Between 1975 and 1982 Aer Lingus helped to run Zambia Airways (Which followed previous agreements with Alitalia and Lufthansa before Aer Lingus was replaced in this role by Ethiopian Airlines) giving management and technical assistance with the 737-200 being leased to bridge a gap while ZA waited for a new 737-200 they ordered to arrive. I can't determine when it was repainted into the standard livery but it operated for at least a few months in this hybrid one.

This plane, EI-ASA (St. Jarlath) actually got repainted quite a lot during it's 20 years with Aer Lingus. Came into service in 1969 just in time to get the classic "Irish International" livery before being leased out to Air Algerie, Nigerian Airways as well as a Zambia Airways. At least with Air Algerie and ZA it got fully repainted, I can't find a picture of it's time with Nigerian Airways. Later got the iconic scheme used during the mid 70s to late 90s. Since it made it to 1988 it also got the Dublin millennium badge painted on if you want to count that.

In 1985 it was involved in a very serious bird strike incident while taking off from Dublin with a flock of black-headed gulls which caused the plane to lose power in the left engine and had it partially detach. Somewhat famous because one of the passengers was Gay Byrne who talked about it on the Late Late and his radio show.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/327093

Funnily enough the pilot in the 1985 incident only just gave an interview about it in December I stumbled upon today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hlFAaGEw48

Sold on in 1990 to Euralair. Ending it's life with Peruvian airline TANSĀ in 2003. Interestingly the aircraft it was filling in for while ZA waited for it to be delivered also ended it's life in South America in 2003 after a serious but non-fatal crash left it as a right-off while operating with Brazilian airline VASP.




PublicOutcome27

1 comment
Leave a Reply