1960
- January 1: North Central launches service to Benton Harbor and Grand Rapids from Chicago.
- January 1: A Southern Airways Martin 404 positioning from Memphis to University/Oxford, Mississippi, undershoots the runway during landing causing its gear to collapse. The 3 crew aboard evacuate safely.
- January 1: Northwest adds service to Fort Lauderdale to its Florida routings.
- March 17: NWA flight 710, a Lockheed L-188 Electra flying from the Twin Cities via Chicago to Miami, breaks apart and crashes over Perry County, Indiana. 57 passengers and 6 crew members perish. Analysis of the wreckage and comparison to an earlier Braniff Airways L-188 crash in 1959, identifies problems with the engine mounts on the airplane’s wings causing harmonic stress and fractures. This leads to a worldwide grounding of the Electra fleet and eventual modifications. After the updates, the L-188 provides reliable service through the rest of the century.
- July 8: Northwest begins “fastest U.S. jet service to Asia” with Douglas DC-8 aircraft, the airline’s first “pure jet”.
- July 14: NWA Flight 1, a Douglas DC-7C on the Tokyo – Manila run, departs Okinawa on its final leg to the Philippines with 7 crew and 51 passengers. About 2 hours into the flight, the aircraft’s #2 engine fails and its propeller wrenches free, gashing the fuselage. Over the open ocean, the crew has no choice but to ditch: despite breaking apart upon hitting the water, a wing stays afloat for three hours and all crew and passengers evacuate, although most are injured to some degree. One passenger dies.
- July: Northwest moves into its new maintenance and overhaul base at Wold-Chamberlain Field.
- August 31: Chicago-Anchorage-Tokyo service begins.
- October 28: Northwest Flight 104, a DC-4 eastbound from Spokane, deviates from instrument flight and descends too low into a valley experiencing inclement weather 20 miles before its destination of Missoula, Montana. The aircraft crashes; the 4 crew and 8 passengers are killed.
- November 18: Bonanza Airlines becomes America’s first “all jet-powered airline” when it retires its last DC-3’s and replaces them with jet-prop Fairchild F-27’s.
- December 1: North Central launches service from Detroit and Chicago on routes abandoned by Capital Airlines to Muskegon, Flint, Port Huron, Saginaw, Alpena, Cadillac, Manistee, Traverse City, Pellston, and Sault Ste. Marie. North Central also begins Detroit – Cleveland service.
- December 15: Northwest adds Baltimore, Md. to handle jet flights to the greater Washington, D.C. area, as National Airport’s runways (at this date) cannot handle the Boeing 720B.
- NWA service expands to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
- Northwest pioneers jet noise abatement procedures.
1961
- New NWA general office at Minneapolis’ Wold-Chamberlain Field is occupied, completing consolidation of operations at the new facility.
- The Northwest fleet expands again with the Boeing 720B, a four-engine jetliner.
- September 17: Northwest Flight 706, an L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Chicago O’Hare. All 32 passengers and 5 crew are killed. Unlike the March 1960 Electra crash, this incident was caused by a mechanical failure in the aileron primary control system.
1962
- April: Bonanza begins nonstop Las Vegas – Los Angeles service with eight daily roundtrips.
- October 22: A Northwest DC-7C, operating a Military Air Transport charter from Tacoma-McChord AFB to Anchorage-Elmendorf AFB, suffers a failure in its #2 engine, making its propeller uncontrollable, and is forced to ditch into the ocean outside Sitka, Alaska. All 7 crew and 95 passengers successfully evacuate on life rafts as the aircraft was able to stay afloat for 24 minutes.
- Northwest originates wind shear forecasts to warn of sudden changes in wind direction.
1963
- January 17: West Coast Flight 703, a training exercise operated with an F-27, crashes into the Great Salt Lake while practicing emergency descent procedures. All three crew on board are killed.
- February 12: Northwest Flight 705, operated by a Boeing 720B and heading to Chicago, crashed after departure from Miami into the Everglades due to extreme wind shear while passing through a storm system. All 35 passengers and 8 crew perished.
- June 3: Northwest Flight 293, a military charter operated with a DC-7C, enroute to Elmendorf AFB in Alaska, crashes into the Sea of Alaska. All 95 passengers and 6 crew are killed. While a substantial amount of wreckage is recovered, the key pieces sink to the ocean floor, so no cause is determined.
- The Boeing 707-320 enters service with Northwest.
1964
- Northwest receives the Flight Safety Foundation safety award for turbulence research.
- Northwest is awarded the Presidential “E” for development of export markets and “Visit the U.S.A.” promotion in Asia.
- The Boeing 727 joins the Northwest fleet.
- May 7: Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, operated by an F-27, crashes near San Ramon, California. All 44 aboard are killed. The cause is determined to be gun violence, and Federal regulations are tightened to prevent access to commercial flight decks while airborne.
- October 5: Chicago – Cleveland nonstop service begins on Northwest.
- November 15: Bonanza Flight 114, an F-27 inbound from Phoenix, crashes outside Las Vegas during a snowstorm. All 29 aboard are killed.
1965
- April 1: Northwest launches service to Philadelphia nonstop from Cleveland and Detroit.
- July: North Central orders its first five Douglas DC-9s with an option for five more. These 100 passenger turbojets would be the first new aircraft the airline would acquire, with deliveries starting in 1967.
- September 13: Pacific Air Lines announces an order for six Boeing 727-100 trijets.
- December 21: Bonanza takes delivery of its first Douglas DC-9-10 jetliner.
- Northwest expands service to Philadelphia.
1966
- June: North Central moves its Detroit maintenance base from Willow Run Airport (Ypsilanti) to the newer Metropolitan Airport.
- July 17: Through-plane service on Northwest begins to Asia from Philadelphia, Detroit and Twin Cities via Seattle.
- September 16: West Coast takes delivery of its first Douglas DC-9-14 jet.
- October 1: Northwest wins approval to serve Hong Kong.
- October 1: West Coast Airlines Flight 956, operating with the carrier’s first DC-9, crashes enroute from Eugene to Portland, Oregon, with all 18 aboard killed.
- North Central signs an agreement with Pacific Aeromotive to convert 20 Convair 340/440’s to CV-580’s with an option for 11 more. Eventually, all 33 piston Convairs in the fleet will be converted to “prop-jets” with an additional 2 purchased and converted starting in 1967.
- Northwest places an order for ten Boeing 747-100 twin-aisle, double-decker “jumbo jets” for delivery at the end of the decade, marking the company’s commitment to wide-body long haul flying.
1967
- March 10: West Coast Airlines Flight 720, an F-27 outbound from Klamath Falls, Oregon heading for Seattle, experiences wing icing and crashes into Stukel Mountain just after takeoff. The one passenger and three crew aboard all perish.
- April 1: North Central’s newly-converted Convair 580 turboprops begin scheduled operations. The CV-580s would stay in mainline service all the way through the Northwest merger.
- June: Southern begins service with its first DC-9 jetliners.
- July 31: Northwest service expands to Osaka, Japan, and Hilo, Hawaii.
- July 31: Capt. L. V. Andrews pilots Southern Airways’ last DC-3 flight from Dothan, Ala., to Memphis.
- August 1: North Central begins service to Toronto, Ontario from Detroit.
- September 8: North Central commences service with their first DC-9 jets. In the years to come, the sturdy DC-9 will become the workhorse of Northwest’s domestic fleet.
- December 1: North Central extends its network south to Kansas City from Sioux City, Iowa.
- December 17: Hilo, Hawaii is added as an intermediate stop on select NWA services to Honolulu.
1968
- April 25: Air West is incorporated, combining the previous operations of Pacific, Bonanza and West Coast airlines. Pacific’s San Francisco base would be the headquarters, and Bonanza’s Phoenix base would be the maintenance center.
- April 28: Bonanza had been awarded rights to fly into Mexico, and Air West launches services using those rights from Phoenix through Tucson to La Paz, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta.
- July 1: Northwest Flight 714, departing Miami for Chicago, is hijacked by a lone antagonist. The flight diverts to Havana, Cuba where the hijacker exits and the aircraft is allowed to fly back to the United States. All 92 aboard are safe.
- August 4: North Central Flight 261, a Convair 580 flying from Chicago to Milwaukee, is hit by a Cessna 150. The cabin section of the Cessna becomes embedded in the Convair’s forward baggage compartment. The Convair loses electrical power and the right engine shuts down due to a damaged propeller; the captain completes a successful emergency landing six minutes later. All three aboard the Cessna are killed and the first officer on the Convair receives serious leg and head injuries, but the other 3 crew and 8 passengers are uninjured.
- December 27: North Central Flight 458, a CV-580 inbound from Milwaukee, crashes into a hangar while attempting to land on instruments at Chicago O’Hare after a go-around, killing 27 of the 45 people on board and killing one and injuring six people on the ground.
- Northwest leads the U.S. airline industry in net profit for the first time.
1969
- February 7: North Central’s final scheduled DC-3 service: flight #774 flies the 30 minute leg from Mankato, Minnesota to Minneapolis/St. Paul, concluding 19 years of dedicated service for the #1 regional airline.
- June 15: North Central launches nonstop service from the Twin Cities to Denver.
- August 1: Northwest begins San Francisco-Honolulu-Asia flights.
- October 4: Northwest launches Twin Cities-Los Angeles and Twin Cities-San Francisco flights.
- North Central Airlines moves into a new administrative and operational headquarters complex on the south side of Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, known today as the Building C maintenance and administrative facility.
- Northwest again leads the U.S. airline industry in net profit.
- Air West loses $20.8 million and shareholders seek a buyer.
Timeline Navigation
Click on the links below or use the top navigation to read through the Northwest Family history, decade by decade:
