1968 in aviation - Definition and Overview

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1968:

Events

January

• January 21 - a US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashes in the sea near Thule AFB Greenland, carrying four nuclear weapons.

March

• March 28 - Yuri Gagarin is killed in the crash of a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15

May

• May 5 - a Grumman Gulfstream II becomes the first executive jet to cross the Atlantic

August

• August 13 - Swedish Count Gustav von Rosen defies Nigerian air defences to fly in supplies to the Biafran rebels
• August 31 - the Rolls-Royce RB.211 is successfully ground-tested

September

• September 11 - Air New Zeland flies T. H. Williams, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's navigator to Sydney to commemmorate the 40th anniversary of their first trans-Tasman flight
• September 30 - the first Boeing 747 is rolled out

December

• December 24 - Apollo 8 orbits the moon carrying Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders.

First flights

May

• May 25 - Grumman EA-6B Prowler

June

• June 30 - C-5 Galaxy

September

• September 8 - SEPECAT Jaguar

November

• November 13 - Northrop HL-10

December

• December 31 - Tupolev Tu-144

Entered service

February

• Boeing 737 with Lufthansa