Forum: aviation.stackexchange.com
Tags: <landing><aviation-history>
Title: Have any large aeroplanes been landed — safely and without damage — in locations that they could not be flown away from?
Question: And, what was done with them subsequently?

Answers:
sents: text: TACA Flight 110 made a deadstick landing on a grass levee.
text: Engines got replaced and it took off using a nearby NASA facility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/38505/Devilscomrade
score: 74
sents: text: Sure!
text: An Ex-Interflug Ilyushin Il-62 was landed on the 900 m runway of Stölln/Rhinow airport (EDOR) in the German countryside in 1989 to be turned into a tourist attraction.
text: Here is a short video of the event.
text: As can be witnessed from the clouds of dirt, the pilot Heinz-Dieter Kallbach wasn't too concerned about using reverse thrust -
text: the engines were not meant to run ever again.
text: If the Dornier Wal counts as a large aeroplane (it certainly did in its time), the two Amundsen airplanes N-24 and N-25 qualify also, one even twice: Both were used in 1925 for an attempt to reach the north pole by air but had to make an emergency landing on ice near the 88th parallel.
text: Since N-24 had suffered damage during take-off (it had sprung a leak), it was left on the ice when Amundsen and his crew flew back with N-25 after having built an emergency runway in weeks of hard work in which they moved an estimated amount of 500 tons of snow.
text: N-25 went on to make a historic East-West atlantic crossing in 1930 and was again landed successfully in a location from where it could not take off in 1932 - this time on the snowy banks of Isar river in Munich in order to be put on display in a museum (picture source ).
text: Another memorable example is the Spantax pilot Rodolfo Bay who in 1967 mistook the Finkenwerder airport for Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel airport.
text: He landed his Convair Coronado 990 on a runway (1360 m) which was technically too short for the landing (1650 m according to the flight manual).
text: He even managed to fly the empty bird to Fuhlsbüttel - again with less runway than technically required.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/1961/Peter Kämpf
score: 52
sents: text: The various Space Shuttle Orbiters did this all the time.
text: They mostly got piggyback rides back to their launch facilities.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/35876/Roger
score: 44
sents: text: An Aerolineas Argentinas' Boeing 737-200 was hijacked by terrorists in 1975 and made to land in a farm.
text: The government took 10 days to unstuck the aircraft from the mud and to move and install a makeshift aluminum runway (a mesh-like thing that was usually used for ice operations) and take-off at less than minimum weight.
text: The first officer was a glider pilot (I knew him personally, although we never spoke about this episode), so he was used to landing on random fields.
text: A bit different than with a glider, though!
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/690/Martin Argerami
score: 44
sents: text: A war-surplus B-17, named "Lacey Lady", was landed on an Oregon highway to be converted into a roadside restaurant and fuel station.
text: I suppose it could have taken off from there again, if anyone had been suitably inclined… There have also been several incidents where an airliner made an emergency landing on runways or fields that were below normal minimum standards, but by careful management of takeoff weight and other risk factors, was successfully flown out again.
text: Notable examples include TACA Flight 110 and the wrong-airport landing of the Dreamlifter at Jabara .
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/30313/Chromatix
score: 25
sents: text: A B52 is pretty big right?
text: When a B52 was acquired by the Imperial War Museum, Duxford (a former second world war airbase now museum with a 1500m runway).
text: They had to use chutes and a few practice flybys before landing.
text: It's now on permanent display.
text: They had to do the same with a Concorde I believe!
text: Video:
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/41302/Crazy Dino
score: 25
sents: text: The Alraigo Incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alraigo_incident Harrier had to land on a container ship after running out of fuel.
text: Could potentially have flown it off if refueled and re-watered (for engine cooling in VTOL) but would also have had to be recovered to a suitable position as it slid and landed on top of a van.
text: Ship ended up sailing into harbour with the jet still on board.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/20952/Baldrickk
score: 20
sents: text: Qantas landed 747 for a museum on a 1800x30m runway.
text: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-08/qantas-jumbo-arrives-at-wollongong/6288748
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/37796/busdriver
score: 16
sents: text: KLM flew a Fokker 70 to Lelystad (EHLE) airport to become part of the museum collection there.
text: It wasn't legal to take off from there, though it probably could have managed (business jets use the field at times).
text: They for a while considered flying a 747 there to the same museum
text: but this was not done because the runway wasn't strong enough to take the aircraft's weight.
text: It could have landed within the runway length (damaging the runway in the process), but could never have taken off again.
text: In the end the 747 was dismantled and transported on barges and trucks, then reassembled at the museum where it still stands today (and can be rented out as a venue for receptions).
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/900/jwenting
score: 11
sents: text: Not sure if "large" enough, but most planes from an aircraft carrier need to be "catapulted" in order to takeoff, not just "flown" (although they also usually land with aid from an arrestor)
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/3557/user2813274
score: 11
sents: text: A Boeing 727-100 was landed at Meigs Field in Chicago (runway length 1,189 m) in 1992.
text: It was then loaded onto a barge and (eventually) installed as an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, where it remains to this day.
text: It is not clear whether the 727-100 could have taken off again from this runway.
text: In one of the news interviews linked above, the pilot who landed the plane jokes that if he had to try it, he'd want to chain the airplane down at one end of the runway, run up to full power, and then cut the chain.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/13297/Michael Seifert
score: 6
sents: text: Boeing 747 G-BDXJ (wikipedia link) landed in Dunsfold Airfield on 25 May 2005.
text: Dunsfold runway is listed as 5,496ft (1,675m).
text: I suppose it may be feasible to take off on that runway, but that wouldn't be easy.
text: That 747 was never intended to fly again anyway.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/35311/Aleks G
score: 3
sents: text: How large is "large"?
text: I grew up just south of E.W. "Cotton" Woods Airport , a 2400' runway in Columbia, MO.
text: My father told me some time in the 1970s that a jet-powered aircraft (I remember him saying a Learjet, though that could have been him using the name generically) had made an accidental or emergency landing at the airport, and needed to be hauled out on a flatbed after having the wings removed.
text: A Google search just now did not turn up anything about this, and I don't know how or where to search official incident reports to confirm.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/36619/Craig S. Cottingham
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
A number of planes have been landed in locations from which they could not take off. Some of them were to be converted into building for other uses such as a museum or tourist attraction. One hijacked plane was made to land in a farm.
There are many instances of such incidents, mainly in cases of planes flown to museums in order to be exhibited or other places where they would be repurposed, or in emergency landings.