Q: COUNTIFS specific year

Hi,

I'm having difficulty coming up with a formula that works, so I'm turning to the community for help. I'm not sure if it's my formula, or if it's possibly a data formatting issue, but I have a flight log, and I'm trying to total up the number of flights for a specific year, per aircraft

Here are some screen shots:

The formula that I've tried to start off in attempt to get just the number of flights in 2014 (not breaking it down by aircraft) is: =COUNTIF(YEAR(The Date),I2)

I2 is referencing the "2014" cell

This only returns a value of 1 which is incorrect as there are several entries for 2014. When I change cell I2 to 2015 or 2016 it results in zeros.

I realize that this is breaking the formula right from the get go, so haven't attempted the continuation of a COUNTIFS formula that further narrows it down by aircraft type.

Is this a formula issue, or a data issue? The dates in the "The Date" column are set to automatic, with date formatting. What I did notice is that when I don't use "YEAR", and select that column in a formula, only the data is highlighted. When I use YEAR and select the column, it highlights the entire column including the header.

Help!