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Title: McDonnell Douglas DC-9 in JRV Service - 73414 Post by: Ian Carroll on March 28, 2021, 03:55:17 pm Firstly, apologies for the use of English. A friend has just been reading "Tito's Underground Air Base", one of the Helion Europe @ War series.
It is the interesting story of Bihac Air Base (better known in the west as Zeljava). There is online info here: https://www.croatianaviation.com/post/the-most-expensive-project-of-the-former-country-air-base-with-an-underground-facility-in-lika Note the bit that says: “When the military-political and security situation in the former state deteriorated so much that it was obvious that the airport would find itself in a hopeless environment, a decision was made to destroy it. That is what happened on May 16, 1992. year at 5 and 30 o'clock in the morning with over 50 tons of explosives. Runways are mined at intervals of 50 to 100 meters. Most of the personnel who had been operating in the base until then were transported by B707, B727 and DC-9 aircraft a few days before the complete destruction of this base.” Going back to the book, there is a photo (Page 54) of the tail of one of the DC-9s involved in the evacuation. It is captioned as Yugoslav Airlines, but clearly wears serial 73414, with no sign of a civil registration. Does anyone know more about the military use of the above aircraft and were there more? Secondly, looking at serial blocks there are two gaps: 731xx DC-6 732xx Il-18 733xx An-12 734xx 735xx 736xx B707 Does anyone known what was 735xx used for? Regards Ian Title: Re: McDonnell Douglas DC-9 in JRV Service - 73414 Post by: daliborsky on April 21, 2021, 09:35:03 pm AFAIK, it was given a temporary military registration
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