1989 in aviation

January
January 4 - US Navy F-14 Tomcats shoot down two Libyan Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23s

January 8 - a British Midland Boeing 737-400 crashes on the M1 motorway near Kegworth, killing 32 people.

February
February 8 - a misunderstanding between the crew of a Boeing 707 and Air traffic control leads to a crash on Pico Alto mountain on the Azores

February 24 - a piece of fuselage detaches from a United Airlines Flight 811 over Hawaii. 9 people are sucked to their deaths.

March
March 22 - an Antonov An-225 sets a total of 106 world and class records during a 3 hour 30 minute flight carrying a Buran orbiter. Its total weight at take-off was 508,200 kg (1,129,370 lb)

April
April 12 - a British Airways Concorde loses a large piece of its rudder on a flight between Christchurch and Sydney

April 21 - Lockheed SR-71A, 61-7974, Item 2025, outbound on operational sortie from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, suffers engine explosion, total hydraulic failure. Pilot Maj. Dan E. House and RSO Capt. Blair L. Bozek both eject safely. This was the final Blackbird loss before the type was withdrawn from service.

June
June 7 - a Suriname DC-8 Super 62 crashes near Paramaribo Airport, Suriname, killing 168.

June 8 - a Soviet Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29 suffers a birdstrike during a display at the Paris Air Show. Pilot Anatoli Kvochur manages to prevent the plane from injuring anyone, and saves himself by ejecting at only 400 feet.

July
July 4 - Crash of an unmanned MiG-23 in Kortrijk, Belgium. The pilot had believed he was experiencing an engine failure shortly after take-off from the Soviet airbase near Kolobzreg, Poland and had ejected, while the aircraft continued on autopilot for 900 km, until running out of fuel. One 18-year-old man on the ground was killed in the crash.[2]

July 16 - European air traffic is halted due to industrial action by French air traffic controllers.

July 19 - A United Airlines DC-10 crashes on landing following a decompression in the number 2 engine. 111 people were killed.

August
August 5 - Piedmont is merged into USAir.

August 18 - a Qantas Boeing 747, the Spirit of Australia, flies non-stop from London to Sydney, setting a world record for a four engine jet, after having flown 11,000 miles in 20 hours.

August 21 - Rare Bear sets a new piston-powered speed record of 528.33mph

August 22 - Alexander Yakovlev dies, aged 84

September
September 3 - a Varig Boeing 737 crashes in Brazil killing 53 passengers. The pilots had not noticed an autopilot malfunction because they were listening to a football match.

September 8 - a chartered Partnair flight crashes into the sea off the coast of Denmark killing 55 people.

September 20 - a USAir Boeing 737 aborts a takeoff in New York and slides into the East River. Two people are killed.

September 20 - a UTA DC-10 is destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Niger. 117 passengers are killed.

November
November 12 - California Polytechnic State University flies the first human powered helicopter

November 21 - a British Airways Boeing 747 narrowly misses crashing into the Penta hotel near Heathrow Airport

First flights

January
January 2 - Tupolev Tu-204
January 11 - AASI Jetcruzer 450

March
March 19 - V-22 Osprey

April
April 30 - SOCATA Omega

May
May 28 - AIDC Ching-Kuo

July
July 17 - B-2 Spirit

October
October 7 - Enstrom 480

December
December 26 - NAMC N-5

Entered service

February 9 - Boeing 747-400 with Northwest Airlines

October 27 - ATR-72 with Kar Air