1970 First Boeing 747 Flight into Kai Tak

Tue, 02/11/2020 - 00:33

Boeing 747 in Pan Am livery making the first flight into Kai Tak on 11 April 1970. A notable event 50 years ago.

Date picture taken
11 Apr 1970

Comments

More than 50 years ago. The photographer and actual source are not known. Unable to assist, suggest to try other local media sources as the event was a significant one at the time. 

The photograph was probably taken by a Government Information Services/Civil Aviation Department photographer and the image made available to newspapers. As I understand it the “Copyright” as such remains with the original photographer for many decades, no matter how widely it was distributed.

Hong Kong’s first sighting of the new “jumbo jet” was on April 11, 1970, when a Pan American Airways Boeing 747 arrived from Tokyo carrying 189 passengers and 25 crew. Interestingly there are no reported preliminary B747 ‘trial or survey flights’ to verify this supersized airliner could be manoeuvred safely along Kai Tak’s curved low-level approach onto the runway prior to bringing in this new aircraft type with its large load of possibly unsuspecting passengers.

“The Big Bird Arrives in HK” reported the South China Morning Post, “Dwarfing other aircraft on the apron, the super-jet, with its 231-foot-long fuselage and a tail as high as a six-storey building, taxied to the newly built ‘747 Pier’ where its passengers alighted onto the first air-bridge in Asia.” Thousands of spectators had converged on Kai Tak to witness the arrival, and a lion dance and local actresses laden with souvenirs welcomed the passengers. “Pan Am’s guest of honour for this event, 86-year-old ‘Sampan Annie’, presented a Chinese scroll to the skipper of the flight, Captain William Saulsberry.” The SCMP report continued, “Sampan Annie – whose real name is Mrs Wong Luk – was the sampan girl who tied the bowline to the first Pan American Airways Clipper flying boat, in Hongkong in 1937.”