TULSA, OK — The final flight of American Airlines N259AA was only about 8 feet in the air over a distance of 40 feet, but it may have been one of the most difficult.
After three years of waiting, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 arrived at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetariums on Friday. Workers for American Airlines and Taylor Crane & Rigging moved the 35-ton aircraft from a hangar near the American Airlines Maintenance & Engineering Center and lifted it over a fence to the museum side.
“It’s really going to be something when it’s all ready,” said TASM curator Jim Jones.
The 28-year-old aircraft was a gift from American Airlines, which otherwise would have been salvaged and scrapped.
In its flying days, the plane seated about 160 passengers, but American Airlines and museum employees have stripped the jet of its economy class seats in preparation for its final place at the museum.
TASM plans to use the plane as an exhibit and meeting space. It is spending about $1 million to anchor it near the museum’s entrance as well as put new plumbing, wiring and historical displays inside.
It will also have stairs and a wheelchair lift, as well as a restroom to bring it up to code, Jones said. “It will be a regular building here,” he said.
The finished MD-80 is expected to be open to the public by the end of the year.
The aircraft will serve as an educational facility for tours as well as a rentable space for meetings, parties, or even weddings. The cockpit will be preserved to provide a look at the complex workings of a passenger jet.
The plane was donated three years ago, but it took museum staff that much time to put together a plan for using it.
The plane will be a symbol of Tulsa’s 70-plus years of aircraft production and maintenance, and the thousands of area workers who still produce and fix aerospace products.
The plane was hoisted over an 8-foot chain-link fence with a 265-ton crane, but because of the angle required for the lift, the rigging and positioning of the crane had to be exact, said Jenny Taylor, who works at Taylor Crane.
“It’s at capacity,” she said. “They’ve done their homework figuring out how to move this airplane.”
American Airlines MD-80 hoisted over fence to Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium