Say So Long to a Runway Career: Reporting From an Aircraft Boneyard

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I wasn’t sure if starting the year by going on assignment to a graveyard in the desert was a good omen or a bad one. Early this month, I joined the passenger manifest of Delta Air Lines Flight 9771, with nonstop service from Atlanta to Marana, Ariz., where Delta’s 747 fleet was being retired.

I’ve long been a self-described nerd when it comes to transportation, starting with a childhood love of “Thomas the Tank Engine.” These days, I use my free time to look into technical details about how the things that make us go operate, and keep an eye out for stories to cover. When Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both announced last year that they would be retiring their 747s, I wanted to know what would happen to the planes once they were consigned back to earth. I’d heard about the “boneyards” where planes go to die in the desert, and suspected that at least some of the aircraft would wind up there.

I was right about the destination, but I came away with a different idea of what happens there than I’d anticipated.

Early on Jan. 3, in the terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a small scrum of reporters gathered around the pilots who briefed us on our schedule. The pilots warned that a short runway meant we would have to stop more abruptly than we might be used to. They also noted that the plane wouldn’t be able to move around Pinal Airpark under its own power after reaching the end of the runway. Doing so risked sucking large debris into the engines, which would cause serious damage and could prevent the airline from reclaiming them.

We got to walk out on the tarmac and follow the captain as he performed the preflight inspection. Standing next to the plane’s forward landing gear, I found it almost impossible to imagine how something so huge can take to the skies.

Delta treated everyone on the flight to first-class accommodation, so between interviews I took some time to see how many ways I could adjust my seat. (Lots.)

I also visited the often-unseen crew rest area — a dormitory above the back of the plane with bunk beds stacked three high, used for breaks on very long international flights. It was much less glamorous, and much, much more cramped, than I was expecting. I couldn’t even stand fully upright, though I was more than a little envious of the flight attendants who had a built-in place to nap during work. I was tempted to lie down, just to see what it was like, but I didn’t want to seem unprofessional. One of the flight attendants was watching, after all.

Dustin Chambers, the photographer who accompanied me on the assignment, was excited, too — though maybe less excited than his mother was to hear about it. “She used to work for United in the ’70s, and she was an airline attendant for many years and worked on a lot of 747s,” he said. His mother told him that pilots used to let her lie down on the floor of the cockpit to enjoy the panoramic view of the sky.

The landing in Arizona was smoother than the pilots prepared us to expect, and on the ground, the atmosphere was festive as people posed to take pictures with the plane. I even hopped up into one of the engines, taking perhaps the most clichéd of all airplane photos (see it above).

During a short tour on that first day, we saw more than a hundred planes in various states of storage and repurposing, including a Boeing 777 being dismantled. We watched as the tail was detached, falling to the ground with a loud boom.

The next day, we explored the facility with the Pinal Airpark manager, Jim Petty. We went into an old Trans World Airlines 747, where I could practically see the smoky haze of a more glamorous era of flying. It was surreal; Dustin pointed out the “eerie quality” of being in a deserted plane with in-flight magazines still intact.

In the end, I learned that the place that so many people think of as a graveyard for airplanes is actually somewhere aircraft go to find new purpose. Planes almost always re-enter service or are disassembled to help replace parts in aircraft that are still flying. Those that are scrapped are recycled. I thought the story would be a 747 obituary. But it turned out to be much more about rebirth.