The Aeroplane Graveyard of Thailand

The below haunting photographs show the eerie tourist attractions where abandoned jets have been thrown to rot in Thailand. The derelict shells of two abandoned aeroplanes left by a cash strapped investor in Thailand to rot. The MD-82 jets were earlier operated by Orient Thai Airlines, are now at the mercy of the elements in Bangkok after a business venture to use them as a bar failed. 

 This year, 36 year old photographer Dax Ward took the stunning images of unconventional site, to take a peek inside the stripped aeroplanes. The Bangkok based photographer took the hobby photography as a challenge. He’s is actually a technology teacher explains, the aeroplanes were supposedly placed here few years ago by a foreign investor to create a special outdoor bar using the fuselage as a stage for the bands and service rooms for the bar crew. Hence, the project was a fiasco and the foreign investor left the site as it is. Currently, there’s no plan to move them, as land upon which they rest is extremely expensive. 

However the registration numbers of the two aeroplanes have been painted over, so it is difficult to decipher when the planes were operated or retired. The plane interiors were mostly stripped away to show the bare bones of massive crafts, but the carpeting overhead bins and bathrooms remain intact. Moreover, echoing the obliteration of a plane crash, oxygen masks, safety manuals and other debris are also scattered about the hollowed out craft. Indeed, it is very eerie in the graveyard. The children toys and other personal objects scattered around left by people who have stayed there for whatever reason, almost making it feel like a crash site. 

The Thai culture often observe such places as haunted, no one has actually passed away at the location. The tourists are charged 300 baht per person and the place is looked after by a lady who lives on the site with her extended family in some converted fuselages. Thailand is a country that thrives with culture, and such lively cultures tend to also include a deeply-rooted spiritual dimension. So, it's is filled with ghost stories and irrational belief regarding spirits and locations which are haunted by them. Such dogmas of a haunting can also arise simply because a site looks scary, which is why I think the graveyard would have such an image. 

Hence, I'm pretty happy exploring the site alone and take these photos. Also, there is generally someone hanging around the locations, be it human or animal, so I’m rarely completely alone.  As I'm not acquainted with aeronautical design so it is interesting for me to see the diverse levels in the plane and to get a sense of its actual size. In fact it is really impressive feat in engineering and physics that permits for such large, heavy objects to be propelled through the sky at high speeds.