Texas brothers buy abandoned Boeing 727 for $10,000

A man from El Paso, Texas, is on a mission to move and fully refurbish a derelict 59-year-old Boeing 727 that he and his brother bought for $10,000. When the massive project is finished, 40-year-old Ismael Lara tells Popular Science that he hopes the plane can serve as an educational tool and visual attraction to bring more excitement to his hometown. And he already has a name in mind: “Hangar Hangout.”

“I really want it to be an attraction, like a destination for anybody traveling through,” Lara said. “It’s more like a passion project if you think about it because it’s cool as heck.”

Lara’s brother first came across an auction listing for the plane last December. The Boeing aircraft had been sitting unused in a hangar at the El Paso airport for nearly 20 years. When it was flying commercially, the plane could seat up to 129 passengers. Its previous owner, a charter company called Blue Falcon Corp, had reportedly stopped making payments for the storage space after its president died in an unrelated plane accident. Before that, according to El Paso Matters, U.S. Marshals had used the aircraft to transport prisoners. The city ultimately decided to put it up for auction in January 2025, with an initial asking price of just $1,000.

“The city of El Paso really just needed that thing gone,” Lara said. “It had been sitting there for so long.”

When his brother showed him the listing, Lara was immediately interested. The two have a history of buying and refurbishing salvaged materials. Their past projects include fixing up school buses, a locker room, and an abandoned barbershop that eventually became part of the airport terminal. But none of those came close in terms of scale or overall cost of what the plane project would require. 

Though the brothers purchased the plane at a bargain price, the real expense would come in moving and restoration costs. Lara says he found out about the listing just a few days before the auction. He did some quick back-of-the-envelope math and estimated they could probably complete the entire project for around $250,000—maybe less if they did most of the work themselves. Even if all else failed, he said, they could probably sell it as a house or Airbnb and recoup the investment.

“We said, bottom line, it’s still going to be worth it even if we can’t make it into something really interesting or exciting for the public,” he said. 

They pulled the trigger. After a couple back and forth bids the plane was theirs for $10,132, including taxes and fees.

Moving a long abandoned jet was full of surprises 

Since February, the Lara brothers have been painstakingly dismantling and moving the mid-size jet from the airport hangar to a nearby property they own. Lara says they were racing to complete that part of the process before the brutal West Texas summer took full hold. They’re mostly done now, but it hasn’t been easy. 

Initially, the effort required two cranes, a couple dozen workers, and several large trucks to take apart and transport major sections of the fuselage and cockpit—all of which drove up their costs. The plane’s age and condition have made the job even more challenging. Nearly every screw and bolt is rusted, turning their removal into a tedious and time-consuming task.

But the biggest, and most shocking, surprise came earlier this year while Lara and his team were trying to open the plane’s cargo bay doors. They wouldn’t budge. When they finally pried them open, they discovered seven auxiliary tanks full of jet fuel that hadn’t been stirred in 20 years. Stunned, Lara immediately contacted the airport.

“I sent in pictures,” he said. “I said, guys, you guys had a bomb here.”

Normally, fuel found in a plane can be recycled, sold, and reused. But in this case, Lara learned that the fuel had been sitting for too long to be salvaged and was now classified as hazardous waste. That meant a specialized team had to be brought in to defuel the plane and take precautions to prevent a possible explosion. It also meant they would have to spend significantly more money to empty the tanks. Defueling a plane with usable fuel, he says, costs around 50 cents per gallon. Defueling one with hazardous waste? $9 per gallon.

“It was like $25,000 just in fuel,” Lara says.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,”

The Lara brothers have big plans for Hangar Hangout. They envision refreshing the interior and transforming the cockpit and other key areas into a kind of “virtual field trip,” where kids can learn about aviation. Lara says he plans to install LED panels inside to make the experience feel more immersive. Outside, they’re considering setting up a food truck station. They also hope to invite local artists to paint parts of the plane, offering visitors a slice of Texas culture. 

Though the final form is still being decided, Lara says he wants the project to be both educational and a fun attraction for people who might otherwise pass through El Paso without stopping. In a town that can be somewhat lacking in excitement, Lara says he wants to try and create his own.

When asked what family and friends thought when they began the project, Lara says he kept hearing two questions: “Why a plane?” and “Why you?” For Lara, the choice was a no-brainer. While some saw a derelict plane sitting in a hangar as junk, he says he immediately saw it as an “opportunity.”

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” he said. 

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