Fokkernews October 2020 (issue 35)

General news

Alliance Airlines has announced new scheduled F100 routes to and from Perth, including Perth-Newman twice per week and Perth-Port Hedland 3-4 times per week.

Fokker F27, Fokker 50 & Fokker 60

c/n type registration new registration comment
20171 50E 5Y-MHT Further to the accident described in Fokkernews #34, the preliminary report has confirmed that the aircraft was indeed operating by Silverstone Air Services on behalf of Saacid Airlines. After takeoff, the landing gear could not be retracted since all hydraulics were lost and the crew returned to Mogadishu, where the aircraft veered off the runway and bumped into the concrete wall surrounding the airport. The captain and first officer were seriously injured, two other crew got minor injuries. The certificate of airworthiness had been renewed just 8 days prior to the crash. The F50 had flown 37,793 hours.

Fokker F28, Fokker 70 & Fokker 100

c/n type registration new registration comment
11*** *000 A-280* Indonesian Air Force. One of the F28s that were stored at Halim airport was seen while being broken up: wings and tail were already missing. The choice is between A-2801 (11042) and A-2803 (11117).
11303 100 VH-FZH Virgin Australia Regional Airlines. Seen at Perth 20 August 2020 with engines and windows taped for longer-term storage.
11323 100 EP-ATE Iran Aseman Airlines. On 13 October 2020 the crew of flight EP3962 from Tehran to Ardabil had to reject takeoff due to engine failure. Inspection revealed that the turbine of the right hand engine had ejected parts into the engine housing and some debris penetrated the aft fuselage. There were no injuries among the 87 passengers and 7 crew.
11536 70 5B-DDA TUS Airways. Ferried from Groningen-Eelde to Woensdrecht 30 September 2020 for continued storage.
11554 70 VH-NUV Alliance Airlines. Seen at Norwich 16 October 2020, without engines and part of tail removed. It is rumored that corrosion was discovered in the wing spars and that the aircraft may be scrapped.

The aft fuselage of Minoan Air SX-BRV (20199) is stored at the dump of the owner of the PS Aero collection in Baarlo, the Netherlands. (Johan Hetebrij; Kessel, 26 September 2020)

Few years ago, the vertical tail was mounted onto the fuselage of 20314, which was never completed, and is now in use as an educational room at the Wereldpaviljoen in Steyl, also close to Baarlo, and visible on Google Earth (51.335471, 6.119539). (Lord Photography at Google; Steyl, August 2019)

 

The former Atlantic Airlines Fairchild F-27F HR-ATI (95) that served as a restaurant at Tocoa since August 2014 in Gavilán Airlines livery was moved in February 2019 to the Agualpa resort at Lago de Yojoa, Honduras, where it is a restaurant again. The aircraft is visible at Google Earth (14.929557, -87.982867). (Erick Orellana at Google; Bagope, February 2020)

 

The first Fokker 100 prototype, PH-MKH (11242) has not flown since 2007, but is still in existence. The aircraft is stored at the Fokker Techniek facility at Woensdrecht Air Base, in a special livery. This was applied in 2006 when Stork, the then mother company of Fokker, operated it as a testbed for SOSTAR-X (Stand-Off Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar), a multinational project for an advanced military airborne radar system. (Bernhard Jensch; Woensdrecht, 4 October 2020)

 

After Alpi Eagles ceased operations in 2008, one of their nine F100s, I-ALPX (11251) was put into storage at Dinard and still is there, now evidently in poor condition. (www.airline.pics; Dinard, 28 August 2020)

 

The airport of Alice Springs in the desert of Central Australia currently hosts many aircraft that are parked there for the Covid-19 crisis. Among them are three Fokkers. Mitch Coad was lucky enough to have a helicopter flight over the storage area and he took pictures of two Alliance Airlines F100, both still in the livery of their former operator Helvetic, VH-VKN (11459, ex HB-JVE) and VH-VKQ (11501, ex HB-JVC). (Mitch Coad; Alice Springs, 2 October 2020)

 

Credits

All photographers, Airlineroute, Aviation Herald, Jetphotos.net, Rob de Jong, Jacques Vooren, Henk Wadman, Woensdrecht Spotter forum.