This is a list of aviation-related events in 2017.
Events January 12 January Iran receives the first of 100 Airbus airliners it purchased after signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for its nuclear program in 2015. The first aircraft is an Airbus A321 that arrives at Tehran, completing its delivery flight from Toulouse, France. The arrival of the A321 is the first step in Iran's plan to recapitalize its aging civil aviation fleet, which has received few new aircraft since the Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979. Plans also call for Iran to begin taking delivery in 2018 of 80 Boeing airliners it ordered.
16 January After a missed approach in thick fog while attempting to land at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Turkish Airlines Flight 6491, a Boeing 747-412F cargo aircraft (registration TC-MCL) belonging to and crewed by MyCargo Airlines, crashes in the village of Dachi Suu while attempting a go-around, killing all four people on the plane and 35 people on the ground, and injuring 36 people on the ground. The plane, breaking into pieces, plows through several hundred meters of the town, destroying at least 32 houses and damaging dozens of buildings.
17 January Australia, China, and Malaysia announce that they have suspended indefinitely the underwater search they have led for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board. The most complex and expensive search effort in aviation history, searchers using sonar towfish and unmanned submarines have covered 120,000 km (46,000 square miles) of the Indian Ocean about west of Australia over more than 34 months at a cost of between US$150 million and US$160 million without finding any trace of the airliner or its passengers or crew. Rejecting a December 2016 Australian Transport Safety Bureau suggestion that the search zone move farther north, the three countries announce that they do not plan to resume the search unless convincing new evidence surfaces that identifies the likely location of the aircraft.
February
17 February Boeing rolls out the newest version of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner airliner, the Boeing 787-10, in a ceremony at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina.
March
4 March Families of the passengers of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 – a Boeing 777 with 239 people on board missing since 8 March 2014 – announce that they have begun a campaign to raise funds to pay for a private search for the plane, hoping to raise US$15 million for a search in a area in the Indian Ocean to the north of previous search areas. Speaking at the remembrance event at a shopping mall near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the families announce the new effort, Malaysian Minister of Transport Liow Tiong Lai claims that there is an 85 percent chance that the missing plane will be found in the new search area. The governments of Australia, the People's Republic of China, and Malaysia had called off their two-year, US$160 million search for the airliner on 17 January.
14 March A Sikorsky S-92A helicopter (registration EI-ICR, call sign "Rescue 116") operated by CHC Helicopter under contract to the Irish Coast Guard crashes into the Atlantic Ocean during a rescue mission off County Mayo, Ireland, killing two crew members and leaving its other two crew members injured.
29 March The largest variant of the Embraer E-Jet E2 family, the E195-E2, makes its first flight. The flight, previously scheduled for the second half of 2017, takes place ahead of schedule.
31 March The A319neo, the smallest variant of the Airbus A320neo family, makes its first flight, powered by CFM International LEAP engines. The Antonov/Taqnia An-132, an improved version of the Antonov An-32 twin-turboprop military transport aircraft, makes its maiden flight. The Boeing 787-10, the largest variant of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, makes its first flight.
April
3 April Boeing announces a tentative agreement to sell 30 Boeing 737 MAX airliners to Iran's Iran Aseman Airlines for a total of US$3,000,000,000, with the airline also holding rights to purchase an additional 30 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for an additional US$3,000,000,000. Deliveries are to begin in 2022.
5 April Zunum Aero announces that it is working with Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures to develop electric aircraft that could compete with private automobiles, trains, and buses on trips of up to in terms both of operating costs for airlines and the cost and time of travel for passengers. The company envisions electric aircraft capable of seating 10 to 50 passengers that would operate at lower speeds and altitudes than current commercial aircraft but allow airlines to operate profitably from local airports that had lost airline service as airlines consolidated passengers onto larger aircraft to save on operating costs. The company also envisions the new generation of aircraft drawing people away from cars, buses, and trains by allowing airlines to offer lower fares and by operating from general aviation airports with passengers loading their baggage into the planes directly from their cars without going through time-consuming security lines or having to change planes at airline hubs. Zunum Aero hopes its aircraft can begin service by the early 2020s, although some independent observers doubt that such service could begin before 2030 and perhaps not before 2050.Jansen, Bart, "Electric planes pegged to restore regional flights," usatoday.com, 7 April 2017, 3:48 p.m. EDT.
9 April After no one volunteers to give up his or her seat to make room aboard overbooked United Express Flight 3411 – an Embraer 170 with 70 passengers aboard operated by Republic Airline boarding at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, for a flight to Louisville, Kentucky – to make room for four United Airlines employees requiring transportation to Louisville, United employees select four passengers to be involuntarily bumped from the flight. Three comply, but the fourth, David Dao, refuses. After United employees deem Dao "disruptive" and "belligerent," Chicago Department of Aviation security officers board the plane, slam a screaming Dao's head against an armrest, and drag him from his seat, apparently unconscious. After the United employees take the vacated seats, Dao reboards the airliner with a bloody face, collapses, and is removed on a stretcher. The incident is captured on video and causes outrage. Although United chief executive officer Oscar Munoz initially defends his employees' actions, he apologizes two days later and promises such an incident will not occur again.
13 April The largest variant yet of the Boeing 737 MAX, the Boeing 737 MAX 9, makes its first flight, taking off from Renton Municipal Airport in Renton, Washington, and landing at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, after a flight of 2 hours 42 minutes. It is due to enter service in 2018.
20 April Leased by GECAS, the first A321neo is delivered in Hamburg, Germany, to Virgin America, configured with 184 seats and LEAP engines. Virgin America expects to place it in service on 31 May. AeroMobil s.r.o. unveils the production model of its AeroMobil flying car at Top Marques Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco, and announces that it plans to begin to take preorders for the vehicle before the end of 2017.
22 April Uber announced plans to launch a flying taxi service called Elevate using extremely quiet, pilotless, autonomous, electric-powered VTOL vehicles capable of carrying four passengers, with takeoffs and landings to take place at "vertiports" located in large cities, perhaps on the tops of buildings. Uber hopes that Elevate will begin operations by 2023 and perhaps as soon as 2020, followed by a full-scale rollout by 2027. Dallas, Texas, has already committed to hosting the initial Elevate operations, and Uber hopes that Dubai also will participate when Elevate is introduced. Uber has approached Aurora Flight Sciences, Bell Helicopter, Embraer, the Mooney International Corporation, and Pipistrel for designs for the proposed VTOL vehicle.Wang, Amy B., "The age of flying cars is here, Silicon Valley promises," washingtonpost.com, 25 April 2017.Read, Richard, "Uber to launch flying autonomous taxis in Dallas and Dubai within 10 years (or less)," washingtonpost.com, 26 April 2017.
27 April Honolulu International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii, is renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
29 April Boeing files a dumping petition at the United States International Trade Commission for the sale of 75 Bombardier CSeries CS100 to Delta Air Lines at $19.6m each, below their $33.2m production cost.
May 1 May Airlink makes the first commercial airline flight with paying passengers in history to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, a charter flight from Cape Town, South Africa, via Moçâmedes, Angola, to Saint Helena Airport using an Avro RJ85 to pick up passengers stranded when the island's only link with the outside world, the British Royal Mail Ship RMS St Helena, suffers propeller damage. The flight returns to Cape Town the same day with a stop at Windhoek, Namibia.Anonymous, "St. Helena sees maiden commercial pax flight," ch-aviation.com, 4 May 2017. No commercial airliner lands at Saint Helena Airport again until October, when Airlink begins the first scheduled commercial airline service in the island's history.Anonymous, "First commercial flight lands on remote St Helena," bbc.com, 14 October 2017.
5 May At Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, before a crowd of 3,000 people, the first modern Chinese passenger jet, the Comac C919 (registration B-001A), makes its first flight, carrying five pilots and engineers. The airliner is intended to compete with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. Comac plans a test program of 4,200 flight hours before China Eastern Airlines introduces the C919 into service in 2019.Denyer, Simon, "," washingtonpost.com, 5 May 2017, 6:33 a.m. EDT.
10 May Five days before it is scheduled to make its first delivery of its new Boeing 737 MAX airliner to a customer, Boeing halts test flights and grounds the aircraft due to quality problems in a large metal disc used in the low-pressure turbine at the rear of the aircraft's CFM International LEAP-1B engines.Scott, Alwyn, "Boeing suspends 737 MAX flights due to engine issue," Reuters, 11 May 2017, 5:01 a.m. EDT.
16 May The first Boeing 737 MAX, a 737 MAX 8, is delivered to Malindo Air, which plans to debut it in revenue service.
27 May Goma Air Flight 409, a Let L-410 Turbolet, registration 9N-AKY, crashes when it lost altitude on final approach in poor visibility on final approach to runway 06 of Tenzing–Hillary Airport in Lukla, Nepal, about 14:04 Local Time (08:19Z) and contacted a tree short of the runway before impacting ground about below runway threshold level. The captain was killed on impact and the first officer died in hospital almost eight hours later. The third crew member received injuries and was evacuated to Kathmandu the following day after the weather had cleared. A major computer outage blamed on a power failure forces British Airways to cancel all flights at Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport in the London area. The outage prevents departures from and transfer between flights at the airports, disrupting flights worldwide.Selk, Avi, "A ‘catastrophic’ computer outage is crippling international air travel," washingtonpost.com, 27 May 2017, 2:06 p.m. EDT. Although service will resume on 28 May, delays and cancellations will linger into 29 May.Anonymous, "British Airways vows to fix computer meltdown that grounded flights," Thomson Reuters, 29 May 2017, 2:04 p.m. EDT.
31 May