This is a list of aviation-related events in 2014.
Events
January
10 January In Jakarta, Indonesia, Halim Perdanakusuma Airport resumes service of scheduled flights after a hiatus of almost 29 years to relieve overcrowding at the city's main airport, Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. It is the first time since the opening of Soekarno–Hatta International in March 1985 that Halim Perdanakusuma Airport has handled anything other than charter and military flights and general aviation.
20 January Școala Superioară de Aviație Civilă Flight 111, a Romanian Superior School of Aviation Britten-Norman BN-2A-27 Islander registered YR-BNP and carrying an organ-harvesting medical team, crashes in the Apuseni Mountains in Romania during a domestic flight from Bucharest to Oradea, killing two of the seven people on board.Gabriel Oprea, Aviation accident from 20.01.2014Elvira Gheorghiță, Aviation accident in Apuseni Mountains - Dr. Calu called her colleague right after the crash: „We crash landed. I am lying on the floor, barely breathing”, mediafax.ro, accessed 21 January 2014
February
5 February Merpati Nusantara Airlines ceases flight operations due to financial problems.
11 February Myanma Airways (the future Myanmar National Airlines) signs the largest single aircraft order in the history of Myanmar (known until 1989 as Burma). The $960 million order with GECAS for six Boeing 737-800 and four Boeing 737 MAX airliners is the largest sale to Myanmar (or Burma) by a U.S. company in decades. 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. The same aircraft was previously involved in a 1973 hijacking.
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.
March
8 March Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – the Boeing 777-2H6ER 9M-MRO – vanishes over the Gulf of Thailand while it is flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, at an altitude of with 239 people on board. An investigation concludes that the airliner turns off course after ground stations lose radio contact with it and flies to the southern Indian Ocean, where it presumably crashes, although an extensive search yields no trace of it.
13 March 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.
27 March World Airways ceases operations after 66 years of service.
30 March TAM Airlines and US Airways leave the Star Alliance airline alliance.
31 March TAM Airlines and US Airways join the Oneworld airline alliance.
April
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 Googles 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.
30 April 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
17 May At the end of a flight from Vientiane, Laos, the Lao People's Liberation Army Air Force Antonov An-74TK-300 RDPL-34020 crashes in a wooded area between 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.
28 May The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared on 8 March, is suspended, having found no trace of the aircraft. It will not resume until October, after an extensive underwater mapping effort in the next planned search area is completed.
31 May 19-year-old pilot Matt Guthmiller departs Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California in an attempt to become the youngest pilot to circumnavigate the globe, solo. 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
2 June The Solar Impulse 2 solar-powered aircraft makes its maiden flight over Payerne, Switzerland. In a 2-hour 17-minute flight, pilot Markus Scherdel climbs to an altitude of and tests the aircraft in a series of maneuvers, beginning a test-flight program that will last for several months. Plans call for Solar Impulse 2 to become the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth in 2015.
12 June The low-cost Indian-Malaysian airline AirAsia India begins flight operations, offering service between Bangalore and Goa with Airbus A320-200 aircraft and making the Malaysian airline AirAsia the first foreign airline to operate a subsidiary in India.
13 June American physician Richard Rockefeller is killed when the Piper PA-46-500TP Malibu Meridian he is piloting strikes a tree while taking off in dense fog and heavy rain from Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, and crashes in Harrison, a mile (1.6 km) from the airport.
14 June Pro-Russian separatists open fire with anti-aircraft weapons and heavy machine guns and shoot down a Ukrainian Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO reporting name "Candid") military transport aircraft carrying 40 Ukrainian paratroopers and a crew of nine as it lands at Luhansk International Airport in Luhansk, Ukraine. All 49 people on board die.
17 June Thai AirAsia X, Thailand's first long-haul, low-cost airline, begins flight operations, offering service between Bangkok's Don Mueang International Airport and Incheon International Airport in South Korea.
23 June Two aircraft collide at Olsberg, Germany, killing 2.
24 June Pakistan International Airlines Flight 756, an Airbus A310, was hit by gunfire, killing one passenger.
28 June The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducts the first test of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), a space vehicle designed to create atmospheric drag in order to decelerate during entry through a planet's atmosphere. Launched from the United States Navys Pacific Missile Range facility in Kauai, Hawaii, the LDSD is lifted to an altitude of by a balloon, then uses a rocket motor to ascend to before parachuting into the Pacific Ocean, where it and its flight recorder are recovered the same day.
July
1 July The second incarnation of AirAsia Japan is founded, with plans to begin flight operations in June 2015.
3 July The United States Department of Defense grounds its entire fleet of 97 F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the eighth time pending engine inspections in the wake of a 23 June engine fire in a United States Air Force F-35A Lightning II as it prepared for take off at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
11 July Air India joins the Star Alliance. Flying a Pilatus PC-12 NG, Amelia Rose Earhart and her co-pilot Shane Jordan complete a 17-stop, 24,300-nautical-mile (27,964-mile; 45,004-km) circumnavigation of the earth, landing at Oakland, California – from which they had begun the journey on 26 June – spending 108 hours in the air. Earhart makes the flight to recreate and complete the final flight of her namesake Amelia Earhart, who had disappeared in 1937 while attempting a similar circumnavigation. Thirty-one years old, she becomes the second-youngest woman after Richarda Morrow-Tait to pilot a plane around the world.[Avalos, Regina, "Another Amelia Earhart finishes the flight her namesake could not," examiner.com, 14 July 2014 4:24 AM MST.]
14 July Nineteen-year-old Matt Guthmiller lands at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California, becoming the youngest person ever to complete a solo flight around the world. He had left El Cajon on 31 May and flown more than in a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza, stopping first at his home town of Aberdeen, South Dakota, and then making stops in the United Kingdom; Rome, Italy; Athens, Greece; Cairo, Egypt; Abu Dhabi; India; the Philippines; Australia; American Samoa; and Hawaii. The final leg of his trip is a 16-hour flight across the eastern Pacific Ocean from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, to El Cajon.
15 July The United States Department of Defense cancels the international debut of the F-35 Lightning II fighter at the Farnborough International Airshow, planned for later in the week by an F-35B, because of the grounding of the F-35 fleet earlier in the month.
17 July During a flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with 298 occupants on board a Boeing 777-200ER operating as Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (codeshared as KLM Flight 4103), was shot down by a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile and crashed near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, killing all on board. The Ukrainian government claims that either Russia or Russian separatists in Ukraine shot down the airliner while it cruised at an altitude of using the Buk missile system (NATO reporting name "Gadfly;" U.S. Department of Defense designation "SA-11"). The United States later confirms that the missile was launched from the separatist-controlled portion of Ukraine. With 298 people killed, it is the deadliest Malaysia Airlines incident to date, surpassing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777-200ER which disappeared with 239 people aboard on 8 March 2014.
22 July airBaltic becomes the world's first airline to accept bitcoin as payment for online bookings.
23 July