Do you remember the first time you noticed an aircraft overhead? A metal giant cutting through the sky, growing smaller until it vanished from sight. For some, the feeling never quite leaves.But an aircraft’s story does not end at the horizon.Long after it disappears from view, the plane will fly hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times. And then will come a day when it will not take off in the sky again. The giant, after years of service, carrying people miles and possibilities to the sky, reaches the end of its life.But what happens then?Do planes have a grave, as we humans do? Is it dismantled piece by piece or kept in a museum like a relic from another era? In aviation, an aircraft’s death has an official name – decommissioning.But does a plane stop flying, and how do we know it’s the end?Aviation expert Harsh Vardhan explains that there are two factors that determine when a passenger aircraft is decommissioned. The first is economic. When the cost of maintenance overtakes the profit an aircraft can generate, it no longer makes financial sense to keep it flying. The second is regulatory. If an aircraft fails to meet mandatory safety standards, it cannot legally remain in service. Once either threshold is crossed, the aircraft’s flying days are over. What follows, however, can take many unexpected paths.
When planes get stuck
In 2023, an unusual sight caught national attention when an aircraft being transported on the back of a truck got stuck under a bridge in Bihar’s Motihari. The scrapped Air India aircraft was being moved from Assam to Mumbai. What followed was the crowds of people gathering to make videos, take selfies. This was not an isolated incident. In another case, an Air India plane got stuck under a foot overbridge near Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in 2021, prompting widespread confusion over how a plane ended up on a city road. Air India later clarified that it was a sold-off decommissioned aircraft being carried away by its rightful owners. Sometimes, decommissioned planes don’t even leave the airport.In November, a forgotten aircraft at Kolkata airport finally met its end after lying abandoned for 13 years. Airport authorities flagged its presence to Air India, and in an internal post to employees, CEO Campbell Wilson revealed that the airline had been unaware of the aircraft’s existence.The plane was eventually moved to Bengaluru, where it will now be used to train maintenance engineers.Not all decommissioned aircraft are this fortunate.
The afterlife of wings
For most aircraft, decommissioning leads to dismantling.Expert Harsh Vardhan explains the process of salvaging usable components before the rest is scrapped.He says, “The people who maintain inventory for old aircraft, they buy that scrap. They buy those components from the scrap aircraft. These are usually bought by specialised scrap dealers for the value of scrap because there are metals, valuable metals, and other parts. So, to the extent, the components that can still be reused later are taken out. They’re taken out and bought by these logistics.”What remains is largely unusable.”The rest becomes the hull, which cannot be used in any form. So it is taken by the scrap dealers to scrap it. Since they have valuable metals, they’ll be taken and used for different purposes,” Vardhan adds.Yet, not every fuselage is destined to be melted down.
The second act
Aircraft bodies often find a second life far removed from runways. Film sets, training facilities, museums, restaurants, and even children’s parks have all housed retired aircraft.Remember the music video of Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Gerua’ from Dilwale? Or countless Hollywood scenes featuring planes frozen in dramatic stillness? These are often retired airliners repurposed for storytelling.”Some shelves are used for innovative ideas, creating a restaurant or a children’s park to display items,” Vardhan says.
Civil jets and combat flyers
Civil and military aircraft serve vastly different purposes in the sky, but their journey after decommissioning follows similar principles.Group Captain Kaushik Sinha explains that the fighter jets of Air Force are retired based on strict technical limits.”Decommissioning is of two types. One is when the engine life of the aircraft ends. Another is based on the airframe hours of the aircraft. Airframe means the body of the aircraft,” he says.”They also have a certain age. Once they are mature, they can no longer fly. So they are decommissioned,” Group Captain Kaushik Sinha adds.What happens next is carefully regulated.”We have different policies. We send it to a museum where all the young generations can come and see it, so they get motivated for the future. Or if some government or the private sector wants to put it in their place for a display, we have policies in the MoD by which it is approved,” he says.For decades, these silent machines have sparked ambition in countless young minds.”Some of these policies are for future generations, so that they should get motivated to join the armed forces, the Navy, Air Force, and Army,” the Group Captain adds.
What is a plane worth?
The emotional value of an aircraft is impossible to quantify. Its financial value, however, is carefully calculated.Group Captain Sinha explains the process for military aircraft.”Generally, air force aircraft are not sold. They are either donated to museums or a state government takes them to put them on display, at some important road crossing or civil airports, etc. On an occasion where some private entity wants it, then the aircraft fuselages are auctioned,” he says.He adds that India does not follow a uniform scrapping policy: “In India, we don’t have any standard scrapping policy for aircraft. Since not many Jet aircraft are decommissioned in India, it is decided on a case-by-case basis.”Civil aviation follows a different route.”Most of them are done through the specialised auction agencies. There are international agencies that do this. But some airlines like Air India, etc, have their local departments that do the scrap selling,” aviation expert Harsh Vardhan says.The resale price of a civil aircraft can go up to about $100,000, or roughly Rs 91 lakh.The contrast with manufacturing costs is stark.”It varies,” Vardhan says. “For (Boeing) 737, 378, 100, Neo or Indigo, you are talking about $250mn (more than Rs 2,200 crore) list price today. And 787 could even be around $450mn (more than Rs 4,000 crore).”But do the planes have graveyards like us?Yes.In the United States, the Arizona desert serves as a final resting place for thousands of retired aircraft. The dry climate slows corrosion, allowing planes to remain intact until their fate is decided.”Generally, big nations have graveyards for decommissioned aircraft as they scrap many aircraft in a year. These are large tracts of land in a dry area, which prevents corrosion of the airframe of aircraft till the disposal is decided,” Sinha explains.Harsh Vardhan adds, “If you see the Arizona Desert, it is full of all the defence and retired aircraft, even civilian aircraft. So not all can be salvaged.”India’s reality is different.“But here, scrap aircraft are either sold by the operator. And many times, if it is just parked and the parking charges are not paid, then airport authorities auction them,” Vardhan says.Whether India needs a similar graveyard remains a debated topic. While Sinha views it as a tribute akin to war memorials, Vardhan believes current systems suffice, given land constraints.After the final landingWhen an aircraft stops flying, it does not simply vanish.It becomes metal, memory, training equipment, museum artefact, or scrap. It becomes a reflection of economics, policy, pride and time.Aircraft are built to conquer gravity, but even they cannot outrun age.Long after their engines fall silent, they continue to carry meaning. And even grounded wings, it turns out, leave trails behind. Go to Source
