Interesting Videos

[Maerchenprinz]

Yesterday, at around 15:00h local, one of the stored 747 (D-ABVO I think) departed from Twente to Frankfurt EDDF. It flew over my house at only 11000ft , and I have missed that, just saw it later on flightradar...

[erik]

That's the on in the tweet I posted.

Erik

[Maerchenprinz]

That's the on in the tweet I posted.

That was the D-ABTL, yesterday it was the D-ABVO (who cares anyway... ) (EDIT: Sorry, you are right, I thought by "tweet" you meant the yt-video again... Wow, that departure looked really cool! No payload, low fuel, here we go!)
As I've read, the airport got a special permission from authorities to have such big planes also depart from, not just land on this airport - with "special permission" as in "Do NEVER ask for permission AGAIN!", as all 747 at Enschede were supposed to be wrecked by a local company. Now they will be flown to Mojave via Frankfurt... The local company must be really %*!#ing mad at that.
Thanks for the video!

Ciao,
Adrian

[Isaak]

As I've read, the airport got a special permission from authorities to have such big planes also depart from, not just land on this airport - with "special permission" as in "Do NEVER ask for permission AGAIN!", as all 747 at Enschede were supposed to be wrecked by a local company. Now they will be flown to Mojave via Frankfurt... The local company must be really %*!#ing mad at that.

That was indeed the case. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I guess Twente Airport has payed some hefty penalties to be able to fulfil their promises to Lufthansa and let the 747's depart again. In my opinion, they should have checked if a permission was obtainable before promising Lufthansa that it could store some 747's there during Covid-19, because from the beginning Lufthansa had plans to bring back some of the 747's in service. I'm not even sure that AELS (Aircraft End of Life Solutions - the aircraft scrapping company) was planning to dismantle any of the 747's when they flew in. So in the end I guess Lufthansa, the Dutch government and AELS will have been quite mad. But they found a solution, that's most important

Edit: see below for the correct line of events

[erik]

I've seen the documents and the inspection granted landing of wide body aircraft for "end of life and long term storage". That last part means that at some point they would be able to take off again. What they actually meant was "end of life with long term storage."

The inspection was quite willing to solve the problem provided the airport could hand over procedures to do it safely. So no hefty price was payed by anyone.

In the end I like to think I helped to solve the problem since, despite the fact that the airport already started a legal procedure, when I handed over the solution to both the airport and inspection it was solved within four working hours and legal procedures where off the table.

All in all, a Boeing 747 can depart safely form Twente Airport under certain conditions, as was show by the departure film.

Erik

[Isaak]

Wow, nice to have an insider among us This learns me again that it's better to refrain from speculation. Thanks for the explanation and for finding a solution for this issue!

[wlbragg]

I was searching for some video of exterior aircraft lighting and came across this interesting video. I think it fits three forum categories, interesting, emergency and funny (in a strange sort of macabre way).

[Johan G]

Talk about keeping calm and carry on. On his first solo night flight (in essence his first without instructor pilot).

[wlbragg]

Yeah, and if anyone tries to tell me to get rid of the ALS flashlight, well!