What’s Happening Inside Europe's Biggest Airplane Graveyard?

welcome to Europe's biggest airplane storage [Music] site Sam welcome to tarako Safe site in terel Spain this is much more than an aircraft graveyard here we store we maintain and we recycle aircraft this is unbelievable time in aviation so many plane wear store here got out of here and flew in the sky got their second [Music] life this is more exciting than coming to Disneyland lines and lines and lines of wide body especially 4 engine airplane A340 A380 tell us more about how many planes here in storage yeah cently we have 55 aircraft Park here however we have parked roughly 140 during pandemic so we have been really really busy and now this is what we did it took you one week to cover up the engine the gear the doors but how often you have to come inside to check the aircraft yeah to come inside we came every 15 days okay however every week we come and have a look that all it's still cover and the all the tape is still in place that will make sure that h no water no birds will come inside to damage the aircraft therefore we secure that the aircraft is really well protected H every 15 days as mentioned before we we moove the covers and turn around the wheels just to make sure that they are still with all the pressure inside that we need uh we remove the CHS which are to prevent the movement okay so let me try I want to kick the tire oh yeah let's move the pressure is inside let's move it yeah yeah it's good we have a lot of air it's not yes it is and also it is rounded to the ground the extremely yeah cuz the play my move you know the weather here is really windy right now actually the pl my move we can try to move it but I don't think we can we will be on the [Music] ground I cannot move it it so it is really it's tight right yeah yeah can see it's strapped yeah yes we not also prevent something to be inside the the engine however we Al protect the parts which are exposed to the weather with that compound and later on on the return to service there is a team which is just cleaning and make it uh make sure that it is in good condition and that nothing have been occurred during the stup would you look at the length of this airplane the A3 4600 one of the longest plane out there and you need a huge yard to park these planes line by lines um but for sure Paula this one's not going to fly because the wings is missing the wing is gone dismantled yes Sam you are right this aircraft will not H fly again the components have been removed and the aircraft will be [Music] recycled I can hear the Apu is running that's a good sign the airplane is waking up yes sir this is what G to a reactivation area this aircraft came in 2020 from ETI hat and now it's going to be back we are working to make it going fly back again by the end of August wow so more A8 joining back on edad Fleet yes that's a happy news for all I mean never no one thought that it was could come back to fly but after 4 years it's coming back to fly and we will work 5,000 hours on this aircraft to make it Fly again [Music] let's go in the caret take a look do you have good memories about this aircraft this one alpha papa Echo I think I flown this one yeah I definitely flown a lots of airplane parked here I'm really glad you guys are working on this this is going to back to Second live to fly in the sky again so yeah show us about what you're doing right now we're going to start engine number one crank okay okay engine manual selector go to crank position everything is clear for engine number one de yeah okay I set the Chrono on and go to start engine number one okay perfect thank you start BF open and two turning [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay stabilize I go to check the hydraulic page everything's okay 5,000 and go to move a little bit flight controls the other side okay close to 2 minutes I go to disconnect perfect so as soon I sat down in the carpit which is still look very new if you look at the white leather ship skin seats right oh he the engineer demonstrated a engine crank on number one so he just taught me something engine crank was using bleed air outside was not using the fuel to start the engine so that test went well yes perfect the engine works properly and now the engine is ready to go to the runway for make the engine start with the fireman for put fuel and improve the the parameters of the engine we take take of power the plane stored in 3 years here let's go inside take a look at a cabin condition follow [Music] me here you go I remember this place first class apartment says you're in good hands yeah so new it feels so clean and ready to go back to service can't wait fly again let me do some spot check here cuz I remember there used to be a vanity mirror and desk yep it's working the lights is on and I'm impressed because imagine you store your car for 3 years probably won't start again let alone an airplane Which is far more complex than a car for 3 years thousands of hours to work to put it back to service this is the most important thing on the airplane yes the coffee maker the coffee maker wow so they will just uh pluck back into the galley yes yeah okay Sam do you want to take a look at the crew rest oh yeah let's go to cre rest go A3 0 crew R is something is below the main deck it actually Felts like a new airplane come out from Factory they still have everything sealed you know carpet covered so this is the door access to the C rest okay ah here he comes magic all right let's go in hopefully no somebody hopefully there's no one inside there well this is actually a tricky one it's better to go down this way face back yeah there you go secret first class really like like a beautiful compartment train compartment I'm going to go in and try yeah and it fits me inside a secret compartment is it comfortable very comfortable flat bed this place that we are in this container because it's like a square ah it's like a container container is like taking space from the cargo loading oh so cargo behind us behind this is the cargo that's the Airbus concept this is really just one of the cargo container became a crewest I see sometimes as passenger we forgot the engineers are the most important guys fixing the airplane and making sure the airplane is able to return a service to fly without them the airplane won't fly so I really like to thank you guys for working thousands of hours to get all planes fly in Second Life [Music] again I'm in a plan spots Paradise there's a a350 brand new latam I saw that airplane in Victor viw interestingly it flew over to here and now it's getting prepped and ready to go into Luft hanza so there are airplane actually in storage and then they're in transition to the the new owner this is what's happening um this a A380 hopefully alpha papa Delta is also going back to service but some planes here are bit more sad especially the ba jumbos uh we all know what happened to them and there's so many of them uh and in fact I flew a lots of airplanes in here civs one of them parked so this is exactly how the airplane graveyard feel like you can hear the wind it's very windy which are very high up in the desert here very open and the planes all taped up and you can see some tapes making noises some planes engines turning With the Wind um sad sight very sad the end of the line here for these British Airways jumbo in the graveyard this A340 with a German flight that is a VIP aircraft that's a former German Chancellor Angel mco's airplane the 340 now it's also um with the engine took out and parked here so for those airplane that is not fortunate to fly out again they are getting recycled here so ignasio you'll show us what you're doing with all the parts recycling right yeah sure okay let's go a look our aircraft okay so this one is got the former South African Avery 30 paint let's go inside wow everything's intact and looks so clean as well I'm impressed it's not like a lot of those sand and dirts coming in South African Airways got all the logos on the gallery here here's a clue I know when this airplanes last flew because I'm reading the magazine it says November 19th so probably just around Co time this airplane came here anyone want a magazine or a safety card 2D free oh here this is interesting so looks like they've removed lots of seats on the side and stacked them more up so looks like they're going to clean out the cabin here H they are going to remove one of the part that the customer want to recover first step is to remove the parts after they will attach a removal T identifying the number of of this part okay so once it is removed they will cap okay with the connectors to avoid any damage uh to have the part in good condition and after we will move the part to our inventory area where we will pack and we will prepare to ship so I'm holding this part 599 looks like it's some sort of speed break of copy instruments so Jose how does this work like you are taking by request from customer one part and one part out yes that's correct the customer they give us a list a harvest list of the components that they he wants okay so we remove that component you just we just remov with you U Sam so we check with the we remove according to the amm we check that this part that's part the part number and serial number matches with the list of the customer okay we put an item number we put an identification tag and then we go to the inventory to put it in the cloud so the customer can know that the C the SP has been removed right and then like I I wonder how long it takes to dissemble a whole A330 like this it takes around uh 12 weeks okay just 12 weeks the whole plane yes the whole plane can be recycled yes we first remove the parts that the customer wants okay and once uh we have removed all these PS We ship it to them and then we made disposal of the remaining air frame we segregate all the materials we leave the airf frame completely naked okay and we s we send to the different recycling channels every every every component every remaining part of the of the aircraft and then we cut the air frame with our Diamond cable and we send it to the recycling Channel being able to recover to recycle up to 94% of the total weight of the aircraft Sam this is the inventory shop we have removed the part and now we are doing to take picture of the of the part upload it in the cloud so the customer can see that the part has been removed okay and we are going to pack it and put it in the crate for shipping okay [Music] [Music] it's lot of items in the shop here if you're a freaking flyer Lanza you'll recognize this B kit and this is the first rural business class for sure the food rest here the entire piece and then I also saw this oven and there's even pilot chairs there's plenty of parts in this storage Warehouse here so in the shop here I found a whole box of shipment looks like many parts going to customer but when you keep saying customer taking these parts do you sell single items to anyone walk in like Aviation Enthusiast like I want to buy a Rolls-Royce engine cowling can I do that no no no no we no we don't we perform this service for our customers which are the owners of the aircraft which are the the airlines or the par Brokers company so you're just taking the parts down for them and ship back to the owner of the aircraft and they recycle they take these to their spare tooling yes they do the spare tooling on the with the Airlines and the P Brokers they sell it to other Airlines and after going to shop the parts to the [Music] airlines which is completely clean completely naked so now we cut it we cut the different section with a wire cable okay that allow us to do clean cats to do in a smaller pieces all in a sustainable area in an audited facility and compliance with the environmental [Music] regulation they're using a a cable to cut the wing you can see it's making a little bit progress here maybe a little bit less than a quarter it's cutting through and then it's not what I saw in the US they're using chainsaws those man's are lots of muscles doing it by hand here they're using the machine to cut it [Music] [Music] through so to end today's tour I've got some great news to share the birds like this has been on the ground for a couple years but they just found their second home as they belong to the sky they will fly again thanks for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Sam Chui

Views: 369,907

Keywords: Teruel, Airplane Storage, A380, Airplane Graveyard, Tarmac Aerosave

Id: Z8_GWXOl22c

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2024