Iqaluit’s airport wrapped up a remarkable—and busy—week Feb. 9, starting with the emergency landing of a jet en route to Los Angeles and ending with the day-long stop of Government of Canada aircraft carrying the Prime Minister and his entourage to Iqaluit.
The week kicked off with the Feb. 1 emergency landing of a Swiss International Air Lines Boeing 777-300 on one engine, followed by the Feb. 2 departure of its 200-plus passengers and crew on a Swiss International Air Bus rescue flight.
Then, Feb. 4 brought the landing of the Antonov 124, carrying the new $24-million engine for the Swiss International jet, with huge aircraft’s arrival just before sunset witnessed by many of Iqaluit’s keen plane-spotting 7,740 residents.
The activity put Iqaluit’s airport on the map, as a team of engineers worked 24-7 in frigid temperatures to take off the faulty engine and put on the new one.
Finally the Swiss International flight left Feb. 8 for Zurich—followed by the departure of the Antonov late in the evening for the U.K.
This operation would have been expensive and a good job that they could tow the 777 off the runway before The 11:31 p.m. departure of the hulking Antonov, a four-engine aircraft owned by the Antonov Co., a Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing and services company, put an end to the repair saga of the Swiss jet.
Stefan Vasic, a corporate communications manager at Swiss International, said the cost of the entire operation was “under evaluation and subject to further calculations.”