For first time in Pakistan’s history, passenger jet takes 150-km intercity road trip

KARACHI: Civil aviation aircraft are typically seen zooming through the skies, but an unusual sight awaits as a large passenger jet is set to be transported by road from Karachi to Hyderabad on Thursday (today).

One similar event took place in Saudi Arabia lately when three Boeing 777s took a road trip through the deserts.

In a first for Pakistan, the grounded aircraft will travel more than 150 kilometres overland, an unusual journey that typically takes around two and a half hours by road, according to sources quoted by Geo News.

“A special truck and a trolley are being used to transport the Boeing 737’s fuselage as its wings and tail will be moved separately,” sources said, adding that it will be reassembled at the Civil Aviation Training Institute (CATI) Hyderabad and used for training airport firefighters.

According to transporter Humayun Khalid, the aircraft is 110 feet long and weighs 40 tonnes. “The defunct plane — a Boeing 737 with a capacity of 240 people — was moved from the airport to the Superhighway late at night,” Khalid told Geo News.

The Motorway Police said the motorway would not be blocked during the transfer. The long vehicle carrying the fuselage will drive on one side of the road, escorted by CAA staff and security. “The plane is being moved as per protocol,” they added.

Traffic was, however, heavily affected during the trailer’s journey along the motorway.

Sources noted a similar event in the late 1980s when a plane was moved within Karachi by road and parked at a CAA centre near Hassan Square in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. It was later repurposed as a restaurant.

In September, three retired Boeing 777 aircraft of Saudi Arabian Airlines garnered significant attention for their 1,000-kilometre journey from Jeddah to Riyadh by road, with scenes of the aircraft travelling through deserts and mountains widely shared on social media.