CO 747 Farewell - End of an Era

The end of an era was quietly marked today by the final scrapping of the last of the three Continental Airlines 747s here. For the past 10 years, a trio of retired Continental 747s has languished in Mojave's boneyard, changing hands repeatedly, and appearing in a number of TV shows. N33021 was the first to meet the scrapper's shear back in 2004, N14024 was cut up a few months ago and lastly N17025 has been turned into scrap metal.

Continental's fleet number 025 was a 747-238, serial 20535 and was the 217th 747 to roll off the Boeing assembly line in 1973. She first flew for Qantas as VH-EBF for a dozen years, before finding a home with People's Express, which then merged into the Continental system. When CO phased out their 747s, 025 flew to Mojave for storage.

Left: N17025 enjoying a quiet desert sunset in December, 2003.
Below: All three CO 747s together, with N33021 in the foreground in the early stages of disassembly, again in December 2003.