Dutch authorities lift the ban and allow the last Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 stored in Twente to take off.
This is the case of 6 jumbo jets of the German company based in Cologne, which were transferred to Twente, Holland, and were detained after the authorities that regulate transport in the country defined that aircraft of this model could not depart from the site.
The main problem was that the small air terminal could not offer the corresponding safety conditions for the departure of this aircraft, but on the other hand, the authorities believed in principle that these units were going to be dismantled, as most of them have been taken there. After that, they found out that this was all about a storage contract and that the huge aircraft resting there were going to be removed at any moment.
After quite back and forth and what was already a stalemate for these 6 units, the airport manager together with the Dutch authority discussed the situation and came to an agreement at the end of October 2020.
The agreement allowed a one-time exception for the take-off of all the 747s stored there, provided that all the necessary safety measures were carried out to the letter. Needless to say, it is very unlikely that such an operation will be authorized in the future and that a similar situation will occur again.
With everything signed, 3 jumbos were then released while the other 3 would remain in a storage agreement that would last until the middle of next year. However, 1 of the remaining 3 jumbos was withdrawn by the company in April due to the rapid resumption of its post-pandemic operations.
After all this, last August 3, the penultimate unit of the Twente jumbo took off, and its departure was recorded in a nice video provided by our Brazilian partner Aeroin, which you can access by clicking here.
Several fans gathered in the vicinity of the terminal to record with their own eyes and with the lenses of their cameras the deplaning of the Boeing 747-400 registration D-ABVX, which after takeoff, returned to the vertical of the airport to give them a nice goodbye.
After several months of stagnation and the take-off of the penultimate jumbo, it was the turn of the last unit of the stock that Lufthansa had stored there to depart, putting an end to a saga that resounded for months.
It is the aircraft with registration number D-ABTL, which also got its spring. It took off last Monday, September 20, at 11:54 UTC, from Enschede Twente airport, bound for Frankfurt. The DLH1ENS flight lasted just over 40 minutes.
Image of the flight path by RadarBox.
The takeoff in question could also be recorded by fans who were present in the vicinity of the airport. Both the departure and the preparation of the aircraft are captured in an exciting video that we will see below.
It is interesting to note that the Boeing 747 was towed to the head of the runway, since the airport does not have the capacity for the queen of the skies to travel there by her own means.
After takeoff at a high rate of climb, it can be seen in the images that the aircraft returns to the vertical of the airport and makes a passage turning on the runway, encouraging the fans who were watching and allowing them to contemplate the entire lateral sector of its fuselage.
Finally, to put the icing on the cake and to maintain the tradition, the pilot in command at the time of takeoff, makes a «bye bye» waving his planes to both sides.
Fortunately for these jumbo jets, which had no specific destination due to the uncertainty generated by the crisis among their operators, they are flying again and will have the beautiful mission of transporting thousands of passengers, thus extending their life in the skies, hopefully for a long time to come.
