The Boeing 767-400ER took off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, at 12:10pm on 9 October 1999. Boeing's release for the flight said it would head west down the Strait of Juan de Fuca and was expected to stay up for about five hours. The aircraft was identified only as VQ001. The pilots were Captain Buzz Nelson, the 767 programme's chief pilot, and Captain John Cashman, director of flight crew operations.

The longest 767

At 201 feet, the 767-400ER is the longest of the three fuselage lengths the 767 has come in, after the 767-200 and the 767-300. Boeing's release said it would carry 245 passengers in a three-class layout or 304 in two classes, and that the capacity was up to 15% more than the 767-300ER. The "ER" stands for extended range.

Who launched it

Boeing's release says the programme launched in April 1997 with an order for 21 aircraft from Delta Air Lines. By the day of the first flight, total orders stood at 54. The first aircraft had been rolled out of the Everett factory in August 1999, and the flight-test plan was about six and a half months, with roughly 800 flight hours and 1,100 hours of ground testing across this aircraft and two others.

The 767-400ER entered airline service on 14 September 2000 with Continental Airlines, according to Wikipedia's article on the 767.

Still flying

In January 2024, ch-aviation counted 21 767-400ERs in Delta's fleet and reported that Delta planned to keep them flying beyond 2030, the year it intends to retire its 767-300ERs completely. That was a plan from early 2024. I have not seen a newer schedule, so treat it as a plan rather than a date.

On my screen

The BBBRadar desk unit shows type, registration, route where one is filed, callsign and altitude. On 27 September 2026 it showed a Delta Boeing 767-400, N842MH, as DAL37, Heathrow to Atlanta, at 11,475 feet. On 6 October it showed a second, N825MH, as DAL31, on the same route, at 7,025 feet.

The screen prints the type as 767-400, without the ER. Boeing's name for the aircraft is the 767-400ER, which is how it is named everywhere else on this page.

Both of those registrations have photographs on Wikimedia Commons, so the pictures with this article are of the actual airframes: N842MH at Heathrow in 2011 and N825MH at Schiphol in 2016. The credits are listed below.

What I have not confirmed

I have not confirmed how long the first flight actually lasted. The release gives five hours as the expected length, not what happened. Nor do I know how many of Delta's 767-400ERs are still active. The fleet figure above is from January 2024.

Sources