 people on board. The Chief of the Defence Staff of France, General Charles Ailleret, is among the dead. March 12 – Two armed men hijack National Airlines Flight 28, a Douglas DC-8 flying from Tampa to Miami, Florida, with 58 people on board, and force it to fly them to Havana, Cuba. They exit the plane in Havana with a Mexican man they appear to have taken as a hostage. March 21 – Three hijackers commandeer an Avensa Convair CV-440 during a domestic flight in Venezuela from Caracas to Maracaibo and force it to fly them to Cuba.