Farewell AirTran

AirTran ceased operations in GRR with the Southwest merger a while back, but on the 28th of Dec 2014, AirTran ceased all operations everywhere. The B717's will continue to motor on for many years to come in GRR as they all will (or are already) be flying for Delta.

 

 

The Mighty DC8 part 1

Loaded just about every DC8 that Kalitta (American International Airways too) owned at that time. Mostly saw the -54F's with an occasional -61F or -63F.

 

 

 N817CK  DC8-61F

 N161DB Buffalo Airways DC8-61.

 If I recall correctly, It was here for the Emery/Postal Christmas rush

Beechcraft Bonanza gear up landing

There was recently a Bonanza gear up incident that reminded me of pictures I have of another incident a few years ago.

 N7272B on 11-26-1994 could not extend the gear due to a failure of the gear motor. After flying around and trying alternate methods of trying to get the gear to extend, they elected to land at KGRR. Here is the sequence of pictures from the gear-up landing that day and the recovery.

 

 

 

First Digital only post

First current digital only post. No retro scans today. Just ones that I picked out randomly.

 

 

 

Odd Military stuff

Odd military stuff that would consist of just one or two approaches here and would be on their way again. I know I have a picture of an E-4 (B747-200) that I have not run across in my yet in my files...have to look for that one.

 

Edit: found the E-4 picture and added it to the bottom.

 

 

 

 Battle Creek ANG A-10's were frequent guests' when the weather was poor in BTL.

 

KGRR first B777 visit

Grand Rapids just recently had its third ever B777 diversion on July 27th 2014.

 http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL188/history/20140727/2305Z/KGRR/KDTW

 

Many may not remember the first two B777 visits, though they happened on the same night.

UAL 928 a ORD-LHR flight had an inflight emergency on its climb out of  Chicago and diverted to KGRR on the evening of Dec 28th, 2002. The emergency aircraft landed fine and it checked out OK by the fire crews after it landed. A second B777-200 then ferried from ORD to pick up the stranded passengers and then make up the flight to London. So for a few hours there were two B777-200's on the ramp at the same time. It had been twelve year gap from the first ones, until the most recent one.

The pictures below are all of N219UA on its departure the next afternoon...empty, ferry flight back to KORD.

 

 

 This is about the 3000' mark on the 10,000' runway.

 

9-11-01

The ramp as it looked on 9-11 after the aircraft were diverted to the closest airport.

Think it was a Beijing flight inbound to DTW if I remember correctly.

Same aircraft as above, just re-positioned on the cargo ramp.