Boeing is making a lot of noise about him and his 747. Recently, the manufacturer announced that he had just produced the last copy of the four-jet engine. After 54 years of aeronautical history, the sky giant is retiring to make way for more efficient models. But even crazier news, and this time much more shocking, also deserves to be addressed. In Arizona, United States, a brand new Boeing 747 has just joined the aircraft graveyard. The ultimate mess.
He had only 6 flights under his belt, and barely 29 hours in the air in all. The equivalent of less than two weeks for an aircraft in operation with an airline. But his perfect was a trompe-l’oeil. In fact, the plane is already more than 10 years old. Rolled off the production line in 2012 in Everett (Washington, USA), the aircraft was ordered as a government aircraft. But he never fulfilled his role. Here is his story.
The plane of a dead prince
Before coming to buy on the tarmac of Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport, between France, Germany and Switzerland for ten years, the device had a turbulent start. In its specifications, Boeing had to make this copy of the 747 a high-end aircraft. In the cabins, only a hundred places are available, against the more than 500 generally in the commercial versions. The entire device resembles that of an XXL private jet. He is to welcome Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdelaziz Al Saud.
First Boeing 747-8i is scrapped in the US after just 40 flight hours.
📷Javier Rodríguez pic.twitter.com/YvV1gauFVB
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) December 19, 2022
When the device was under construction, in October 2011, the prince died suddenly, says a journalist in the pages of the magazine Point. Less than a year from its delivery, the device must be finished anyway. But on the side of Saudi Arabia, the plane is already no longer of interest. Its 400 m2 of cabin will not find a buyer, as the aircraft is huge, cannot land at all airports, consumes a lot and remains very expensive despite its discount, on occasion, of 89.3 million euros against 376 million euros based on the Boeing catalog.
After ten years in Europe, he has therefore just crossed the Atlantic again to return to his native country, where some of his parts will be removed, resold, but where the main structure will be permanently installed on an air base in the US Air Force, in Arizona, where hundreds of planes come to sadly end their lives here. In the parts that will be reused, we will fortunately find the engines, the landing gear, the flaps and the vertical stabilizer.
