This is a list of aviation-related events from 1988.
April
May
The deadliest crash of this year was Iran Air Flight 655, a Airbus A300 which was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz on 3 July, killing all 290 people onboard. Later that year, a terrorist bomb exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747 which then crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December, killing all 259 people on board as well as 11 on the ground; this disaster may have been aided by Iran in reaction to the shootdown of Flight 655 not six months earlier.[44]