SNAS Aviation (DHL) - Boeing 757-23A/PF

A9C-DHL
DHL 611 † 1 July 2002

Can't paint one side of this tragic collision without the other. Painted as it looked in this image.

A9C-DHL was en route from Bergamo to Brussels, flown by a 2-man British and Canadian crew. The aircraft itself was a 12.5 year old machine, built as a cargo aircraft and operated by Zambia Airways and Gulf Air before finding a home with DHL. It served first in DHL's American division, before being transferred to Europe first and then the Middle East in April of 2002, only a few months before the crash.


SNAS is a company with an interestingly sparse history. It was founded in 1979 by Prince Saud bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (hence the SNAS name) and is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, it operated as a part of DHL International Aviation ME, and its aircraft were all Bahraini-registered and flew out of Bahrain International Airport.

...And that's about all I could tell you about the company. The history section of its Wikipedia page makes no mention of the airline post-2004, and has no references to the company going out of business. It also still lists the airline as having 5x 757-200s to its name. Airfleets doesn't even mention this particular 757 as being part of SNAS' fleet at any point, only showing that the airline operated one single 757 at any point in its history (VH-BRN) and making no mention whatsoever of A9C-DHL, which instead was registered under the DHL International Aviation name. Meanwhile, I've found a couple sites online which say it's out of business, and a couple other sites which say it's still hiring. So who really knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Potentially the last picture taken of this aircraft only 1 week before the Überlingen collision. RIP