1970 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970. Deadliest crash The deadliest crash of this year was Dan-Air Flight 1903, a De Havilland Comet which crashed in mountainous terrain near Barcelona, Spain on 3 July, killing all 112 people on board. Events January January 1 Nord-Aviation, Sud-Aviation, and SEREB merge to form SNIAS (the future Aérospatiale). A Cruzeiro do Sul Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle VI-R (registration PP-PDZ) is hijacked by six passengers during a flight from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with 33 people on board. The hijackers demand that it fly them to Cuba. Over the next two days, the airliner makes stops at Lima, Peru, and Panama City, Panama, before finally arriving at Havana, Cuba, on 3 January. January 4 – Fascinated with the kind of communism practiced in Albania under its leader Enver Hoxha, 18-year-old Mariano Ventura Rodriguez pulls out a toy pistol aboard an Iberia Convair CV-240 ten minutes before it lands at Zaragoza, Spain, after a domestic flight from Madrid. He demands to be flown to Albania. When the airliner lands at Zaragoza, Spanish soldiers armed with submachine guns surround it. During negotiations between Rodriguez and the police, the local police chief tells him that he will be "shot at dawn" if anything happens to any of the plane's passengers or crew, prompting Rodriguez to surrender peacefully soon afterward. January 6 – Anton Funjek, a 41-year-old Yugoslav man on probation for threatening President Richard Nixon, pulls out a knife and grabs a stewardess aboard Delta Air Lines Flight 274, a Douglas DC-9 with 65 people aboard flying from Orlando to Jacksonville, Florida, and demands to be flown to Switzerland. The captain makes a deliberately hard landing at Jacksonville International Airport to throw Funjek off balance, and three passengers overpower him when he stumbles. January 7 – A hijacker aboard Iberia Flight 032, a Convair CV-440-62 (registration EC-ATG) on a domestic flight from Madrid to Zaragoza, Spain, demands to be flown to Albania. The hijacker surrenders after the airliner lands at Zaragoza Airport. January 8 – To protest an Israeli military operation that resulted in the capture of several Lebanese nationals, Christian Bellon, armed with two handguns and a rifle, hijacks Trans World Airlines Flight 802, a Boeing 707 with 20 people on board flying from Paris to Rome, and demands to be flown to Damascus, Syria, spraying the airliner's instrument panel with gunfire to emphasize how serious he is. After the airliner lands in Rome to refuel, Bellon changes his mind and demands that the plane fly him to Beirut, Lebanon, instead. When the airliner lands at Beirut International Airport, Bellon surrenders to Lebanese police, who slap him across the face several times. January 9 – A hijacker takes control of a Rutas Aéreas Panameñas SA (RAPSA) Douglas C-47 Skytrain making a domestic flight in Panama from David to Bocas del Toro, demanding to be flown to Cuba. Security forces storm the plane at David and arrest the hijacker. There is one