This Day in Aviation History: Serendipity, Roswell, Aircraft Boneyards and Other Afterlife Places for Aircraft

I love serendipity.  And it… “serendipity”, or chance, Providence, fate, fortune, Karma, whatever you want to call it…happens often to most of us during our lives (if we recognize it).  And it happened again to me today. 

This time, serendipity exposed itself as we flew home from the kitschy “UFO Capital of the World” on the same day a little over half a century ago, that, according to History.com, “Future President Jimmy Carter, on September 18, 1973, filed a report with the International UFO Bureau, claiming he had seen an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) in October 1969.

“During the presidential campaign of 1976, Democratic challenger Carter was forthcoming about his belief that he had seen a UFO. He described waiting outside for a Lion’s Club Meeting in Leary, Georgia, to begin, at about 7:30 p.m., when he spotted what he called ‘the darndest thing I’ve ever seen’ in the sky. Carter, as well as 10 to 12 other people who witnessed the same event, described the object as ‘very bright [with] changing colors and about the size of the moon.’ Carter reported ‘the object hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon and moved in toward the earth and away before disappearing into the distance.’ He later told a reporter that, after the experience, he vowed never again to ridicule anyone who claimed to have seen a UFO.

“Carter promised that, if elected president, he would encourage the government release ‘every piece of information’ about UFOs available to the public and to scientists. After winning the presidency, though, Carter backed away from this pledge, saying that the release of some information might have ‘defense implications’ and pose a threat to national security.”

So, celebrating the serendipity of this event in 1973, we flew from Raleigh-Durham (RDU) to Roswell, NM (ROW) last week to attend our nephew’s wedding in Ruidoso, NM.  We returned home to RDU from ROW early this morning today, on the same day as President Carter’s “this day in aviation history” event.

Roswell has its own special draw and history as the “UFO Capital of the World” and “Roswellians” unabashedly celebrate that history, as evidenced by the aliens adorning the Hertz Car Rental desk, pictured below, at the Roswell Air Center.

Images from the Roswell Airport’s Hertz Rental Car desk.  Photos by Barry Fetzer.

But Roswell’s airport, beyond UFO’s, has several other claims to fame as described below by the City of Roswell on their airport website:

“The Roswell Air Center (RAC, as Roswell’s airport is known) is one of the largest centers for commercial aviation industries of the Southwest.

“The airport was Roswell Army International Airfield during World War II and Walker Air Force Base during the Cold War. When it closed, the 4,600-acre base was the largest of the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. The RAC was developed after the closure of Walker Air Force Base on June 30, 1967.

“ROW is also known for the Roswell UFO incident, an event that allegedly occurred on July 4, 1947.  It is alleged that a ‘flying disk’ crashed during a severe thunderstorm nearby at Corona, New Mexico.  The airport site was used for several years to launch stratospheric balloons for Air Force research projects.

Barry Fetzer mugging for the camera with an alien friend at the RAC airport lobby.  Photo by Arlene Fetzer.

“RAC also serves as a storage facility for a number of retired Airbus A300-600R wide body jetliners formerly operated by American Airlines (as well as other aircraft owned by a multitude of carriers as the photos depict below).

“The airport was used by Felix Baumgartner to launch his record-breaking freefall jump from the stratosphere on October 14, 2012.”

The dry, desert conditions and the size of the airfield’s runways and the ramp space make Roswell an ideal place to store large commercial aircraft in an aircraft “boneyard”.  It was 95 degrees F and dry as a bone in Roswell yesterday when we took off for home.

A variety of scrap aircraft stored at RAC (Photo: AirlineGeeks | William Derrickson)

Another view of the RAC’s commercial aircraft boneyard stretching as far as my cell phone camera’s aperture would allow.  Photo by Barry Fetzer.

Aircraft boneyards are eerie places for aircraft enthusiasts.  Oh, if they could talk, the stories they would tell!  Roswell provides, in addition to its other claims to fame, an “afterlife” or “scrapheap” for airplanes, some refurbished and sold to new carriers, others sadly taken apart piece by piece, and used as “parts bins”. 

But in addition to scrapheaps, there are dozens of other uses, perhaps more respectful than a scrapheap, for out-of-commission aircraft as described in the Atlas Obscura Blog at the following URL:  https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/repurposed-airplanes?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=215683646f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_09_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-215683646f-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=215683646f&mc_eid=b263caf8c1

I recommend you click on the URL, above, to see read about the varied ways aircraft are repurposed, but in the event you’re in a hurry, here’s the blurb from that Atlas Obscura URL:

25 Places Where Planes Are Right at Home on the Ground

The afterlives of aviation wonders.

by Jonathan Carey, Senior Associate Editor, Atlas Obscura

“When Orville Wright first flew above the sandy grounds of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with his brother Wilbur running alongside, they probably knew they were onto something. Would today’s aviation world be even remotely recognizable to them? Massive, fast, crazily maneuverable (to say nothing of space)? But planes have a shelf life. The Wrights’ plane is in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., along with a great many other notable planes. But most decommissioned planes are destined for the scrapheap these days. A special few, however, find a second life intact but forever grounded. Some have been repurposed as museums dedicated to the history of flight, others have been transformed into unique restaurants and hotels, and still others are left to molder in various ways.

“Amid residential buildings in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is what appears to be an abandoned Antonov An-24, a model built in the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1979. The two four-bladed propellers were perfect for dealing with the harsh Mongolian weather, and now this one belongs to the School of Mechanical Engineering and Transportation, where it helps train future engineers. Almost half a world away in Colorado Springs, Colorado, culinary and aviation enthusiasts can board a Boeing KC-97—for a bite, and hopefully a dining experience that is better than what you’d get in the air. From the plane that made cross-country travel possible in the United States to one located in a mall, here are some of our favorite unusual places for you to appreciate aviation history in a new way.”

So, here’s to serendipity, UFO sightings, afterlives for aircraft, and continuing our eternal quest to move onward and upward!

Sources: History.com, Atlas Obscura, the City of Roswell, NM, and AirlineGeeks| William Derrickson