SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 1 (NNN-XINHUA) – Boeing held a ceremony yesterday, to say goodbye to its 747 jumbo jets, in Everett, U.S. state of Washington.
After 53 years since its first delivery, thousands of the company’s current and former employees and guests, attended the ceremony, to bid farewell to the 1,574th and last Boeing 747 ever built.
After the ceremony, the final 747 freighter, built for cargo carrier Atlas Air, departed from outside the grand assembly plant, purpose-built for the 747 in the late 1960s.
The building housed more jet programmes and grew to be the largest by volume, in the world. Boeing Everett at a recent peak in 2012, provided more than 40,000 jobs, according to a report by The Seattle Times.
The late Joe Sutter, the chief engineer on the original programme, was given the task to design a new jet in Aug, 1965. The first test plane rolled out of the newly built factory in Sept, 1968, and had its first flight in Feb, 1969. The first production plane was delivered on Jan 22, 1970.
The final 747-8 passenger version can carry nearly 470 people on trans-Pacific and other longer-haul routes.
Over the past two decades, airlines switched to the more fuel-efficient, two-engined planes, which leads 747 models out of production.– NNN-XINHUA
