C17 Fuselage Is Trucked From LB to Seal Beach; 170 Foot Wingless Body Travels Down Cherry Ave., Willow St., Lakewood Blvd., PCH; Slows To Crawl As Workers Use Extendable Bucket Cranes To (Gently) Push Overhanging Power Lines Out Of Path
(July 22, 2009) -- LB and Seal Beach residents saw a bizarre sight late Tuesday night (July 21) and into the predawn hours Wednesday (July 22) as a 170 foot long C17 wingless fuselage was trucked along major city streets from LB's Boeing facility to Seal Beach (for transfer to a ship and transport to the east coast via the Panama Canal).
LBReport.com moved an advisory last night on the unusual event...and our coverage includes video, below; click image to launch.
The route went south on Cherry to Willow, east on Willow to Lakewood Blvd., south on Lakewood to PCH, and PCH into Seal Beach and onto Seal Beach Blvd.
Some L.A. TV stations carried the story on their 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts (we saw at least two news choppers overhead) and about three dozen onlookers were visible at Willow St./Temple Ave. shortly after 11 p.m. A similar crowd was at Willow St./Redondo Ave. shortly after midnight.
Lilly Lopez was among those on-scene and captured these sights on her cellphone and emailed them to us in video form; we freeze-framed them.
Images courtesy Lilly Lopez
Yes, it really did take roughly an hour to cover the distance from Willow/Temple to Willow/Redondo, and about an hour to go from Willow/Redondo to Willow/Temple. Workers used extendable bucket cranes to push overhanging power lines out of the way.
CHP blocked traffic at major intersections; the process was a bit like moving a house...and went very slowly.
At one point just east of Redondo Ave., the truck carrying the fuselage had to back-up and reposition itself to avoid scraping a nearby bucket crane shoving wires aside.
The old C17 fuselage was used for engineering tests and will now be sent by ship to the East Coast (via the Panana Canal) for military training purposes.
