The SAA plane was retired to Rand Airport. The pilot practised on a sim for a month before the final flight and did several VERY low fly-by's in the week leading up to the last flight. (I believe he actually touched down a couple of times)
The flight from JHB Int (Jan Smuts) to Rand would have been the shortest if he'd flown direct, but he didn't - he was in the air for a while.
Notice full flaps and spoilers etc? Pilot was not alowed to use rev thrust because the engines were removed and returned to service on other planes and rev thrust would have ingested dirt because the engines all overhang the runway.
I've been on a tour of the plane (Lebombo). It's cool. You get to crawl all over it and my sister took some nice pictures of me sitting inside an engine cowl and on the main landing gear etc.
Well worth a visit if your nearby.
:-)