3 days ago
Inside Britain's ‘plane graveyard' filled with 1,400 jets that's used for Hollywood films, Doctor Who & SAS training
AN EERIE plane graveyard in the UK houses more than 1,400 jets that have been used in Hollywood films, Doctor Who and SAS training.
The private airfield in Gloucestershire is where jumbo jets from around the world are ditched.
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Mark Gregory's Air Salvage International (ASI) has been chopping, disassembling and recycling planes at the airfield, which sits just two miles from Kemble, for 30 years.
In the early 90s, Mark bought his first plane with his redundancy money and spent six months breaking it down into sellable parts.
More than 1,400 aircraft later his business is thriving, employing dozens of people to handle growing demand from an expanding aviation industry.
Many plane owners send their ageing aircraft to Mark as a commercial jet's MOT costs a whopping £1 million.
Mark can sometimes salvage as much as £12 million from them in reusable parts or recyclable materials.
But the business doesn't stop there.
ASI provides dramatic training scenarios for organisations such as the SAS to help them practice plane-related emergencies.
In one mock situation, Mark and his team crushed a van with a plane fuselage as special forces dealt with hijackers and "injured" passengers on board.
The jets have also starred on the big screen.
An array of films have been shot at ASI including The Fast and the Furious 6, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Mission Impossible and Batman.
You may also recognise it from small-screen appearances such as The One Show, Casualty and Doctor Who.
So the next time you spot a dramatic plane disaster or runway scene on the tele, you may spot the Gloucestershire countryside in the background.
Many of the firms who send their jets to ASI know what they want back with demand lists that can stretch to 2,000 parts from a single plane.
Other aircraft meet a different fate - one big chunk of fuselage was even used for The Swarm rollercoaster at Thorpe Park.
And aviation buffs use pieces to decorate their homes.
Through ASI's sister site, you can purchase a pilot's seat for £6,000 or small sections of fuselage with a window up for grabs for £150.
Cash-stuffed wallets have been found in seat pockets too but most of these find their way back to the owners.
On another occasion 15 years ago a large stash of cocaine was found behind some panelling in the rear toilets.
"Needless to say, we informed the authorities, police and boarder and they removed," Mark explained.
"After the investigation, it was found that the value was fairly high and it would look like the contraband was being smuggled into Europe by a person who must of hidden this rather than getting caught taking it through customs."
Mark's team are also sometimes called to aviation crash sites.
Their expertise in breaking aircraft down makes it useful when it comes to identifying remains and helping determine what went wrong.
The team were part of the investigation into the Afriqiyah Airways crash in Tripoli, Libya, in 2010, which killed 104 people.
But while flogging off bits of jumbo jet can sometimes fetch millions, Mark can't bear to part with certain flying machines that come his way.
This includes a VIP-fitted Boeing 727 that was once part of Saddam Hussein's fleet after he instructed Iraqi Airways to steal all of Kuwait Airways' planes during its 1990 invasion of the country.
It was kitted out with plush velour seats with extendable footrests and cutting-edge JVC TVs built into mahogany walls.
Before the Iraqi forces took over the Kuwaiti fleet, the Kuwaiti family used the plane to jet-set around the globe.
The Emir would even sit on a specially constructed throne, using radio equipment to issue commands to his staff from 30,000 feet.#
Mark's plane graveyard isn't the only in the UK either.
The Sun reported in May how an explorer had revealed the remnants of an abandoned ex-military plane field - including a rotting 1951 Hawker Hunter jet.
Left behind were iconic British fighter jets that would've been used in wars dating back to as far as 1951.
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