This is a list of aviation-related events from 2005.

• TheDutch Transport Safety Board merges with Dutch military accident investigation authorities to for theDutch Safety Board, which takes over the responsibility for aviation accident investigations in theNetherlands.
• The flight operations ofLauda Air, a wholly owned subsidiary ofAustrian Airlines, merge with those of Austrian Airlines. The brand "Lauda Air" survives for charter flights operated by the Austrian Airlines Group.

• 18 January – The world's largest passenger plane, theAirbus A380, is unveiled in an elaborate ceremony inFrance.
• 29 January – Nonstop flights betweenmainland China andTaiwan take off for the first time since 1949.
• 30 January – ARoyal Air ForceLockheed C-130K Hercules C3 isshot down inIraq a few minutes after takeoff fromBaghdad, killing all 10 people on board. It is theBritish military's largest loss of life in a single incident duringOperation Telic.
• 31 January – TheBelgium-based airlineBelgiumExel ceases operations.

• 3 February –Kam Air Flight 904, aBoeing 737-242, crashes on Chaperi Mountain inAfghanistan'sPamir Mountains at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3,400 meters) during a heavysnowstorm, killing all 104 people on board.
• 9–13 February – TheAero-India show takes place inBangalore, India.
• 17 February
  • Opening of a new international airport inNagoya, Japan. It is the third Japanese international airport.
  • Several airlines will have to pay heavy compensation to passengers for flight delays and cancellations under a European regulation.
• 20 February –British Airways Flight 268, aBoeing 747-436 with 370 people on board, suffers an engine fire during climbout fromLos Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The crew shuts down the engine and opts to continue the flight to its destination,Manchester in the United Kingdom, on three engines. Although the aircraft arrives safely, controversy ensues when the U.S.Federal Aviation Administration threatens to fineBritish Airways for flying an "unairworthy" plane across the Atlantic Ocean.^[1]

• Lufthansa acquired their first 11% ofSwiss International Air Lines
• 5 March –Steve Fossett completes the first non-stop, solo circumnavigation of the world in theVirgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, completing the trip in 67 hours and 2 minutes.
• 6 March – Therudder ofAir Transat Flight 961, anAirbus A310-308 carrying 271 people bound fromVaradero, Cuba, toQuebec City, Canada, detaches in flight. The aircraft returns to Varadero and makes an emergency landing atJuan Gualberto Gomez Airport without injury to anyone on board.
• 11 March
  • Jetsgo ceases all operations and declares bankruptcy protection.
  • China's first private airline,Okay Airlines, makes its maiden revenue flight.
• 14 March –TAP Portugal joins theStar Alliance.
• 16 March –Regional Airlines Flight 9288, anAntonov An-24RV (NATO reporting name "Coke") carrying oil workers on a non-scheduled passenger flight, crashes five kilometers (3.1 miles) from the runway while on approach toVarandey Airport inNenetskiy Avtonomnyy Okrug,Russia, after the crew allows the aircraft's speed to drop and nose to rise until itstalls. The plane strikes a hill, crashes, and burns, killing 28 of the 52 people aboard (26 of the 45 passengers and two of the seven crew members). Malfunctioning airspeed and angle-of-attack indicators may have contributed to the crash.
• 17 March – A judge finds millionaire Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik and sawmill worker Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of conspiracy and murder in the 1985Air India bombing that killed 329 people.
• 23 March –Baku Cargo Terminal was opened and started to operate.
• 28 March –Chicago Express Airlines, also known as ATA Connection, ceased operations.

• 2 April – ARoyal Australian NavyWestland WS-61 Sea King helicopter engaged in humanitarian assistance after anearthquake onSumatracrashes on a sports field on the island ofNias inIndonesia. The crash kills nine – six RAN members and three members of theRoyal Australian Air Force (RAAF) – of the 11 personnel aboard; one RAN member and one RAAF member aboard the helicopter are injured but survive.
• 12 April – AGT Airde Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 100 aircraft crashes inIndonesia, all 17 on board die.^[2]
• 14 April – Flying aEurocopter AS350 Écureuil atIstres,France, French pilotDidier Delsalle, aEurocoptertest pilot, sets three time-to-climb records for helicopters in the take-off-weight class of 1,000 to 1,750 kg (2,200 to 3,860 lb), climbing to 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) in 2 minutes 21 seconds,^[3] to 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) in 5 minutes 6 seconds,^[4] and to 9,000 meters (30,000 feet) in 9 minutes 26 seconds,^[5]
• 19 April – The middle section of theObelisk of Axum is repatriated from Italy toEthiopia by air fromLeonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport toAxum Airport in anAntonov An-124Ruslan, the largest and heaviest piece of air freight ever carried up to this date.^[6]
• 21 April –Oneworld becomes the firstairline alliance to enable its customers to fly throughout its members' network onelectronic tickets only, with the completion ofinterline electronic ticketing (IET) links between all its member airlines.^[7]
• 27 April – TheAirbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner, made itsmaiden flight.^[8]

• 3 May –Airwork Flight 23, aFairchild Swearingen Metroliner crashes inTaranaki, New Zealand, killing both crew members.
• 7 May –Australia experiences its worst air disaster sinceDecember 1968 when theFairchild Swearingen SA227-DC Metro 23VH-TFU, operated byAerotropics, crashes into the ridge known as South Pap while on approach to land atLockhart River Airport inQueensland, killing all 15 people on board.
• 13 May
  • A missile strike by an AmericanRQ-1 Predatorunmanned aerial vehicle inPakistan near the border withAfghanistan kills al-Qaeda memberHaitham al-Yemeni.^[9]
  • Israel's Civil Aviation Administration becomes theCivil Aviation Authority of Israel.
• 14 May – The first helicopter landing on the summit ofMount Everest takes place, as French pilotDidier Delsalle, aEurocopter test pilot, lands an unmodifiedEurocopter AS350 B3 helicopter there at an altitude of 29,030 feet (8,850 meters) in 75-mph (121-km/h) winds.^[10] The landing and takeoff set the world records for the highest helicopter landing and takeoff^[11] in history. He repeats the feat following day.
• 25 May – A chartered Maniema UnionAntonov An-28 (NATO reporting name "Cash") aircraft, owned byVictoria Air, crashes into a mountain nearWalungu,Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 30 minutes after takeoff. All 22 passengers and five crew members are killed.
• 29 May –Air Italy begins flight operations. Its inaugural flight is fromTurin, Italy, toBudapest, Hungary.

• 4 June –Iraqi Airways makes its first scheduled domestic flight since the fall ofSaddam Hussein's regime in 2003, carrying 100 passengers fromBaghdad toBasra in aBoeing 737-200.
• 9 June – Afterair traffic controllers atLogan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, give them clearance to take off simultaneously on intersecting runways,US Airways Flight 1170, aBoeing 737-3B7 with 109 people on board, andAer Lingus Flight 132, anAirbus A330-301 with 272 people on board,nearly collide on takeoff. Disaster is averted when the US Airwaysfirst officer sees the approaching A330, realizes the aircraft could collide if they both become airborne, and pushes the control column forward to keep the 737 on the ground until the A330 passes 170 feet (52 m) overhead. The 381 people on the two planes suffer no injuries.
• 11 June – ThePacific Islands Civil Aviation Safety and Security Treaty, ratified by several member states of thePacific Islands Forum, enters into force. It formally confirms thePacific Aviation Safety Office, which had been formed informally in 2002.
• 17 June – TheCarterCopter becomes the first rotorcraft to achieve mu-1 (μ=1), an equal ratio of airspeed to rotor tip speed, but it is badly damaged in a crash during a subsequent flight on the same day.
• 27 June – American businessmanJohn T. Walton is killed when thehome-builtCGS Hawk Arrowultralight aircraft he is piloting crashes nearJackson,Wyoming, just after takeoff fromJackson Hole Airport due to a maintenance error.^[12]

• 2–3 July –Steve Fossett and co-pilot Mark Rebholz recreate the first direct crossing of the Atlantic by the British team ofJohn Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown on 14 June 1919 in aVickers Vimy biplane.
• 16 July – Minutes after takeoff fromMalabo International Airport outsideMalabo onBioko inEquatorial Guinea, anEquatorial Express AirlinesAntonov An-24 (NATO reporting name "Coke")crashes into the side of a mountain nearBaney, killing all 60 people on board.
• 26 July – The Irish airlineEUjet ceases operations. It is placed intoadministration on 28 July.^[13]
• 27 July – United Eagle Airlines – the futureChengdu Airlines – begins flight operations.
• 29 July – TheUnited States Army awards a contract for the purchase of 368 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH) toBell Helicopter Textron.^[14]
• 30 July –John Garang de Mabior, serving as both the firstPresident of Southern Sudan and theFirst Vice President of Sudan, dies in the crash of theUgandan presidentialMil Mi-172 helicopter in a mountain range in southernSudan.

• 2 August –Air France Flight 358, anAirbus A340-300 with 309 people on board, bursts into flames after skidding off the end of a runway after landing atToronto Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The plane comes to a stop next to Highway 401. Everyone on board survives, although 43 are injured.
• 6 August –Tuninter Flight 1153, anATR 72 heading fromItaly toTunisia, crashes into theMediterranean Sea, killing 16 of the 39 people on board.
• 10 August –Copterline Flight 103, aSikorsky S-76C+ helicopter flying fromHelsinki,Finland, toTallinn,Estonia, crashes intoTallinn Bay and sinks, killing all 14 people on board.
• 14 August –Helios Airways Flight 522: TheBoeing 737-300Olympia; crashes into a mountain north ofMarathon andVarnavas,Greece. Killing all 121 passengers and crew.
• 16 August –West Caribbean Airways Flight 708, aMcDonnell Douglas MD-82 operating on acharter flight,stalls at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) and crashes nearMachiques in the mountains of northwesternVenezuela, killing all 160 people on board. It is the deadliest air disaster in the history of Venezuela, the deadliest involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, and the third-deadliest involving an aircraft of theMcDonnell Douglas MD-80 series. It will turn out to be the deadliest aviation accident of 2005.
• 23 August – Attempting a landing in high winds and torrential rain atPucallpa Airport inPucallpa, Peru,TANS Peru Flight 204, aBoeing 737-244 Advanced, strikes tree tops and crashes in a swamp, killing 40 of the 98 people on board. Looters steal parts of the wreckage to sell for scrap.

• Northwest Airlines Cargo joins theSkyteam Cargoairline alliance.
• Intercontinental de Aviación ceases operations.
• 1 September –Norway's Accident Investigation Board for Civil Aviation and Railways –takes on the responsibility for the investigation of road accidents in Norway and is renamed theAccident Investigation Board Norway.
• 5 September –Mandala Airlines Flight 091,Boeing 737-2Q3Adv with 117 people on board, crashes into a heavily populated residential area seconds after taking off fromPolonia International Airport inMedan, Indonesia, destroying dozens of houses and cars. The crash is the third deadliest in Indonesian history, killing 100 people aboard the airliner and 49 people on the ground. It injures the 17 survivors aboard the plane and 26 people on the ground. The governor ofNorth Sumatra,Rizal Nurdin, and the former governor,Raja Inal Siregar, are among the dead.

• 21 September –JetBlue AirwaysFlight 292, anAirbus A320 makes anemergency landing atLos Angeles International Airport after itsnose wheels gets stuck at a 90-degree angle. All 145 people on board survive.

• 1 October –Baltimore–Washington International Airport inBaltimore,Maryland, is renamed Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
• 6 October – A small plane carrying cargo forFedEx, including six vials of researchviruses, crashes in downtownWinnipeg,Manitoba, Canada. The only person on board, the female pilot, is killed, but there are no injuries on the ground.
• 8 October – Champion air racerArt Vance is killed when hisGrumman F6F-5 Hellcat crashes and bursts into flames when he attempts anemergency landing on themedian strip ofInterstate 40 nearMonterey,Tennessee, United States.^[12]
• 14 October –Air Jamaica Express ceases operations.
• 16 October –United States Secretary of Homeland SecurityMichael Chertoff officially approves the transfer of the U.S.Federal Air Marshal Service fromU.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement to the U.S.Transportation Security Administration.
• 22 October –Bellview Airlines Flight 210, aBoeing 737-200, crashes just after takeoff fromMurtala Mohammed Airport inLagos,Nigeria, killing all 117 people on board.
• 25 October –Visa Parviainen jumps from ahot air balloon overLahti,Finland, in awingsuit with two smallturbojet engines attached to his feet, providing approximately 160newtons (16kgf, 35 lbf) of thrust each and running onJET A-1 kerosene fuel. Parviainen achieves approximately 30 seconds of horizontal flight with no noticeable loss of altitude.^[15][16]
• 29 October
  • Ghana International Airlines begins service with an inaugural flight fromAccra,Ghana, toLondon.
  • Aer Lingus withdraws its last twoBoeing 737 airliners from service. Henceforth, Aer Lingus operates an all-Airbus fleet.

• 5 November – At least oneAGM-114 Hellfire missile fired by an AmericanCentral Intelligence AgencyRQ-1 Predatorunmanned aerial vehicle strikes a house inMosaki,North Waziristan, Pakistan, injuring the senioral-Qaeda leaderAbu Hamza Rabia and killing his wife, his daughter, and six others.^[17]
• 6 November –Iraqi Airways makes a flight toIran for the first time since the outbreak of theIran–Iraq War inSeptember 1980, with service betweenBaghdad andTehran using an aircraft operated on its behalf byTeebah Airlines ofJordan.
• 14 November –Boeing launches theBoeing 747-8.
• 26 November – Launching fromMumbai, India, 67-year-old Indian aviatorVijaypat Singhania sets a new world altitude record forhot-air balloons, reaching 21,027 meters (68,986 feet) during a flight of about five hours in aCameron Z-1600 balloon.^[18][19]
• 28 November –Boeing makes its last delivery of aBoeing 757 airliner, andShanghai Airlines becomes the last customer to take delivery of one. Boeing had ceased production of the 757 inOctober 2004 after manufacturing 1,050 of the aircraft for 54 customers.

• 1 December
  • TheIndonesian airlineAwair changes its name toIndonesia AirAsia.
  • AGM-114 Hellfire missiles fired by an AmericanRQ-1 Predatorunmanned aerial vehicle strike a house inHaisori,Pakistan, killing senioral-Qaeda leaderAbu Hamza Rabia, his bodyguard, and two boys.^[17]
• 6 December – AnIslamic Republic of Iran Air ForceC-130E Herculescrashes into a ten-story apartment building inTehran,Iran, killing all 94 people on the plane and between 22 and 34 people on the ground. The crash injures 90 other people on the ground.
• 7 December – Indian Airlines rebrands itself asIndian.
• 8 December – While landing in asnowstorm atChicago Midway International Airport inChicago,Illinois, United States,Southwest Airlines Flight 1248, aBoeing 737-7H4 with 103 people on board, goes into a skid on the runway. Its nose gear collapses, and it crashes through a barrier and comes to rest on a road crowded with automobile traffic, striking three cars. The accident kills a six-year-old boy in one of the cars and injures nine other people on the ground and three people aboard the aircraft.
• 10 December –Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145, aMcDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, crash-lands atPort Harcourt International Airport inPort Harcourt, Nigeria, and bursts into flames, killing 108 of the 110 people on board and injuring both survivors.
• 19 December –Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101, aGrumman G-73T Turbine Mallardflying boat, loses a wing due tometal fatigue and crashes into theAtlantic Ocean nearMiami,Florida, killing all 20 people on board. It is the first fatal crash forChalk's Ocean Airways, which had operated since 1917, but its fleet of Mallards is deemed not airworthy and grounded, and the airline goes out of business.
• 23 December –Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217, anAntonov An-140-100, suffers an in-flight systems failure and crashes on the shore of theCaspian Sea nearNardaran, Azerbaijan, killing all 23 people on board.
• 26 December – At around 6:00 pm local time, aPiper Aztec, registrationN444DA, bound forProvidenciales International Airport on the island ofProvidenciales crashes in shallow water off the coast ofSouth Caicos in theTurks and Caicos Islands. All four people on board (the pilot and three passengers) die.
• 31 December – According to the U.S.Federal Aviation Administration, there were 283 incidents oflasers striking aircraft flying over theUnited States during 2005.^[20]

• AeroJames 01 Isatis^[21]

• 23 April –Cessna Citation Mustang^[22]
• 27 April – The firstAirbus A380, registration F-WWOW, makes its maiden flight fromToulouse, France.^[23]

• 5 May –Dassault Falcon 7X^[24]

• 3 June —Issoire APM 30 Lion^[21]
• 15 June —CZAW Parrot^[21]
• 21 June – First captive flight ofBoeing X-37 under theScaled Composites White Knight^[25]

• 20 July –Grob SPn^[26]

• 30 September –ATG Javelin^[27]

• 27 November –Hongdu L-15^[28]

• 11 December –Pawnee Chief^[25]
• 22 December —CZAW SportCruiser^[21]

• December-F-22 Raptor with the27th Fighter Squadron

The deadliest crash of this year wasWest Caribbean Airways Flight 708, aMcDonnell Douglas MD-80 which crashed nearMachiques,Venezuela on 16 August, killing all 160 people on board. This particular accident took place in August 2005, which is one of the deadliest months in aviation to date, in which 351 people were killed in six major accidents.

• 27 July –Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was retired by theItalian Air Force, the final military user of the F104.^[29]

• Jackson, Paul, ed. (2006).Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2006–2007. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane's Information Group.ISBN 978-0-7106-2745-2.