Historic Ju-52 plane grounded permanently in Switzerland

The Ju-52 aircraft belonging to the Ju-Air association will remain in the aviation museum in Dübendorf, canton Zurich. As expected, the aircraft can no longer be put back in the air – the costs are too high and the conditions too strict.

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There is no realistic hope that the Auntie Ju, as the plane is known, will return to the Swiss skies, Christian Gartmann from the Ju-Air association told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Wednesday.

It would cost well over a million francs to make the aircraft on display airworthy, Gartmann explained. The association does not have this money. In addition, according to stricter safety regulations, only flights with very few passengers would be allowed. This would not pay off – breaking even would not be possible, he said.

+ Laws tightened for flying historic aircraft

The fact that the historic aircraft, which was built in 1939, will no longer be taking off is not unexpected. Gartmann had already stated in July 2022 that “the chance of Ju-Air flying again is very small”.

According to Gartmann, one small consolation remains: although the last Auntie Ju will no longer take off, it can at least be viewed and boarded in Dübendorf. As a witness to aviation history, it is one of the most popular exhibits in the museum.

Ju-Air offered sightseeing flights with the historic aircraft for many years. In August 2018, a plane crashed on Piz Segnas. Twenty people died. As a result, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation imposed a flight ban. In 2022, the federal government tightened the regulations for flights with historic aircraft.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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