[LIS-HEL-CHQ-HEL-LIS] Last flight (with the L-1011)

[LisbonJet]

An old flight report I wrote some years ago

May 2008

After my return from Dakar I didn't expect to fly again for LUZair. Soon I would begin a new phase in my life and I was still busy writing a manual for LUZair.

The night of 17-18 May, I was precisely on a last effort to finish that project when overcome by fatigue (I thought so), I decided to go to bed around 2am. That's when I received a call from the airline for my very last mission with the L-1011!

I still don't know where I found the strength to respond to this call (I slept only a few hours the previous night) but at 4:30 am I was already at the airport for a long journey: LIS-HEL-CHQ-HEL-LIS. We would be flying for TUIfly Nordic (BLX).

The first leg to HEL was a position flight with a duration of 3h52.

Blue Scan callsign - from the previous name "Blue Scandinavia, also an ex-TriStar operator

With a reinforced cabin crew of 13 members, I was assigned the last position (E8). Each step I took inside the aircraft, I was already feeling nostalgic. This time for sure, this would be my last duty as a LUZair crew member.
Two newly arrived colleagues would be examined during this set of flights.
Briefings at LUZair used to be inquisitive regarding safety procedures - a philosophy inherited from Air Luxor. It was very important to feel comfortable with those procedures and to demonstrate that knowledge by answering correctly to the questions posed during the briefings. It was part of our continuous evaluation and it was one way of obliging crew members to study regularly and keep themselves updated.
In this case, it was even more important for the new colleagues because it was their examination flight. They looked a little bit nervous which was normal. It made me remember my own examination and the colleagues that were with me that day in the same situation. But I was confident that they would answer the briefing questions without problems.

We landed in Helsinki already with daylight, although we descended through a dense layer of clouds which only dissipated a few seconds before landing.

Here is the video of the landing and some photos I took during the taxi-in and turnaround time at Vantaa Airport:

The catering for the passengers was loaded in Helsinki and soon we would be heading to Greece.

Someone trying to impress our crew while writing information in Spanish?

I don't remember many details of the flight itself except for the moderate turbulence we had heading back to Helsinki (the strongest I ever experienced on board a L-1011). While seated during this period, I chatted with one of the new colleagues that was next to me, introducing him to the airline.

Already exhausted, we flew back empty to Lisbon. At 3:35 am, 19th of May 2008, I probably made my very last landing on a L-1011. The new colleagues successfully passed their examination flight and it was with some emotion that said goodbye to the airline that gave me my first job.

As a crew member, I logged a total of 382 hours of flight time and 95 landings on our CS-TMP, being the longest flight one AMS-FOR with a duration of 9h15. Every flight is religiously saved in a personal logbook that I kept updated. It was 382 hours of absolute pleasure (job?) that made me feel: it was worth it, it was really worth it!

* CS-TMP is an ex-Novair aircraft (SE-DVI)

[TriStar]

Thanks for the report! I remember spotting one of the Luzair Tristars at OSL a few years ago. When did the last L-1011 retire from Luzair?

[jb1]

Thank you for this report from a rare ironbird.

[LisbonJet]

Originally Posted by TriStar

Thanks for the report! I remember spotting one of the Luzair Tristars at OSL a few years ago. When did the last L-1011 retire from Luzair?

This aircraft was ferried to Aqaba in 15 November 2008. It was supposed to wait for a maintenance slot there but then they found structural corrosion under the rear lavatories and gave up trying to fix it up.

[Bergern]

Nice
***Filler***