This is a list of aviation-related events in 2011.
Events
January 1 January Kolavia Flight 348, operated by Tupolev Tu-154B-2 RA-85588 of Kogalymavia catches fire while taxiing for take-off at Surgut International Airport, Russia, killing three people, and injuring 43. The aircraft is destroyed by the fire.
9 January Iran Air Flight 277, crashes while performing a go-around at Urmia Airport killing 77 of the 106 people aboard, and injuring 26 people. A total of 28 people survived. The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 727-286Adv.
21 January British Airways and Iberia merge to form International Airlines Group (IAG), the world's third-largest airline in terms of annual revenue and the second-largest airline group in Europe. However, both airlines continue to operate under their previous brands.
25 January Senegal Airlines begins flight operations.
February
10 February Manx2 Flight 7100 from Belfast, operated by Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner EC-ITP leased from Flightline BCN of Barcelona, overturns on its third attempt to land at Cork, Ireland in fog, killing six and injuring six. 27 February Indian Airlines merges into Air India.
March
5 March An Antonov An-148 crashes at Garbuzovo, Alxeevsky Region, Belgorod Oblast, Russia following an in-flight break-up. All six people on board are killed. Opposition forces shoot down a Libyan Air Force jet fighter over Ra's Lanuf after it attempts to bomb the town, killing its two pilots.
9 March The Space Shuttle Discovery, first of the space shuttles to be retired, glides to a landing to end its 39th and final mission – the most by any space shuttle."By the Numbers: Space Shuttle Discovery", Aviation History, July 2011, p. 12.
11 March Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake off the coast of Japan, Sendai Airport in Natori, Japan, is engulfed by a tsunami and put out of action. Flights are suspended from a number of airports in Japan, including Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, Tokyo. In Hawaii, Hilo International, Honolulu International, Kahului and Lihue airports are all temporarily closed.
April 1 April Southwest Airlines Flight 812, the Boeing 737-3HR N632SW with 123 people on board, suffers an in-flight structural failure which opens a six-foot (1.8-meter)-long hole in its fuselage and triggers an explosive decompression and the deployment of oxygen masks. Only two people suffer minor injuries, and the airliner makes a successful emergency descent and landing at Yuma International Airport in Yuma, Arizona. Southwest Airlines grounds all 80 of its 737-300s for inspection.
4 April A Georgian Airways Canadair CL-600-2B19 Regional Jet CRJ-100ER (registration 4L-GAE) on behalf of the United Nations crashes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a flight from Goma International Airport to N'Djili Airport in Kinshasa, killing 32 of the 33 people on board.
21 April The Sukhoi Superjet 100, the first airliner developed from start to finish in post-Soviet Russia, makes its first commercial passenger flight, flying for the Armenian airline Armavia from Yerevan, Armenia, to Moscow, Russia.
May
2 May A remotely operated vehicle finally finds the flight recorders from Air France Flight 447 on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and brings them to surface after a 23-month search for them. Flight 447 had crashed on 1 June 2009.Halsey, Ashley III, "Malaysia Airlines flight recorder beacons send signals for 30 days before batteries die," washingtonpost.com, 11 March 2014.
7 May Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 8968, a Xian MA60 with 25 people, crashes off the coast of West Papua, Indonesia while on approach to Kaimana Airport, killing everyone on board.
11 May Judy Wexler becomes the first woman to pilot a human-powered helicopter, remaining airborne for four seconds and achieving an altitude of a few inches in the University of Marylands Gamera I.University of Michigan Human-Powered Helicopter
13 May The first Solar Impulse aircraft, HB-SIA, the first solar-powered aircraft capable of both day and night flight thanks to its batteries charged by solar power, makes its first international flight, flying from Payerne Airport outside Payerne, Switzerland, to Brussels Airport in Belgium, in 12 hours 59 minutes at an average speed of ."Solar Impulse: Premier vol international réussi pour l'avion solaire," planet-techno-science.com, 14 May 2011 (French language).Anonymous, "The FAI Ratifies Solar Impulse's World Records," fai.org, 22 October 2010, 00:23.
18 May Omega Aerial Refueling Services Flight 70, a Boeing 707, veers off the runway in California following an engine separation. The aircraft is consumed by fire. Everyone survives.
June
16 June The Russian Federation's flag carrier Aeroflot puts its first Sukhoi Superjet 100 into service.
20 June On final approach to Petrozavodsk Airport near Petrozavodsk, Russia, after a flight from Moscows Domodedovo International Airport, RusAir Flight 243, the Tupolev Tu-134A-3 RA-65691, lands short of the runway due to poor visibility and weather, killing 47 passengers and crew members and leaving all five survivors injured. The aircraft is written off.
29 June KLM becomes the first airline in the world to provide flights using biofuel.
July
6 July A Silk Way Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane carrying 9 crew members crashes in Afghanistan, while on approach to Bagram Air Base, killing everyone on board.
8 July Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, a Boeing 727-100 crashes on approach to Bangoka International Airport, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo. 42 of the 118 people are killed.
11 July Angara Airlines Flight 9007, an Antonov An-24, ditches into the Ob River, Russia, killing seven of the 37 people on board.
13 July Noar Linhas Aéreas Flight 4896, a Let L-410UVP-E20 (registration PR-NOB) crashes near Recife, Brazil, killing all 16 people on board.
22 July The Space Shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth at the end of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program.
26 July A Royal Moroccan Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft crashes near Guelmim, Morocco, killing all 80 people on board and becoming the deadliest aviation disaster of 2011.ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed C-130H Hercules CNA-OQ Goulimime Airport (GLN)
28 July Asiana Airlines Flight 991, a Boeing 747-400F crashes into the Korea Strait, killing two of its crew. In Senegal, the Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie (National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology) is created by the merger of the country's national civil aviation authority, the Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile du Sénégal (National Agency of Civil Aviation of Senegal) with its national meteorology agency.
29 July EgyptAir Flight 667, a Boeing 777-200ER en route from Cairo to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia suffers a fire in the cockpit while on the ground return to Cairo. All 317 people on board survive.
30 July Caribbean Airlines Flight 523, a Boeing 737-800 overran the runway at Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Georgetown, Guyana. Seven of the 163 people suffered injuries.
August
17 August Kaltim Airlines is founded in Samarinda by Awang F. Ishak and Sabri Ramdhani.
20 August First Air Flight 6560 – a Boeing 737-210C (registration C-GNWN) with 15 people on board arriving from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada – drifts off course in poor visibility on final approach to Resolute Bay Airport at Resolute, Nunavut, Canada, and crashes into a hill a mile from the runway, killing 12 people on board and injuring all three survivors. Recovery of the survivors and investigation of the crash are aided greatly by the ongoing Canadian Armed Forces Operation Nanook 2011, which had planned to simulate an airliner disaster in the Resolute Bay area at the time of the crash, and by the prompt arrival of Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators, who are aboard an aircraft flying to Resolute Bay at the time of crash to take part in the planned simulation.
September
2 September Trying to land for the third time in strong winds, a Chilean Air Force Casa C-212 Aviocar 300DF crashes into the Pacific Ocean on approach to Robinson Crusoe Island Airport on Robinson Crusoe Island in Chile's Juan Fernandez Islands, killing all 21 people on board. Popular Chilean television presenter Felipe Camiroaga is among the dead.planecrashinfo.com Famous People Who Died in Aviation Accidents: 2010sAviation Safety Network Accident Description
4 September At the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Air Expo in Maryland, the United States Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron uses a 50/50 blend of conventional jet fuel and a biofuel made from Camelina sativa, the first time an entire military aviation unit flies on a biofuel mix.Johnson, Andrew (2 September 2011). "Blue Angels Use Biofuel at Patuxent Air Show.". United States Department of Defense (press release). Retrieved 3 September 2011.
7 September A Yak-Service Yakovlev Yak-42D (registration RA-42434) fails to gain altitude on takeoff from Tunoshna Airport in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, and crashes from the runway, killing 43 of the 45 people on board. Known as the 2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash, the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl professional ice hockey team is nearly completely killed in the crash; among the dead at the crash site are players Vitaly Anikeyenko, Mikhail Balandin, Gennady Churilov, Pavol Demitra, Robert Dietrich, Marat Kalimulin, Alexander Kalyanin, Andrei Kiryukhin, Nikita Klyukin, Stefan Liv, Jan Marek, Sergei Ostapchuk, Karel Rachůnek, Ruslan Salei, Maxim Shuvalov, Kārlis Skrastiņš, Pavel Snurnitsyn, Daniil Sobchenko, Ivan Tkachenko, Pavel Trakhanov, Yuri Urychev, Josef Vašíček, Alexander Vasyunov, Alexander Vyukhin, and Artem Yarchuk and coaches Alexander Karpovtsev, Igor Korolev, and Brad McCrimmon. The only team member to survive the immediate crash, Alexander Galimov, dies of his injuries on 12 September, leaving the airliner's avionics flight engineer as the only survivor.Aviation Safety Network Accident Description
16 September The North American P-51D Mustang The Galloping Ghost, flown by James K. "Jimmy" Leeward, crashes into box seats in front of the grandstand at the Reno Air Races at Reno Stead Airport north of Reno, Nevada. Leeward and 10 others are killed and 69 people are injured. It is the third-deadliest airshow accident in U.S. history and the deadliest aviation accident of any kind in the United States in two years.
26 September Boeing delivers its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner to a customer, All Nippon Airways, at Paine Field in Washington.nycavoation.com Lillenthal, David, "Photos: First Boeing 787 Delivery Takes Off Into History", 28 September 2011
27–28 September All Nippon Airways flies the first delivery flight of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, from Paine Field, Washington, to Tokyo International Airport.
30 September Selaparang Airport at Mataram on Lombok in Indonesia closes. It is replaced by the new Lombok International Airport. An American unmanned aerial vehicle strike in Yemen kills Anwar al-Aulaqi, an al-Qaeda recruiter and motivator, and Samir Khan, the editor of the English-language online magazine Inspire published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.Miller, Greg, "U.S. Set to Keep Kill Lists For Years", The Washington Post, 24 October 2012, p. A8.
October Libyan Airlines aircraft fly for the first time since the United Nations military intervention in the Libyan Civil War began in March, operating on the Tripoli, Libya-to-Cairo, Egypt, route. Meridiana Fly acquires Air Italy. Key West International Airport receives approval to provide commercial air service between Key West, Florida, and Cuba. It will take more than two years for charter airline operators to receive all the necessary permissions to make the first flight, which will take place on 30 December 2013 as the first commercial flight between Key West and Cuba in over 50 years.
10 October