Yes, we are absolutely sure that the jetliner BAC 111 will never again appear at our airport – or anywhere else. The reason is very simple – there is no one-eleven (this is the correct pronunciation of the designation 111) with valid type certificates in the whole world. Here is the brief story of a quite successful British airliner officially designated One-Eleven, but usually shorter designations BAC 111 or BAC-1-11 are used.

The BAC One-Eleven was an early jet airliner produced by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). The plane was originally conceived by Hunting Aircraft as a 30-seat jet. After the merger of this company into BAC in 1960 the plane was officially launched as an 80-seat regional airliner with a British United Airways order on 9 May 1961. The prototype conducted its maiden flight on 20 August 1963, and it was first delivered to its launch customer on 22 January 1965. The plane was manufactured in a number of versions. The 119-seat, stretched -500 series was introduced in 1967. In total, 244 aircraft were manufactured, with more than half planes delivered to US operators. It should be noted that in Romania nine One-Eleven were built by Romaero. The life of BAC 111 came to an end on 7 May 2019, when the last flyable One-Eleven was retired by Northrop Grumman after serving as a F-35 testbed.

In my photo archive the visit of two BAC 111 planes at our airport is documented. The first one, registered G-OBWE (photo), was in colors of the British World Airlines, the second one, G-AVMZ, was from the fleet of Fly European Airlines. Both planes were here at the same time in September 1997, bringing British fans to attend an international football match. 

Text and photo R. Mlýnek