Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Historic Ju-52 plane grounded permanently in Switzerland

JU-52
A Ju-52 in 2018 Keystone / Walter Bieri

The Ju-52 aircraft belonging to the Ju-Air association will remain in the aviation museum in Dübendorf, canton Zurich. As expected, the aircraft can no longer be put back in the air – the costs are too high and the conditions too strict.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

There is no realistic hope that the Auntie Ju, as the plane is known, will return to the Swiss skies, Christian Gartmann from the Ju-Air association told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Wednesday.

It would cost well over a million francs to make the aircraft on display airworthy, Gartmann explained. The association does not have this money. In addition, according to stricter safety regulations, only flights with very few passengers would be allowed. This would not pay off – breaking even would not be possible, he said.

+ Laws tightened for flying historic aircraft

The fact that the historic aircraft, which was built in 1939, will no longer be taking off is not unexpected. Gartmann had already stated in July 2022 that “the chance of Ju-Air flying again is very small”.

According to Gartmann, one small consolation remains: although the last Auntie Ju will no longer take off, it can at least be viewed and boarded in Dübendorf. As a witness to aviation history, it is one of the most popular exhibits in the museum.

Ju-Air offered sightseeing flights with the historic aircraft for many years. In August 2018, a plane crashed on Piz Segnas. Twenty people died. As a result, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation imposed a flight ban. In 2022, the federal government tightened the regulations for flights with historic aircraft.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

white wine

More

Local demand increases for Swiss sparkling wines

This content was published on Agricultural research sees new development opportunities for Swiss sparkling wines in the face of declining wine consumption. In a survey, half of consumers expressed a willingness to pay more for local products than for foreign ones.

Read more: Local demand increases for Swiss sparkling wines

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR