Konrad Adenauer (airplane)

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The second Konrad Adenauer (16 + 01) in May 2017

Konrad Adenauer is the baptismal name of two aircraft in readiness for flight of the Federal Ministry of Defense , which serve as a means of transport for the Federal President , the Federal Chancellor , the Federal Ministers as well as the Presidents of the Bundestag , the Federal Council and the Federal Constitutional Court . It is named after Konrad Adenauer , the first Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic. The sister aircraft is the Theodor Heuss .

A310 as "Konrad Adenauer" (1991–2011)

The first Konrad Adenauer (10 + 21) in October 1997

The first Konrad Adenauer was an Airbus A310-304 and was available to the government as a VIP transport. After the end of the GDR in 1991, the aircraft was taken over from the Interflug airline and converted for use in parliamentary flight operations. The outer appearance was kept rather simple, initially white with a blue stripe and the words Luftwaffe , then white with a narrow band in the German national colors. In February 2011, citizens from 15 nations were flown out of Libya with the Konrad Adenauer .

In April 2011 the aircraft was decommissioned after 20 years and replaced by an Airbus A340-313 with the same name. A runway at Chinggis Khaan International Airport near Ulaanbaatar that was too short for the A340 meant that on her trip to Asia in October 2011, the Chancellor had to fall back on the officially retired first Konrad Adenauer .

Re-use as A310 ZERO-G

The temporarily unnamed and actually retired old aircraft remained in service until 2014. It was then handed over to the Verwertungsgesellschaft des Bundes Vebeg and sold in June 2014 to the French Novespace , a subsidiary of the Center national d'études spatiales . It was extensively converted for six and a half months at Lufthansa Technik AG in Hamburg for use as a parabolic aircraft and newly registered as a civil aircraft with the name A310 ZERO-G in accordance with the rules of the European Aviation Safety Agency and has been used accordingly by Bordeaux since March 2015.

A340 as "Konrad Adenauer" (since 2011)

The second Konrad Adenauer in July 2011

The current machine with the name Konrad Adenauer was put into service in April 2011.

It is an Airbus A340-300 aircraft that was acquired in 2009 by the Federal Ministry of Defense from the former owner Lufthansa . After ten years of regular service by Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg, the long-haul aircraft was converted into a government aircraft in 21 months. Like the sister aircraft Theodor Heuss , it is used to transport members of the federal government . The non-stop range is 13,500 kilometers; 143 passengers can be transported. Alternatively, it can be converted into a flying intensive care unit. In mid-2013, a laser-based defense system against infrared-guided missiles was retrofitted in the United States. Lufthansa Technik describes the design of the cabin as "timelessly elegant and representative".

The "new" Konrad Adenauer had the registration number 98 + 47 for flight tests by the German Armed Forces, and has been registered as 16 + 01 since it was relocated to the headquarters at Cologne / Bonn Airport . It is the 2000th aircraft delivered by Airbus.

A350

In August 2020, Lufthansa Technik handed over the first of three newly ordered Airbus A350-900XWBs to the German armed forces in Hamburg. The further deliveries are planned for the year 2022. After delivery by Airbus, the aircraft will be converted by Lufthansa Technik. They will then replace the Air Force's A-340s, which are getting on in years.

Events in operation

Refusal to fly over Iran in 2011

During the maiden flight of 16 + 01 on May 31, 2011, there was a diplomatic scandal when Iran refused the machine the right to fly over on its way to India. The plane with Chancellor Angela Merkel and a delegation on board first had to turn around and circling for two hours in Turkish airspace before permission to continue the flight was granted. The Iranian Ambassador Ali Reza Sheikh Attar was summoned to the Foreign Office on the same day . The Federal Ministry of Defense denied the representation of the diplomat who had justified the incident by stating “a wrong signal code” by the pilot (“It was the pilot's mistake. He gave the code for the return, not the code for entering the airspace . ").

Loss losses 2018/19

The Konrad Adenauer resulted in several flight cancellations in 2018. The aircraft, which was almost twenty years old at the time, failed to work around mid-October 2018 after rodents bit through cables. After a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Indonesia, Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz was dependent on a scheduled flight. In mid-November, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was delayed for hours due to an engine failure .

End of November 2018 landed the aircraft with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the way from Berlin to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires unscheduled in Cologne / Bonn . The failure of an electrical converter, a Transformer Rectifier Unit , was named as the cause . According to press reports, the radio traffic should have completely failed, which is why there was talk of an emergency landing . A replacement plane brought a smaller delegation to Madrid; from there she reached her destination with a scheduled flight significantly late. According to an Air Force dossier, a chain of incidents led to the flight being canceled.

On April 1, 2019, the Konrad Adenauer's first flight took place after a four-month general overhaul. When landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, a tire burst, so that the machine could not reach the parking position on its own. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was on board .

See also

Web links

Commons : Airplane 16 + 01  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With the GDR jet on the mini runway. spiegel.de, October 12, 2011, accessed on October 13, 2011 .
  2. ↑ Merkel angry about the inadequate fleet of the Air Force readiness to fly. spiegel.de, August 28, 2011, accessed October 13, 2011 .
  3. ↑ VEBEG sells A310 ready to fly. airliners.de, accessed on May 31, 2011 .
  4. ↑ From the Chancellor's Airbus to the new parabolic aircraft. Retrieved September 20, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Building materials for the moon and "above" and "below" in weightlessness. Retrieved September 20, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Readiness for flight takes over the first A340. airliners.de, March 30, 2011, accessed May 31, 2011 .
  7. ↑ Merkel's jet will defy rockets in the future . In: Handelsblatt . No. 133 , July 15, 2013, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 10 .
  8. ↑ Merkel's new Air Force One. Spiegel Online , March 30, 2011, accessed March 17, 2017 .
  9. ↑ 16 + 01 German Air Force Airbus A340-300. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved February 16, 2020 .
  10. ^ First new government aircraft landed in the Bundeswehr. Retrieved August 25, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Merkel's trip abroad: Iran blames pilot for overflight ban. spiegel.de, May 31, 2011, accessed on April 13, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Iran refuses Merkel the overflight to India. welt.de, May 31, 2011, accessed May 31, 2011 .
  13. ↑ Wrong overflight code - Iran accuses Merkel's pilots. n-tv (online), June 1, 2011, accessed March 25, 2017.
  14. ↑ Iran refused to overflight by Chancellor - Berlin continues to see blame for overflight ban on Tehran. faz.net, accessed April 13, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Defective transformer Reason for Merkel's forced landing. In: Spiegel Online . November 30, 2018, accessed November 30, 2018.
  16. ↑ Germany's Merkel to miss G20 opening after aircraft woes. In: China Daily . November 30, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018.
  17. ↑ Matthias Gebauer: Lufthansa: Mistakes in the airline caused Angela Merkel's G20 odyssey. In: Spiegel Online . December 26, 2018, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Flat tire in New York - Damage to the plane slows Maas. In: tagesschau.de , accessed on April 1, 2019.