Summary
- Kalitta Air cargo flight from South Korea to Alaska declared an emergency landing after holding maneuvers above Anchorage.
- The Boeing 747-400F, registered as N700CK, remained on the apron for six hours before departing to New York JFK.
- Kalitta Air operates a fleet of 29 aircraft, primarily 747 variants and Boeing 777-200Fs.
A Kalitta Air cargo flight between South Korea and Alaska declared an emergency landing on its approach to Anchorage. The Boeing 747-400F had already departed Seoul late before its trip to Alaska turned sour.
K4703 departed Seoul Incheon International Airport (ICN) at 00:11 on September 29th, some 24 minutes behind its scheduled departure time of 23:45 for September 28th. The flight headed in its usual North Easterly direction bound for Anchorages Ted Stevens International (ANC).
Estimated to arrive in ANC at 14:48, the aircraft appeared to have an uneventful journey across the Bering Sea before descending into Anchorage, where the aircraft seemed to complete a series of holding maneuvers before declaring an emergency, using the squawking code 7700.
Circling above Anchorage
After the aircraft, holding the registration N700CK, repeated several circles above Anchorage, the aircraft was cleared for landing, touching down in Anchorage at 14:45 local time.
From here, it remains unclear what the issue was, but the aircraft remained on the apron at ANC for six hours before taking flight K4703 to New York JFK at 20:15.
N700CK
The aircraft in question, a Boeing 747-400F, first took flight in August 1997, some 26 years ago, and is a workhorse for the carrier. It was first deployed to Cargolux with registration LX-KCV from 1997 to August 2013 and then transferred to Miami-based SkyLease Cargo as N901AR from 2013 to 2015. Kalitta Air took possession of the aircraft on September 16th, 2015, where it was registered as N700CK.
According to data retrieved from ch-Aviation, the aircraft is powered by General Electric CF6 Engines (CF6-80C2B1F) and is leased to Kalitta from the Japanese ITOCHU Corporation, a general trading and investment firm that also holds brands such as Dole and Century 21 Real Estate.
Photo; StudioPortoSabbia / Shutterstock
Kalitta is a cargo airline based in Anchorage, Leipzig/Halle, Cincinnati, Hong Kong, New York–JFK, and Los Angeles. It was first named Connie Kalitta Services (after its founder bearing the same name). It was renamed American International Airways in 1984 before formally changing its name to Kalitta Air in 2000. The airline’s headquarters is in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan.
29 aircraft in action
With 26 active and three stored aircraft, according to ch-Aviation. The carrier operates mainly 747 variants, with currently 24 on its books, ten B747-400(BCF) with an average age of 31.5 years, one B747-400ERF with registration N782CK at 14.4 years old, and 13 B747-400FSCD with tenures of around 21.9 years of age.
Photo: Edu Perez / Shutterstock
Five Boeing 777-200F make up the rest of the carrier’s fleet, much younger than the queen of the skies, with an age of around 5.4 years.
Sources: ch-Aviation, Aviation Source News, Flightradar24