2001 in aviation

March
March 29 - An Avjet charter flight, a Gulfstream III jet with 15 passengers and 3 crew, crashes on approach into Aspen, CO, killing all on board.

April
April 24 - The unmanned aircraft RQ-4 Global Hawk flies automatically from Edwards Air Force Base in the US to Australia non-stop and unrefuelled. This is the longest point-to-point flight ever undertaken by an unmanned aircraft, the first pilotless aircraft to cross the Pacific Ocean, and took 23 hours and 23 minutes.

June
June 12 - Jetsgo, a canadian airline, commenced operations.

July
July 1 - Singapore Airlines Cargo, operated by Singapore Airlines, began operations.

September
September 11 - 4 jet-liners, 2 each of American Airlines and United Airlines, are hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania in the September 11 terrorist attacks, killing more than 3,000 people. One, United Airlines Flight 175 almost had a mid-air collision with Delta Air Lines Flight 2315. The four flights were American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the South Tower of the WTC, American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93, which was to hit the United States Capitol, but was taken over by the passengers and crashed in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

September 24 - 13 days after 9/11, US Airways decided to terminate all flights from MetroJet.

October
October 3 - The TU-154 Sibir airlines jet took off from the Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel bound for the Siberian town of Novosibirsk and Russian aircraft with up to 78 passengers aboard crashed into the Black sea.

October 8 - The aircraft SAS MD87 was taking off from Milan's Linate airport in Italy for a flight to Copenhagen when it collided with a Cessna Citation on the fog-shrouded runway. The airliner then crashed into a nearby hangar and caught fire. All six crew members and 104 passengers on the airliner were killed, as were the four occupants of the business jet and four airport workers on the ground.

October 31 - Air Canada Jetz, operated by Air Canada, commenced operations.

November
November 12 - New York City suffers its second plane disaster in as many months when American Airlines Flight 587 crashes due to mechanical failure, killing 265 people.
bmi begins transatlantic flights from Manchester after a failed attempt to gain transatlantic flights from London Heathrow Airport.
British Airways aborts a plan to take over KLM due to technical issues in the open skies treaty between the U.S. and the Netherlands.
British Airways also drops its controversial ethnic tailfins; first adopted in 1997 the process was slowed in 1999, finally Chief Executive Rod Eddington that all aircraft would be painted with the new Union flag livery (one of the "ethnic" designs).

December
December 28 - USA3000 Airlines began operations.

First flights

January
January 4 - The HAL Light Combat Aircraft's (LCA's) first technology demonstrator, TD-1.

February
February 2 - Prototype General Atomics RQ-1 Predator B, later redesignated MQ-9 Reaper.

July
July 21 - XCOR EZ-Rocket, flown by Dick Rutan.