Aviation services group Aviation Partner teamed up with Russia's Antonov to come up with "an urgent AOG cargo charter solution to move an oversized aircraft engine and critical tooling to a remote island in the Azores".
Four weeks in the planning, the job entailed deploying an Antonov AN-124 and a Boeing 747 Freighter to move a replacement aircraft engine, empty stand, tooling, lifting beam from Miami to the Azores.
The work, Aviation Partner said, required "a 48-ton mobile crane to load and offload the high value and oversized aircraft engine into and out of the AN-124 cargo cabin".
Aviation Partner said an Antonov AN-124 aircraft was able "to better facilitate the oversized load and, as a self-loading aircraft, circumvent the smaller loading capabilities of the remote destination". A B747-F was used to transport the serviceable engine from Miami to Luxembourg before it was loaded onto the AN-124 destined for the Azores.
“It was a very interesting and unusual project", according to Serhii Bilozerov, commercial executive, Antonov Airlines.