A couple of months ago, I wrote about that the last flight of the Slovak governmental Tu-154 would happen on August 27, 2017.
The aircraft, registered OM-BYO, was supposed to perform at SIAF (Slovak International Air Fest) air show on August 26 and 27. And then, it was supposed to fly directly to Kosice in the east of Slovakia – to its new home in the Museum of Aviation there. Instead, however, even after the second day of the airshow, the aircraft returned to its home base in Bratislava.
Over the next month, it operated some more passenger flights, and it even performed at one more airshow – at the NATO Days in Ostrava.
Unfortunately, on September 27, 2017, OM-BYO has done its final flight leaving the European Union with zero active Tupolev Tu-154s.
(The photos that follow have been kindly provided by my friends over at Airliners.sk.)
After taking-off in Bratislava and before heading to Kosice, the aircraft even did a low-pass over the runway of Bratislava – the airport that it called home for more than two decades.
And, below is a video of the low-pass:
While it was bound to happen sooner or later, it is sad to see the aircraft being retired. I was lucky enough to have photographed it a couple of times in Bratislava, and even in Tokyo. However, not nearly as much as I would have liked.
As such, I am looking forward to visiting the Kosice museum soon to see not only the Tupolev Tu-154, but also its smaller colleague that retired a bit sooner than the Tu-154, the Yak-40.
