Aviation boneyard: Where decommissioned aircraft is stored

Nothing lasts forever, and this is definitely true for airplanes. Most modern airplanes have a service life of at least 30 years, but when that time is up, where do they go?

Aircraft that are out of service go to a storage facility, also called an aircraft cemetery. These are giant open parking garages for airplanes that are waiting for their future, travelandleisure.com writes.

Former pilot Daniel Babb, a professor at the University of Nevada, said, "Once an airplane arrives at a junkyard, one of two things will happen: it will remain in storage and be fully serviced, or it will be disassembled for parts."

The first situation happens when airlines decommission aircraft that are still airworthy but no longer shiny and new.

"As aviation technology continues to evolve, airlines will decommission some aircraft, which means that old aircraft are destined for the scrapyard. Other airlines can buy these old planes because they are cheaper than buying new ones," Babb says.

But if an airplane is too far past its prime, it is usually taken for parts. "After a decommissioned airliner arrives at an aircraft scrapyard for disposal, all the fluids are drained from it first. Then all useful parts, from instruments to engines, are removed for resale. After these two processes are completed, the aircraft is ready for disposal. What remains after disassembly, especially metals and plastics, is almost always recycled in some way. At the end of the process, there is almost nothing left of the aircraft," aviation historian Shea Oakley says.

Aircraft warehouses can be found all over the world, often in places where there are no bones. This might not be surprising, but the largest airplane storage facilities are in the desert. "There's less rain, snow, and other adverse weather conditions that can cause aircraft to rust," Babb says.