Seoul’s ruined Jumbo Jet, the Juan T. Trippe
Last month I went to South Korea to visit with SY’s family and get a feel for her country; we stopped off briefly in Pusan before heading on to Seoul where we saw the War Museum, the N Seoul tower, Gyeongbok Palace, and the ruin of the Juan T. Trippe Pan Am Jumbo Jet. That last is hardly on the tourist trail, it doesn’t feature in any guidebooks or promotional brochures, but it’s a soon-to-be-removed aficionado’s delight, a Jumbo Jet that fell into ruin not once but twice, the story only getting more fascinating as the owner guided us through the slow ruin of its refurbished fuselage.
Nose cone of the Juan T. Trippe
SY figured all the logistics for this trip, for which I’m heavily in her debt. It meant taking a combination of several trains and buses out of central Seoul 40km or so.
“We’re nearly at the end of the line,” she said, as the bus pulled round another twisting turn amongst Korea’s tall green mountains.
“I see it!” I cried, as for a moment the nose of a bright blue jumbo jet poked its head out at me, before another green mountain blocked it from view.
We got off the bus and hurried to see it, and there it was. The Juan T. Trippe in all its jumbo glory, clearly abandoned, gorgeous against a gorgeous blue sky.
Easy to spot.
To say the vision of a jumbo jet parked beside a city is incongruous is an understatement. It’s downright bizarre, fascinating, intriguing. That’s clearly what the owners of the place hoped for back in 2001 when they bought it in California, had it chopped into 62 pieces and shipped in giant containers across the Pacific. On dry land again they rebuilt it, fashioning new stubby wings for it to keep the image complete, gutting it to add in Asian-style floor-dining at the level of the windows, a kitchen, and an executive suite up where the pilots once steered the giant craft.
A noodle shop under its wing.
Ready to take-off, again.
Bold against the city.
Giant nose.
We went up the main access stairs looking for a way in, only to be immediately halted by locked glass doors. Down the stairs again, and an angry old man appeared out of nowhere to spit hostile and negative Korean at us. SY told me he was basically telling us to get lost, get off his property.
Fair enough, but we’d not come all that distance to give up so easily. SY took point and I stood in back smiling and flashing my camera as we went down to the shack the old man lived in, squatted underneath the plane-body itself. She called out into the house and an old woman emerged, equally negative but seemingly amenable to coercion. SY flashed her press credentials and bulled through the woman’s negativity with some semi-true exaggerations (this is a photographer from England, I’m from a magazine in Tokyo, we’ve come only to see your plane, we really had hoped to see inside, please don’t say we’ve come all this way for nothing), not really false but neither totally true. The woman seemed to persist in her negativity, but SY just started walking forwards and saying ‘thank you thank you’ and before I knew it the woman had relented and we were in the fuselage (where it was baking hot) and taking shots.
At the entrance, looking in.
Dining zones.
Tables, windows.
It was obvious the woman was only just tolerating us, so SY kept her busy with a barrage of questions (taking notes all the while), while I took photos as fast I could. I hurried towards the cock-pit but the woman signaled for me to stop. SY said ‘thank you thank you’ a few more times and we both made a dash for the cockpit, unobstructed.
The cockpit was set up like an office, with a few chairs looking out of the glass over the city blocks, an old PC in back. Down the spiral staircase beneath it was a conference room kind of space, a nice long table and chairs fitting perfectly in the narrowing fuselage.
Conference zone.
Conference zone windows.
Refurbishing.
Cockpit.
Suite area.
Looking down on clouds.
Low tables and seating cushions.
We wandered a bit more, took a few more photos, then that was it, and we were out in the cool fresh air again. SY was able to fill me in on all that she’d learned: the two old folks were the owners, they’d bought it with their own cash as their dream-retirement package, the first commercial Jumbo Jet ever in their possession as a restaurant. It was a big dream, and one can only respect their ambition. For a few years it managed to survive, I can imagien all the locals coming to check it out at least once, just to say they had eaten there, but aftter you’ve used up that pool, and the middle-era Jumbo Jet fan pool, what do you have left? A rather expensive folly in the middle of nowhere.
Down the side.
Out the back.
So it failed, a second time. The first failure came with the failure of Pan Am in 1991, finishing when a number of international swaps took it from Argentina to Nigeria then to rest in California in 1999, from where it was bought by the couple.
She said numerous film and TV crews had come by asking for permission to come aboard and do interviews, but they’d always refused, including refusing a crew from NHK (the Japanese BBC) who had come especially to shoot it. Why she let us in is a mystery, but probably has to do with SY’s determination. Kudos to her for that!
She further told us the plane would be shipped off elsewhere, and would become a museum, which seems a fitting third life for such a storied plane.
Its namesake, Juan T. Trippe, was one of the leading aeronautical pioneers of his time, a Howard Hughes figure who first dreamt up the idea of the Jumbo Jet, and founded the company Pan American Airlines, which in the 30′s and 40′s was the biggest airline company in the world. This plane was only named after him in 1975, 5 years it was first built and 6 years before Trippe himself died.
Juan T. Trippe, the aviator.
One of the sections preparing for transit.
The video is pretty basic, as once inside it was pell-mell to get what photos I could. There were much longer sections with SY talking to the lady beneath the plane, I just left a few seconds in so you get the impression.
Seoul’s ruined Jumbo Jet- Clipper Juan T. Trippe from Michael John Grist on Vimeo.
FACTFILE
Location – Seoul
Entry - With a guided tour
Highlights – Guided tour, incongruence.
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Hey Mikey – very cool, and very impressive you guys managed to get in! Well done.
Mike, take very good care of Su Young. She really went to bat for you there.
Interesting ruin with a different flavor than most you feature. The back story is especially interesting, from the rise and fall of Pan Am to the big-dreaming but disappointed Korean couple. I agree with gassho’s comment on the recent soapland haiyko article: any tidbit about the background of these places really enhances the reader’s experience of vicariously exploring these places through your photos and writing.
A trivia note: Juan Trippe was not only a “Howard Hughes figure” but a business rival of Hughes himself. Trippe was played by Alec Baldwin in the film “The Aviator”.
fourth shot maybe my favourite, like the image of the plane sitting surrounded by buildings, very surreal.
Wow, I really feel sorry for that old Korean couple…. I guess they pretty much lost their life savings?
Wow, so it took hardcore pleading to be allowed inside? Did know it was closed down ahead of time?
I guess SY must have had to say a million kamsameda’s!
Scott- Cheers, and respect goes to SY for getting us in.
David- Absolutely right, she definitely put the effort in. Glad you like the background detail, when I can get it I generally do add it. Many of he Japanese ruins I went to though were just not big enough to leave much of an information trail. As for Trippe, yeah I figured they must have been contemporaries- thanks for extra info.
Can- Cheers. Yeah I felt kind of sad after hearing they lost all their savings, living in that hut underneath the plane. Not the retirement they had expected, I guess.
Jason- Ha, yes a lot of Kamsahamnedas, used like a battering ram.
Mike, I really like today’s look for Out of Ruins. The landing page is thrillingly clean with all the highlights on one page with no scrolling. Neat interface to click on what you want for an in-line expansion. “Customize” is fun and the results look good, though this site is definitely “Black”.
The only quibble I have is that maybe the overall look is a little *too* clean for a site dedicated to haikyo and dark fiction, but personally I think the new look and operability is a big plus, especially for current fans of the site who know what you’re about and want to get the the material that interests them.
Have you changed blog engines, or is this interface a WordPress plugin?
Hi David, awesome you like the new look, was hearing from a number of people how the old site was taking forever to load, so wanted to go the other way and really trim it down. This look really appeals to me too- love that it’s all on one page. Agreed it’s a bit odd to have no photos up front, but I’ll tinker some and see about that. Also the customize is good, cos while you and some others like the black, other people complain black gives them a head-ache, so they can easily go white.
As ever- thanks for input!
Pan-Am mystique. The Korean couple should get in touch with the man in this story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125650482699406669.html
[...] his garage. That was on the post about the South Korean couple who spent all their cash buying the world’s first commercial 747 to use as a restaurant. Cheers David! Posted: October 27th, 2009 Categories: Planes, Ruins, [...]
bloody amazing….thank u for this
The cockpit on a jumbo jet is upstairs LOL!!! The conference room is actually the first class section…
David- Thought I`d replied to this ages ago, but yeah, great link and connection. Fascinating, thanks.
Jonhohx- Thanks, I`m glad you liked it.
Max- Not sure if this is sarcasm, do you mean the cockpit is upstairs, or isn`t? In this plane, it was upstairs.
Hello,
That was really interesting for me to see that. I did not know that something like that existed. Indeed the fourth shot is the most impressive and and make me feel of these post apocalyptic films. Anyway thanks for sharing, and well I still believe that even the craziest dreams are worth trying