2004 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 2004:

Events

January

• 2 - Several British Airways flights from London Heathrow Airport to Washington D.C. and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia are cancelled due to security fears.
• 3 - Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard.
• 13 - An Uzbekistan Airways plane crashes in Uzbekistan's capital of Tashkent, killing all 37 aboard.

March

• March 27 - Nasa's X-43 pilotless plane breaks world speed record for an atmospheric engine by briefly flying at 7,700 kilometers (4,780 miles) per hour (seven times the speed of sound)

April

• April 4 - Alaska Airlines discontinues service between San Francisco and Tucson.

May

• May 5 - Air France and Netherlands-based KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) merge, the two airlines are now known as Air France-KLM.
• 9 - Southwest Airlines begins service to Philadelphia International Airport.
• 12 - The last F-4 Phantom fighters are withdrawn from service with the Israeli Air Force.
• 23 - Frontier Airlines begins service to Philadelphia, Billings, Montana and Spokane, Washington.
• 27 - Delta Air Lines begins service between Cincinnati and New Haven.

June

• 1 - America West Airlines starts service between Phoenix and Anchorage.
• 6 - Alaska Airlines starts service between Denver and Anchorage and discontinues service between San Jose and Tucson.
• 20 - Frontier Airlines begins service to Nashville, Tennessee.
• 21 - SpaceShipOne is the first non-government built spacecraft to transport a person into space and return safely to earth.

August

• 24 - Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303 and Siberia Airlines Flight 1047 explode south of Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. The Russian government declares the explosions to have been caused by Chechen terrorists

October

• 4 - SpaceShipOne successfully makes her 3rd flight into space and proves to be a plausible option for space tourism, thus winning the Ansari X-Prize

November

• November 16 - NASA's X-43 reaches a record speed of Mach 10 (7,000 mph, 11,200 km/h)

December

• December 10 - Two CT-114 Tutors from Canada's Snowbirds aerobatic team collide while training near Mossbank, Saskatchewan. Captain Miles Selby is killed and Captain Chuck Mallet is injured.
• December 10 - The United States Federal Aviation Administration issues an Emergency Airworthiness Directive effectively grounding the entire U.S. fleet of Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft. The AD is in response to fatal in-flight structural failure accidents during simulated aerial combat flights.

First flights

• Aero-Cam Slick 360

May

• May 29 - Aceair AERIKS 200

July

• July 15 - Aermacchi M-346
• July 20 - Aerocomp Comp Air Jet

Entered service