My Twin, Twin Jet, and How We Met

Fifty years after our shared October birth, a Dublin boy and a Boeing 737-200 finally meet again in Managua

For more than eight years, I walked the same route each morning at Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua. From the staff parking lot, past the cargo gates, up the metal stairs to the administration offices — coffee in hand, radio clipped to my belt, my mind already half in the day’s operations. Every morning I passed her, an old Boeing 737-200 parked in a quiet corner of the apron, sun-faded and still.

She had been there longer than most of us could remember, a relic from another age. She sat there gracefully, as if watching the newer generations of her 737 family come and go, the way a retired captain might quietly observe younger pilots at the controls.

She had become part of the landscape, an unchanging outline against the volcanoes in the distance. Time, I’ve learned, gradually reshapes perception as we become accustomed to things, and in some extremes conditioned to things, just ask Pavlov's' dogs. What first seemed foreign like the dense humid tropical air, or the sharp scent of jet fuel, the hum of distant engines all became somewhat familiar and ordinary, they just feel different with time. It’s remarkable how swiftly the unfamiliar becomes home once you stop noticing the differences. 

Sometimes I would stop and glance her way while cargo handlers darted past with tugs and dollies, air force helicopters rose from their pads, and the day’s rhythm unfolded. Her paint was slightly worn, her tires soft, her presence somehow serene. I didn’t know it then, but that quiet old jet and I shared more in common than I was ware of at the time.

A number of years later, during an evening walk along Managua’s lakeside promenade, Paseo Xolotlán in Nicaragua, I saw her again. There she was gleaming in the moonlit night mounted proudly as an exhibit for families overlooking the water. I climbed the stairs, pressed my palm against the fuselage, and for the first time, really looked at it differently. I finally recognized it. I could almost feel the history in my hand, thousands of missions, dawn departures, night arrivals, the scent of coffee brewing in a galley at cruise altitude, laughter echoing from the forward galley as the flight crews shared anecdotes from their previous evening, captains and first officers scanning instruments in the glow of sunrise, the ground crews busily preparing everything. Those lives, their voices, the hopes, the nervous first-time flyers and weary commuters, all seemed present right there at my fingertips. 

The paint, of course, had long since faded under years of sun and tropical rain. No markings remained to tell her story, only resting there almost anonymous in a quiet restful dignity. I pulled out my phone and began searching through old registries, fleet records, and aviation archives to uncover her past. 

I’ve always had this kind of curiosity. In museums, I often find myself drawn to certain artifacts, as if they’re trying to speak, if you’re willing to listen. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a kind of silent exchange between you and the object, a sense of connection across time.

The last time I felt that so strongly was in Budapest, alone one evening before the relic of Saint Stephen I in St. Stephen’s Basilica. For a brief moment, it felt as though the centuries between us disappeared, was a visceral yet somewhat fascinating sensation. When you’re fully present like that, when you really see something for what it is, it can stir your imagination, even move your soul, in ways you don’t quite expect. 

As I looked into the aircrafts' information, what I found interested me greatly. She was a Boeing 737-200, serial number 21186, line number 438, rolled out of Renton, Washington, in October 1975. The same month and year I was born half a world away in Dublin, Ireland perhaps even on the same day it seemed. This late evening in October in 2025 and half a century on somehow here we were meeting again. 

It dawned on me that while I was taking my first breath in a maternity ward in Ireland, she was being rolled out of a hangar in Seattle. Two lives beginning in parallel, destined to spend the next half-century in and around aviation.

Her history, once I pieced it together showed how storied she was.

This Boeing 737-200 began her operational life in November 1975 with Nordair (Canada) as C-GNDL. Over the next decade, while still with Nordair, she saw short-term leases with Air Florida and America West Airlines. In January 1987, she transferred to Canadian Pacific Air Lines, which then merged into Canadian Airlines. The aircraft was transferred in November 1993 to Polaris Aircraft Leasing and re-registered as N159PL, leading to a four-year period from 1994 to 1998 where she was leased successively to Nordam, Air South, Vanguard Airlines, and Pace Airlines. In August 2003, she moved to Conway Aviation Sales & Leasing as N742TW, which subsequently leased her to African operators: Karibu Airways (Tanzania) and Tramon Air (South Africa) between late 2005 and late 2006. After a brief return to Conway as N103HA, she was leased to Nationale Regionale Transport (Gabon). Finally, in April 2010, the aircraft was registered to a private owner as TG-REX and has remained in Nicaragua since. 

Her engines were later removed and her fuselage was eventually transported through the streets of Managua to the Plaza de La Fé, overlooking Lake Xolotlán, transformed into an educational exhibit and opportunity for visitors to get up close and personal with an actual aircraft. It is a very good initiative with even greater possibilities for further development, be it education programs, installation of systems and a classroom for to provide impetus for the next generation of Nicaraguan kids to dream and contribute to the aviation of the future. 

I exercise regularly in this lakeside area and particularly enjoy the atmosphere in the evenings. While it's too hot in the midday sun, the time after sunset is far more agreeable for exercise. As you walk or run along the shore, the night is filled with the sight and sound of various bat species swooping past your face. I often come across a myriad of species, including a family of raccoons that venture in to see what they can loot from the trash cans, skunks, owls, snakes, and even scorpions trawl across the path like little building cranes. A family of cats is always a feature in the area, and I once even glanced in the waters' edge and was met with the gaze of a crocodile in the lake, whisking past near the shore.

On weekends, families fill the park, entrance is free. Its wonderful to see investment in peace and recreation like this for the communities - anywhere. Children climb the stairs, and delight in visits inside the cabin, and supervised by an INAC official can visit the cockpit. I often smile and enjoy seeing their eyes wide with wonder as they experience aviation in perhaps the only way some of them can. “¡Papá, mira! Estoy llegando a París!” one shouted the other evening with great joy and fanfare.

All this causes me to think how airplanes aren’t just lifeless machines, they have a power to inspire our imaginations. Their very existence associates our minds with reaching for the skies, travel and connecting communities - at least that is how this graceful lady is fulfilling her semi retirement years. Aviation, after all, is a human-machine collaboration, each dependent on the other. Ergonomists call it the sociotechnical systems theory, the idea that people and technology evolve together, shaping outcomes neither could achieve alone. Whatever you want to call it, even grounded, this grounded graceful 737- 200 remains part of that heritage. She still participates in a very tangible way, through inspiring the imagination of children (many of them poor and can only dream of flying), through the memories of the pilots who once trusted her with their lives and the lives of their passengers and crew, and here this night with my palm on the paint of the portal to this cabin, I somehow feel the essence of that history beneath my finger tips.

Look, I'm as pragmatic as the next guy, I've worked in all kinds of operational environments and conditions, from full service to the strict discipline of low cost. I've got the battle scars, and lines to prove it, yet somehow there is a benefit in what I would call the art and philosophy of flight. Having been in wildly different company cultures within the industry, I detect a common thread in all of them, an underlying sense of gratitude for having the privilege of working in the business of flight!.

So here’s to my twin, twin jet, Boeing 737-200 C-GNDL, for half a century of service, imagination, and shared existence. Happy birthday to the aircraft that had always been in the background of my days — and now, in the foreground of my evenings. It wasn't until now this late October evening, that I finally didn't just glance in her direction but actually saw her for the first time.

Perhaps there are things in your own life, people, places, an elderly neighbor or relative, a person in your community that sit quietly in your periphery, unnoticed barely registered. Stop for a moment, look closely, and you might find that what you’ve been glancing at all along has something to teach you, tremendous value to offer you or you to them. That's a difference between looking and seeing, between living separate or being connected.

At least that’s what my twin jet taught me that October night in Managua!

Reference:

https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-737-200-tg-rex-private/34j2px?refresh=1