Originally Posted by
WHBM
That would be an expensive paint job - G-AZPW was only leased for 6 months, in summer 1972 (thus dating the skirt lengths), from Pakistan International, before going back there. I wonder if the airline name was "British Caledonian", or the earlier "Caledonian//BUA"
Morning!
In 1971
Caledonian//BUA titles were quickly added to both fleets, and the repainting of BUA 1-11's and VC-10's soon began.
G-ARTA Vickers VC10-1109 was w/o LGW on 28.01.72 and was already in BCAL's new livery and titles.
(she did at first have the lion tail but with Caledonian//BUA titles)
By March 1972 when G-AZPW appeared the new British Caledonian livery was on. and BCAL was now the formal name of the airline.
G-AZRO was leased for just 18 months also from PIA around the same time.
The new BCAL livery was amended on Caledonians' own existing fleets of BAC 1-11 509 (4) and 707-320C (7) which saw livery changes to their tails, and to the 707's cheat lines.
BCAL's
G-AZMF, a BAC 111-530FX was delivered brand new (In the new BCAL livery) in March 1972, and was the new airlines sole
new build aircraft until the first new DC-10's arrived in 1977, although both G-BEBL and G-BEBM had already been built for a China AL order (NTU) and had been stored as white tails in the desert.
The other new builds for BCAL were the pair of Airbus A-310's in 1984.
G-AZPW sadly, was the PIA 707 lost on the 26-Nov-79 when it crashed near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, while en-route to Karachi.
A fire had been reported near the aft cabin passenger door and the crew started an emergency descent from 30,000 feet and were cleared to descend to 4000 feet.
Nothing more was heard from the flight and the aircraft crashed in a level rocky area. The cause of the cabin fire was not determined but it was considered possible that it could have been a leaking gasoline or kerosene cooking stove, such as those often carried aboard by Haj pilgrim passengers. All 156 onboard were killed.