This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
Events Early in the year, the United States introduces the Walleye II optically guided glide bomb into service, employing it in the Vietnam War. It becomes known as the "Fat Albert."Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, , p. 159.
January The last elements of the U.S. Armys 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) are withdrawn from Vietnam.Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, , p. 157. The Aeritalia company, formed in November 1969, becomes fully operational.Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the Worlds Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, , p. 65. January 4 Biman Bangladesh Airlines is founded. Having lost its last aircraft in a crash 11 days earlier, the Peruvian airline LANSA runs out of operating funds and goes out of business. It had been founded in 1963. January 5 – President Richard M. Nixon announces $US 5.5 billion in funding for the Space Shuttle program. January 7 – As Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 902, a Boeing 727-200 with 151 people on board, prepares to land at Los Angeles, California, after a flight from San Francisco, two individuals and their infant son hijack the airliner. They demand to be flown to Africa, but agree to be flown to Cuba instead when they are informed the plane lacks the range to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The captain negotiates the release of the passengers in Los Angeles, after which the plane carries its crew, the hijackers, and three off-duty flight attendants to Cuba via a refueling stop at Tampa, Florida. In Cuba, the hijackers return control of the aircraft to the captain.ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727 ?Airliner Magazine, November 2000"Skyjacker of the Day #19: Ida Robinson," May 31, 2013. January 12 – Billy Gene Hurst Jr., hijacks Braniff Flight 38, a Boeing 727 with 102 other people on board, during a flight from Houston to Dallas. After arrival at Love Field in Dallas, he releases the other 94 passengers but holds all seven crew members hostage, demanding to be flown to South America during a standoff with police. Eventually, the entire crew escapes, and police storm the airliner and arrest him. January 19 – Flying a United States Navy F-4J Phantom II fighter of Fighter Squadron 96 (VF-96) off of the attack aircraft carrier , Lieutenant Randy "Duke" Cunningham (pilot) and Lieutenant (Junior Grade) William "Irish" Driscoll (radar intercept officer) shoot down a North Vietnamese MiG 21 fighter. It is the first air-to-air victory by an American aircraft over Vietnam since March 1970. January 20 – Two months after the celebrated hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305 by an unidentified man who becomes popularly known as "D. B. Cooper", Hughes Airwest Flight 800 becomes the target of a copycat hijacker. After boarding at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, 23-year-old Richard Charles La Point claims he has a bomb while the plane is on the taxiway and demands US$50,000 in cash, two parachutes, and a helmet. When his demands are met, La Point releases 51 Reno, Nevada-bound passengers and two flight attendants, after which the DC-9 takes off and flies eastward toward Denver, Colorado, followed by two United States Air Force F-111 fighters. Without a coat and in cowboy boots, La Point bales out via the plane's lower aft door over the Eastern Plains in northeastern Colorado in mid-afternoon. The parachutes he had been given were high-visibility ones secretly equipped with emergency locater devices, and he sprains his ankle on landing, making it impossible for him to move; he is apprehended a few hours later, with minor injuries and very cold. The plane, with two pilots and a flight attendant on board, lands safely at Denver's Stapleton International Airport at 2:55 pm MST. Facing potential death penalty charges for air piracy, La Point will be sentenced to 40 years in prison, but will serve less than eight and be released from a halfway house in 1979.skyjackeroftheday.tumblr.com "Skyjacker of the Day BONUS: Richard LaPoint," June 8, 2013. January 23 – The United States suspects that SA-3 Goa surface-to-air missiles have become operational in North Vietnam. January 26 JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, explodes in flight at , breaks into two pieces, and crashes near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, killing at least 27 of the 28 people on board. The sole survivor, flight attendant Vesna Vulović, sets a record that still stands for surviving the longest fall without a parachute. A hijacker commandeers Mohawk Airlines Flight 452 – a Fairchild Hiller FH-227B with 47 people on board flying from Albany, New York, to New York City – and demands a ransom. He forces the airliner to land at Dutchess County Airport outside Poughkeepsie, New York, where he is shot and killed while trying to escape in a getaway car.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description January 27 – Civil aviation in Canada is halted by a strike by air traffic controllers. January 28 – Singapore Airlines was founded. January 29 – Garrett Brock Trapnell hijacks a Trans World Airlines airliner during a flight from Los Angeles, to New York City and demands US$306,000, the release from prison of militant Angela Davis, and a conversation with President Richard Nixon. A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent shoots and disarms him, and he is imprisoned. In separate incidents in 1978, his wife Barbara Ann Oswald will die in an attempt to free him using a hijacked helicopter and his daughter Robin Oswald will hijack another airliner in a failed attempt to get him released.
February Aeronaves de México changes its name to Aeroméxico. Off the coast of Maine, a U.S. Navy air mine countermeasures unit participates in an amphibious warfare exercise for the first time.Melia, Tamara Moser, "Damn the Torpedoes": A Short History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777–1991, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1991, , p. 100. February 4 – Biman Bangladesh Airlines began flight operations, using a single Douglas DC-3 to provide domestic services. February 5 Aeroflot and Lufthansa jointly open services between Moscow in the Soviet Union and Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and de Havilland Canada extensively modify a C-8 Buffalo for short takeoff and landing (STOL) experiments. February 10 – Biman Bangladesh Airlines' only plane, a Douglas DC-3, crashes during a test flight less than a week after it began flight operations. February 19 – A male passenger armed with a hand grenade attempts to hijack an Alia Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle with 37 people on board flying from Cairo, Egypt, to Amman, Jordan, and demands to be flown to Libya. Two security guards on board the airliner overpower him, and the plane lands safely at Amman.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description February 22 – Lufthansa Flight 649, a Boeing 747-200 flying from Tokyo, Japan, to Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany, is hijacked during the New Delhi, India-Athens, Greece, leg of the flight and forced to divert to Aden in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, where all 182 passengers and crew are released the next day in exchange for a $5 million ransom.
March March 3 – Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild Hiller FH-227, crashes into a house while on final approach to Albany County Airport (later Albany International Airport) in Albany, New York, killing 16 of the 48 people on the plane and injuring all but one of the 32 survivors. The crash also kills one person and injures three others on the ground. March 4 – Biman Bangladesh Airlines inaugurates its first international route, using a single Boeing 707 to provide service between Bangladesh and London. March 7 At Tampa International Airport in Florida, Edmund McKee pulls a revolver on a National Airlines ticket agent helping passengers board National Airlines Flight 67 – a Boeing 727 with 24 people aboard – and takes the agent hostage, saying he wants to hijack the jetliner. He is escorted aboard and demands to fly to Sweden. The captain informs McKee that the airliner lacks the range to cross the Atlantic Ocean, then convinces him to release all of the passengers and to step outside to continue negotiations. Once McKee exits the aircraft, security personnel overpower and arrest him.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Descriptionskyjackeroftheday.tumblr.com "Skyjacker of the Day #69: Edmund McKee," April 11, 2013. As a Chalk's International Airlines Grumman G-73 Mallard refuels at Watson Island, Florida, during a flight from Miami to Bimini with five passengers and a crew of two, Joseph Terron Bennett and James William Brewton of the Black Liberation Army hijack it and demand to be flown to Cuba. A Chalk's mechanic gets a pistol out of his car, intending to shoot out the plane's tires, but the hijackers shoot and wound him. After the pilot refuses to start the engines, the hijackers shoot him also, and he jumps from the aircraft followed by one passenger. With four passengers still aboard, Bennett and Brewton force the copilot to fly them to Havana, which – after bumping into a Grumman Goose parked beside it at Watson Island – the Mallard barely reaches with its fuel tank almost empty. Cuban authorities arrest the two hijackers and allow the Mallard and its passengers and copilot to fly back to the United States the next day. Brewton will be killed during an armed robbery in Jamaica in 1975, while Bennett will return to the United States secretly in 1982 and will not be arrested there until 1983.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking DescriptionRosenblatt, Andy, and Michael H. Cottman, "Miami hijacking suspect arrested," Miami Herald, December 11, 1983. March 9 – American aircraft record their 100th protective reaction strike of the Vietnam War against enemy surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft artillery sites. March 11 – A hijacker commanders an Alitalia Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle flying from Rome to Milan, Italy, with 36 people on board and forces it to fly to Munich, West Germany.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description March 12 – Tunisair takes delivery of its first Boeing aircraft, a Boeing 727-200. March 14 – Sterling Airways Flight 296, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes into a mountain ridge near Kalba in the United Arab Emirates, killing all 112 people on board. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in the history of that nation. March 19 – EgyptAir Flight 763, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, crashes into the highest peak of Aden Crater, an extinct volcano, while on approach to land at Aden International Airport, killing all 30 people on board. It remains the deadliest civil aviation accident in the history of Yemen. Late March – The commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force visits North Vietnam, apparently leading to improved North Vietnamese air defense tactics that will be observed between April and September. March 31 – In response to the North Vietnamese "Easter Offensive" against South Vietnam that began on March 30, the United States begins a series of deployments code-named "Constant Guard", in which a large number of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps squadrons return to bases in South Vietnam and Thailand and the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier presence at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin increases from two on March 30 to six by late spring.Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, , p. 161.
April April 1 BOAC and BEA merge to create British Airways. Tunisair inaugurates service on the Tunis–London route, using a leased Boeing 707.