1977 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1977:
Events
January
January 5 – Colin Richard Foreman, a disgruntled former employee of Connellan Airways (Connair), steals a Beechcraft Baron 58 and crashes it into a building in the Connair complex at Alice Springs Airport at Alice Springs, Australia, killing himself and four people on the ground and injuring four others.
January 6 – Natalie "Dolly" Sinatra, the mother of singer Frank Sinatra, and all three other people on board die when their Gates Learjet 24 never changes course after takeoff from Palm Springs Municipal Airport in Palm Springs, California, and crashes into a 10,000-foot (3,048-meter) ridge in the eastern portion of the San Gorgonio Wilderness.
January 13 – After a fire breaks out in the No. 1 engine of an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-104A (registration CCCP-42369) on approach to Alma-Ata Airport in Alma-Ata in the Soviet Union's Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, the Tu-104A begins orbiting the airport to burn off fuel. The fire spreads to a fuel tank, causing the fuel tank to explode at an altitude of 300 meters (984 feet). The airliner crashes 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) from the airport, killing all 96 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Kazakhstan at the time.
