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The plane that carried Queen Elizabeth II to the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch is being saved from the scrap heap and is coming home.
Historical aviation charity Bring Our Birds Home is set to bring the ZK-NZC Douglas DC-8 back to New Zealand over September and October. It sits at Manaus–Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Brazil, but its final resting place will be the National Transport and Toy Museum in Wānaka.
It is the only surviving DC-8 of the eight once in Air New Zealand’s fleet.
“This aircraft is responsible for Air New Zealand becoming a fully-fledged international airline,” Bring Our Birds Home founder and trustee Paul Brennan said.
The plane was built at the Douglas Long Beach plant in California, USA, and was delivered to Air New Zealand in September 1965.
It operated the royal flight from Rarotonga to Christchurch on January 30, 1974, bringing the Queen to the city to close the British Commonwealth Games at QEII Park on February 2, 1974.
"It's hard to believe the Queen sat in there, but she did,” Brennan said. Princess Anne and Mark Phillips were also on board.
He said the plane was a “nation-building artefact. Before this aircraft came along into the fleet of Air New Zealand, as far as you could fly on Air New Zealand, or TEAL as it was back in the day, was to the Pacific Islands and to Australia.
"So it represents a great leap in New Zealand's connectivity with the world back in 1965.”
Air New Zealand withdrew it from service in 1981, and it passed between several owners before ending up in Brazil. Its last owner donated it to Bring Our Birds Home, meaning the only costs, covered by anonymous donors, will be dismantling and shipping.
Brennan said they had a team of dismantlers ready to start working on the plane. It will be brought back to New Zealand by sea so it can be put back together and restored.
"It’s 150 feet long, for God's sake. It's quite a job to break down an airliner that carries 200 people.”
- By Raphael Franks