N78866: United Airlines Boeing B757-300

The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner that was designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727 (a trijet), received its first orders in August 1978. The prototype completed its maiden flight on February 19, 1982 and it was FAA certified on December 21, 1982. The 757-300, the stretched version of the aircraft, entered service with Condor in 1999. With a length of 178.7 feet (54.5 m), the type is the longest single-aisle twinjet ever built, while being shorter than the 187.3 ft (57.10 m) DC-8-61/63. Designed to serve the charter airline market and provide a low-cost replacement for the 767-200, the 757-300 shares the basic design of the original 757, while extending the fuselage forward and aft of the wings. Six standard cabin doors, two smaller cabin doors behind the wings, plus a pair of over-the-wing emergency exits on each side, enable the 757-300 to have a maximum certified capacity of 295 passengers. A higher MTOW of 272,500 pounds (124,000 kg) is specified, while fuel capacity remains unchanged; as a result, the stretched variant offers a maximum range of 3,395 nautical miles (6,290 km).