The recovery of the Fokker F-VIII Pigeon

February 28, 2001

Salvage of Fokker F.VIII in jungle

From our domestic editorial team
SCHIPHOL – Employees of the National Aviation Museum Aviodome left this week for an Indian tribe in the Amazon region of Venezuela to recover a Fokker F.VIII from 1927.

It concerns De Duif, a passenger plane that was built in the twenties and consisted of wood, linen and metal. Although the wood and textile have disappeared, the fuselage of steel tube is still in reasonable condition. The remains of the two engines are also still present. The ten employees want to bring the remains of the plane discovered one and a half years ago to the Netherlands.

The Duif flew from 1928 to 1937 for KLM in Europe. After that, KLM used the aircraft in the Dutch West Indies (Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles). The aircraft was sold to Venezuela in 1939. Within a month, it ended up in the jungle on an airstrip that was too small. One wing hit the ground, after which the aircraft caught fire. The aircraft burned out and the crew managed to reach civilization again after a few weeks.

Tip

Until two years ago, aviation historians believed that no pre-war KLM aircraft existed anywhere in the world. For years, it was assumed that the aircraft had been lost, until Aviodome employees received a tip from Venezuelan colleagues during a museum conference in Washington in 1999 that remains of the aircraft still existed.

Six months after the tip, the museum equipped a search party of three men. In Caracas, they found the pilot who had flown the Fokker in 1939. Thanks to his directions, they managed to reach the area where the plane was lying by air.

A helpful chief of a local Indian tribe was willing to point out the location of the Fokker. In doing so, the expedition noticed that various parts of the plane had already been put to use by the Indians. The fuel tanks of the plane were used to brew a native type of beer. The chief himself had the pilot's seat as a trophy in his hut. The Aviodome also hopes to take these parts. In return, the Indians will receive new tanks to brew beer.

The plan is for a Cougar helicopter and a Lockheed Hercules transport aircraft of the Venezuelan Air Force to fly the parts to the coast for further transport by ship. After the recovery, the remains are expected to be exhibited in the Aviodome Aviation Museum at Schiphol in early May.

High days

The Fokker F.VIII was the only twin-engined passenger aircraft that Fokker built before World War II. Other passenger aircraft that Fokker built during its heyday – around 1930 Fokker was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world – usually had three engines.

Fokker designed the F.VIII in 1926 for KLM as a successor to the faithful single-engine F.VIIa on KLM's European network (then limited to Brussels, Paris, London, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Malmö). This network had to cope with increasing numbers: from 6,000 passengers in 1926 to 13,000 passengers in 1927. The Fokker F.VIII De Duif was built in 1927 by the Fokker factory in Amsterdam-Noord. The aircraft could seat fifteen passengers.

Source: Reformatorisch Dagblad https://www.rd.nl/oud/bin/010228bin07.html