Long Reach

The date was August 17 1989. Qantas’s first Boeing 747-400, VH-OJA, swept into Sydney through dark rain clouds and, at 2:20 pm touched down on a damp Runway 16, becoming the first commercial aircraft to fly nonstop from London to Australia, breaking a distance barrier that seemed unbreakable for years… and hasn’t been repeated since. On board the big jumbo, capable of carrying 376 passengers and 21 crew, were just 23 people. Tom Ballantyne was among them.

As the 1980s headed towards closure it was a turbulent time in Australian skies. The domestic aviation industry was in the midst of a bitter industrial dispute. Thousands of pilots were grounded as a pay dispute with their employers, private Ansett and government-owned Australian Airlines, dragged on. But, internationally, Qantas was flying high. In August 1989 theFlying Kangaroo was due to take delivery of the first of 10 Boeing 747-400s, the latest version of the US manufacturer’s iconic jumbo jet, it had ordered at the time.

It was an opportunity planners at the airline meant to take full advantage of. To mark the plane’s introduction, it was suggested, the first aircraft, VH-OJA City of Canberra, should be flown from Boeing’s base at Seattle to London, then do something that had never been done before, blaze a trail by flying to Sydney nonstop. It would promote the image of Qantas as a pioneering long-haul carrier.