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<\/p>\nEd Force One is back in action again on the current Iron Maiden World Tour.\u00a0Repairs have been completed following the damage that occurred\u00a0during towing at an\u00a0airport\u00a0in Chile on the morning of March 12. Iron Maiden officially\u00a0announced that Ed Force One<\/b>\u00a0has been\u00a0fully repaired, and took\u00a0off on\u00a0Tuesday, March 22 from Santiago, Chile. The plane will\u00a0rejoin the band on its current world tour in\u00a0Bras\u00edlia at the Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek international airport. The plane will once again be loaded up with\u00a0the band\u00a020 plus tons of equipment and tour personnel to fly onto Fortaleza for the bands concert on Thursday. From there the tour will move on to Sao Paulo, before the band leaves Brazil for New York City beyond. Iron Maiden’s\u00a0The Book Of Souls\u00a0world tour will visit 36 countries over\u00a0five months.<\/p>\nEd Force One damage repaired<\/h2>\n
The towing accident resulted in the replacing of both of the Boeing 747 aircrafts port side engines. Ed Force One<\/b>\u00a0is on lease from Air Atlanta, which went into immediate action following the incident to complete the repairs with the\u00a0assistance of\u00a0Boeing. An emergency meeting was held last\u00a0Sunday to create a comprehensive plan to carry out this complex operation. This included locating suitable engine replacements, thrust reversers, engine cowlings and other required parts. Plans also had to be made to work out the necessary tooling, technicians, logistics, and freight transportation to complete the project. On Thursday the 17th of March, a Cargolux 747 freighter left Luxembourg carrying the two replacement engines that were transported from Hannover, Germany. The charter plane then stopped\u00a0at Stansted Airport\u00a0in the\u00a0UK to collect more consignment parts. Tooling and consumables were flown in from Jeddah to Heathrow, before being forwarded to Stansted. The chartered 747 then flew\u00a0the 7,410 mile flight to Santiago\u00a0last Friday. There were six technicians that\u00a0arrived\u00a0from Iceland and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Iron Maiden lead singer\u00a0Bruce Dickinson,\u00a0who is the\u00a0pilot of\u00a0Ed Force One, stated “The speed and thoroughness of this incredibly complex operation was stunning, and we are so very pleased to get our plane back!\u00a0We would like to thank\u00a0Air Atlanta\u00a0and their terrific rescue team for a fantastic effort in achieving this in the time they did, and to Boeing, LAN Chile, ACS and\u00a0Rock It Cargo\u00a0for all their invaluable support.\u00a0We are sorry, though, for our fans in Cordoba, Buenos Aires, Rio and Belo Horizonte who missed out seeing the plane, but we hope they enjoyed the concerts as much as we did.\u00a0We should also thank our killer crew, who found themselves at lunchtime on the Saturday of the accident with over 20 tons of equipment at the airport in Santiago and over 60 people all to get to Cordoba for early the next day to set up the huge show we are carrying. The distance is ‘only’ 1000km, but with a small matter of the Andes in between! They did it, by the skin of the teeth, and all went very well for the show in Cordoba and the other cities\u00a0Ed Force One<\/b>\u00a0just missed.\u00a0It’s quite a feat of logistics to find and put into action at such short notice all the transport, replacement air charters, schedule flights etcetera to enable us to play those next four shows on time without\u00a0Ed Force One<\/b>, our transport for everything.\u00a0Great effort, team, many thanks from all of us. And to our promoter MOVE and ACS for all their assistance and time with this too.”<\/p>\n
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