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.
• April 4 – Alaska Airlines discontinues service between San Francisco and Tucson.
• May
  • 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  • 12 – The last F-4 Phantom fighters are withdrawn from service with the Israeli Air Force.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
• 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)

May

• May 29 – Aceair AERIKS 200

July

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

Entered service