![]() The ex-Soviet planes have already established their reputation in Africa, proving to be reliable, simple to maintain, and well-suited to extreme climates. It appears old Antonovs – mostly the An-24 and its derivatives – are pretty much the only ones that can take on the role. Nevertheless, as no new DC-3s have been manufactured in over seven decades and the existing ones do not multiply, from time to the tragic time they have to be replaced by something. To be fair, retirement is a thing that does not really apply to the DC-3 – most of the operating aircraft of this type have already been retired at one point or another, only to be sold off and proceed with operations. Nevertheless, at that rate, the country is going to run out of the type sooner or later. Outskirts of small Colombian airports usually house several non-operational DC-3s with the explicit purpose of being cannibalized. There is a well-known saying among the enthusiasts of the plane – “the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3”, as, supposedly, no other aircraft can take on the job. With the latest crash, more than half of Aliansa’s fleet have already perished in fatal accidents in the span of two-and-a-half decades. The underside of such dangerous operations is the high toll they take. ![]() In 2018, Al Jazeera filmed a short documentary about it, highlighting the romanticism and above all – the danger of flying vintage planes in tropical conditions of the country. ![]() It also can land on short and unprepared runways, basically being a bush plane in an airliner form.Ī result of that is a sort of “DC-3 culture” that formed around the aircraft in countries that are in dire need of connecting geographically distant population centers through the air, mostly in South America. ![]() It is sturdy and reliable it is easy and not too expensive to fly it is simple to maintain and, thanks to the fact that a lot of them were manufactured, there is a steady stream of spare parts – even though the production stopped in 1950. The aircraft has a number of crucial advantages that are well known to anybody who ever came in contact with it. Private companies are not the only ones operating this aircraft in fact, just hours after the DC-3 crash on July 8, a Colombian Air Force DC-3 was circling in the region, possibly as a part of the search effort. A turboprop-converted DC-3 belonging to Colombian police. ![]()
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