It turns out Dumbo isn’t the only flying elephant at Disneyland – at least not this week.
Early on Wednesday morning, many Anaheim residents were caught doing a double-take as they looked up to see a flying pachyderm soaring through the sky. The animatronic elephant was being returned to its place within the beloved Jungle Cruise ride at the amusement park after recently breaking down and undergoing repairs.
‘The elephant had a neck issue, so we had to remove it back in January to repair the neck,’ Disneyland planner Veronica Wyant told the Orange Country Register.
Disney fans know that elephants can fly, but this was something else: An animatronic elephant was lowered back into the Jungle Cruise ride early on Wednesday after undergoing some repairs
Homecoming: The bulky elephant, which has been at the park since it opened in 1955, broke in January and needed repairing
Soaring: helicopter lifts an an audio-animatronics elephant over Disneyland early Wednesday morning after it had been refurbished
Crews attach lifting straps to an audio-animatronics elephant before it is lifted by helicopter back into its position on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland in Anaheim, California
Massive: The elephant, as well as a large artificial tree, were delivered by helicopter from the backstage to the Adventureland attraction
‘It’s kind of awesome to make an elephant fly,’ pilot Ken Krauss told the newspaper.
Krauss – who typically hauls equipment to the tops of buildings or buckets of water for fire fighting with El Cajon-based Blackhawk Helicopters – has been called upon to haul Disneyland’s elephants on two other occasions.
The Jungle Cruise is scheduled to reopen May 6, once all the repairs are completed.
Is that … an elephant? Early on Wednesday morning, many residents in Anaheim, California, were caught doing a double-take as they looked up to see a flying pachyderm soaring through the sky
Flying high: The elephant was taken a couple hundred feet over Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle back to its home
‘The elephant had a neck issue, so we had to remove it back in January to repair the neck,’ Disneyland planner Veronica Wyant told the Orange Country Register
The elephant, which has been part of the park since it opened in 1955, broke in January.
Footage from near the park taken on Wednesday morning during the delivery shows the elephant flying over Disneyland’s famed Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Once the elephant was in place, Kraus flew back to base and brought in a faux python that was wrapped around a tree.
The snake, which has been at the park since the 1980s, is another feature on the Jungle Cruise that needed some fixing.
Popular: The Jungle Cruise is an ride located in Adventureland at Disneyland, where guests go through a canal in a boat and the animals talk and spray water