Moving of Boeing across R21 a first in South Africa

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Rare spectacle seen as aircraft crosses highway

The moving of a decommissioned Boeing 737-300 aircraft across the R21 highway on Sunday was a first for this country.

The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL), assisted Comair/British Airways in the move. 

The aircraft needed to be moved to the Comair/British Airways training centre where it would be used to train cabin crew in a true-to-life environment. 

The move necessitated closed lanes and some traffic disruptions on the R21 between 10pm on Saturday to 10am on Sunday. Initially, the highway was narrowed by lane closures to accommodate the equipment and people required for the move. 

At the time when the aircraft was being lifted over the highway by a series of cranes, traffic was stopped for about 30-40 minutes on three occasions. 

The plane and the rigging equipment weighed 32 tons and four cranes were required to make the move – a 100 tonner, 200 tonner, 400 tonner and 500 tonner. 

“There have been only three such moves done worldwide as far as we know,” said Ismail Essa, regional manager of the Northern Region. Capt Glenn Warden of Comair concurred: “This is the first time this has been done in this country. 

To move an entire aircraft across a national highway is a mammoth task and I must say that Sanral have been absolutely fantastic in assisting us in managing traffic on their roads.” SANRAL closed lanes in a planned sequence so as not to disrupt motorists too much, get the plane across the highway and keep road users safe. 

The four lanes were gradually reduced to one between 10pm and 1am on Sunday morning, when all lanes were shut down when there was minimal traffic. 

“This was certainly an unusual operation but as always, we made sure that our road users were safe first and foremost, and secondly that we did not disrupt traffic. “This is part of our contribution to keep the economy moving,” said Essa.