Attack Squadron 85 or VA-85 was a long-lived Attack Squadron of the U.S. Navy. It was called to active duty as U.S. Navy Reserve squadron VA-859 on 1 February 1951 and redesignated VA-85 on 4 February 1953. It was disestablished on 30 September 1994, over 40 years later. The squadron's nickname from 1958-1994 was the Black Falcons. It was the second squadron to be designated VA-85, the first VA-85 was disestablished on 29 November 1949.

The Achille Lauro hijacking took place on 7 October 1985, when the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) off the coast of Egypt, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Ashdod, Israel. A 69-year-old Jewish American man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard. The hijacking sparked the "Sigonella Crisis".