Los Jumbos 747 de Avianca y sus tristes finales. / The Avianca's Boeing 747 and its sad end.

Video from the channel VISUAL MOTOR about Boeing 747, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 20:00. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

A look at the seven Boeing 747s that passed through the fleet of Colombian airline Avianca between 1976 and 1996. For each one, the account covers how it arrived, what registrations it carried, which other operators flew it and how it ended: in most cases, scrapped after passing through several cargo companies.

Avianca chose the 747 as its first twin-aisle aircraft for long-haul routes, especially to Europe, in response to the alliance its rival Aerocóndor was preparing with Iberia. It was the second Latin American airline to operate the type, after Viasa in 1972, but the first to fly it permanently with its own crews. The first one, HK-2000 "El Dorado", a 747-100 previously flown by Continental, landed in Bogotá on 3 December 1976. Its unveiling even forced the airport to close.

HK-2300 "Cartagena de Indias", a 747-200 Combi delivered new in 1979, served the airline the longest, until 1995. In 1982 it brought Gabriel García Márquez back from Stockholm after he received the Nobel Prize, and in 1986 it carried Pope John Paul II back to Rome. HK-2910X "Olafo", a 747-200 leased from SAS, crashed on 27 November 1983 on approach to Madrid-Barajas. It was the worst accident in Colombian aviation history. Another of the aircraft was involved in the "narco jumbo" case, seized in Miami in 1986. The last one, TF-ABW, left the fleet in 1996.