Airliner World – April 2018

http://www.airlinerworld.com 59

removing these parts then listing them

on the company website with an ask-

ing price – most of them will need to

be tested and certified first. To that

end, Van Heerden has enlisted the

services of a range of global companies

such as Fokker and KLM Engineering

and Maintenance, each of which will

attend to its own speciality –

hydraulics, control systems and so on.

“Sometimes we also ask them to revise

or upgrade a component”, Van Heerden

noted. He added: “Apart from the

engines, the most valuable parts are the

landing gear and the auxiliary power

unit [APU] in the tail, which provides

electricity and bleed air when the

engines aren’t running. We’ve still to

decide between having the landing

gear overhauled in its entirety for

recertification, or simply taking various

parts out for separate sale. These items

have their own maintenance book-

keeping system, with different periods

between overhauls, so most of them

the UK (during which they were found
to be in satisfactory condition), they are
prepared for removal and collection at
a later date.

Teardown
The next step in the process was an
inspection by customs officers, who
made the trip out from Amsterdam/
Schiphol to check the aircraft for con-
traband. The first stage involved
driving a van-sized mobile infrared
scanner, decked out in the service’s
green and yellow stripes, alongside and
under the jet. This was followed by a
physical inspection – a mobile stair-
case was placed at the front cabin door,
allowing a team of agents accompanied
by shepherd dogs to enter. They resur-
faced 20 minutes later, having found
nothing untoward, and gave the
attending press the all-clear to board
the Airbus.
Inside, the A340 was spotlessly clean
but, devoid of passengers and crew,

and with no cabin lights switched on,

the atmosphere was rather eerie. There

was little time to bask in the ambience

as AELS’ hired team, varying between

six and eight people, quickly got to

work taking the jet apart.

Most of the components from this

aircraft will be sold to airlines need-

ing replacement parts for their fleet.

It’s not, however, a simple matter of

Once the usable parts

were removed, heavy

tracked machinery was

brought in to cut the

remnants into more

manageable pieces

for reprocessing, after

which they were melted

down into aluminium

ingots.

AELS endeavoured to

recover and repurpose

as much of the A340

as possible, storing the

various parts in an

adjacent hangar as the

aircraft was taken apart.

LEF T AND FAR LEF T • The

AELS team hard at work

recycling the former

Swiss Airbus. The

Dutch firm has acquired

a further four widebody

aircraft, including two

A340s from Air France

and a pair of Boeing

747s previously flown

by KLM.

Avionics are stripped,

tested and recertified

ready for onward sale.