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C/N 17108
5Y-BMB Skyways Kenya
Taken April 2003
The aircraft is named Betsy
Stored at Lokichoggio
Text and photograph: Ken Stoltzfus Flying Higher
The text below was submitted by Ken Stoltzfus, July 2009.
Notes: 8/5/03 - This C-47 was spotted at Lokichoggio, in northern Kenya near the Sudanese border in April 2003. It looked like it was waiting for some TLC.
Built as a C-47B-50-DK, she was delivered October 19, 1945 under Douglas Construction Number 34375 and was assigned USAF serial number 45-1105. The number 17108 fits in there somewhere, too, but I'm not sure where. The "DK" in the model number indicates that it was built in the Oklahoma City plant.
After its release by the military, this C-47 was operated by Monarch Airlines as N2025A. However, when Monarch merged with Arizona Airways and Challenger Airlines to form Frontier Airlines on June 1, 1950, N2025A was not in their fleet.
West Coast Airlines (Seattle, WA) operated the aircraft from August 1955 until April 1968. See Transports for a photograph of this aircraft.
December 11, 1963 was not a good day for N2025A. According to the NTSB accident report the Western Airlines co-pilot did a hard landing at Kalispell, MT. Probable cause was that he didn't level off properly, bounced, and then failed to properly recover from the bounce. It is stated that the captain, who was 37-years old and had 11,740 hours total with 9765-hours in type, gave "inadequate supervision of the flight." The left wing tip struck the runway, but they did a go-around followed by a safe landing. It musta' been quite a ride. The report says there was substantial damage. By the way, I was in the back end of a C-47 recently when the pilot did a real bouncer. We didn't get a tip, but it still gave us quite a jolt! Cawooomp!!
In 1968, West Coast, Bonanza and Pacific Airlines merged to form Air West, who operated the aircraft until April 1969.
FAA data from 1976 and 1983 shows that N2025A was registered to Aerodyne Corp. of Renton, WA. March 1989 and '91 data has it registered to Business Air, of Bennington, VT. I don't know when she headed to Africa.
FAA records give the serial number as 17108, but airline records identify it as 34375. On the "oldprops" web site it is identified as 34375/17108, and Kenyan registration 5Y-BMB
NOTE: On October 8, 2003, I received a message from Nicolai Musante of Copenhagen, Denmark. He says that C-47, 5Y-BMB was ferried Reykjavik-Glasgow-Lycon on September 15, 1996. Check out his outstanding web site. It is one of the best!
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DC-3 In Africa 
