Plane Crashes in 1981
Wikidata lists 28 aviation accidents in 1981, with 844 deaths recorded against them. These are the counts in Wikidata, not an official world total. The deadliest listed: Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 (1 Dec 1981, 181 dead).
Deadliest firstAviation accidents of 1981
| Date | Accident | Aircraft · operator · where | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Dec 1981 | Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 | McDonnell Douglas MD-81 · Adria Airways · Flight JP-1308 · Slovenia | 181 |
| 22 Aug 1981 | Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103 | Boeing 737 · Far Eastern Air Transport · Taipei | 110 |
| 17 Nov 1981 | Aeroflot Flight 3603 | Tupolev Tu-154 · Aeroflot · Alykel Airport | 99 |
| 26 Aug 1981 | Aeropesca Colombia Flight 221 | Intercontinental de Aviación · Colombia | 50 |
| 20 Jul 1981 | Somali Airlines Flight 40 | Somali Airlines · Flight 40 · Somalia | 50 |
| 7 Feb 1981 | 1981 Pushkin Tu-104 crash | Tupolev Tu-104 · Soviet Navy · Pushkin Airport · Soviet Union | 50 |
| 14 Jun 1981 | Aeroflot Flight 498 | Aeroflot · Flight 498 · Sviatoy Nos | 48 |
| 18 Sep 1981 | 1981 Zheleznogorsk mid-air collision | Flight В-652 · Zheleznogorsk Airport | 40 |
| 24 Aug 1981 | Aeroflot Flight 811 | Aeroflot · Zavitinsky District | 37 |
| 27 Jul 1981 | Aeroméxico Flight 230 | Douglas DC-9 · Aeroméxico · Chihuahua International Airport · Mexico | 32 |
| 2 Dec 1981 | Aviation accident, 2 December 1981 | Domna | 31 |
| 7 May 1981 | Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 901 | BAC One-Eleven · Río de la Plata · Argentina | 31 |
| 2 Sep 1981 | Taxi Aéreo el Venado Flight 235 | 20 | |
| 8 Nov 1981 | Aeroméxico Flight 110 | Aeroméxico | 18 |
| 6 Oct 1981 | NLM CityHopper Flight 431 | NLM CityHopper · Flight HN431 · Rotterdam The Hague Airport · Netherlands | 17 |
| 13 Aug 1981 | 1981 Bristow Helicopters Westland Wessex crash | 13 | |
| 31 Jul 1981 | 1981 Panamanian Air Force Twin Otter crash | de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter · Panama Defense Forces · Panama | 7 |
| 18 Jul 1981 | 1981 Armenia mid-air collision | Canadair CL-44 · Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense · Armenia · Argentina | 4 |
| 26 Jun 1981 | Dan-Air Flight 240 | Dan-Air · United Kingdom | 3 |
| 12 Feb 1981 | 1981 Heiss Island Il-14 crash | Hayes Island | 2 |
| 26 Mar 1981 | LOT Flight 691 | Polish People's Republic | 1 |
| 21 Oct 1981 | Malév Flight 641 | Václav Havel Airport Prague | 0 |
| 2 May 1981 | Aer Lingus Flight 164 | Aer Lingus | 0 |
| 22 Sep 1981 | Aviation accident, 22 September 1981 | — | |
| 29 Aug 1981 | Aviation accident, 29 August 1981 | Flight 674 · Zeya aerodrome | — |
| 19 Aug 1981 | Gulf of Sidra incident | Gulf of Sidra · Libya | — |
| 13 Jun 1981 | Aviation accident, 13 June 1981 | — | |
| 17 Apr 1981 | Aviation accident, 17 April 1981 | — |
"—" = no death toll recorded in Wikidata yet. Names link to the Wikidata item.
Month by month, 1981
| Month | Wikidata accidents | Deaths |
|---|---|---|
| January | 0 | 0 |
| February | 2 | 52 |
| March | 1 | 1 |
| April | 1 | 0 |
| May | 2 | 31 |
| June | 3 | 51 |
| July | 4 | 93 |
| August | 6 | 210 |
| September | 3 | 60 |
| October | 2 | 17 |
| November | 2 | 117 |
| December | 2 | 212 |
Latest crash reports we recorded
Global Incident Tracker's own records begin in August 2026.
What this page shows, and what it misses
Two separate records, never added together. Wikidata: every item classed as an aviation accident (or a kind of one, such as a helicopter crash, mid-air collision or runway excursion) with a date in 1981, with the death toll, country, operator and aircraft as entered there. It favours larger, widely reported accidents, and new entries appear days or weeks after a crash.
Neither is an official world total, and the two counts differ because they count different things. For US civil aviation alone, the NTSB's CAROL accident database lists every accident it investigates, most of them small private aircraft.
Aviation accident data: Wikidata (CC0 public domain), from its structured fields only. Crash reports: Global Incident Tracker.