A Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes the first successful landing at Long Thanh Airport on December 15.
Flight VN5001 touched down at 4 pm on December 15 on the main runway of Long Thanh Airport in Dong Nai Province, drawing cheers from officials and onlookers gathered at the site.
The aircraft had departed from Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi at noon, landed at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City after more than two hours in the air, and then continued on a technical inspection flight to Long Thanh during the airport’s final construction phase.
The aircraft, a Boeing 787 wide-body jet operated by Vietnam Airlines with a maximum capacity of about 340 passengers, carried only the flight crew and technical staff.
Air traffic controllers at Long Thanh had spent months training and familiarising themselves with new equipment at the control tower ahead of the test flight.
“The weather was sunny with high cloud cover, light winds and visibility of more than 10km, ideal conditions for the first landing,” an air traffic controller said.
After landing, the aircraft took off again from Long Thanh at 6 pm and returned to Tan Son Nhat at 6.40 pm.
According to leaders of Vietnam air traffic management, the December 15 flight was a critical final assessment ahead of official operations scheduled for December 19.
On that day, three commercial flights operated by Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air and Bamboo Airways are expected to land at Long Thanh at five-minute intervals. The ministry of construction said official flights will only proceed if all technical and safety requirements are fully met.
Long Thanh Airport phase one covers 1,810 hectares and has been under construction since January 2021. It is designed to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo a year, with commercial operations expected to begin in mid-2026.
