Two brothers in El Paso bought a Boeing plane. Wha | RSS.com
Diego: It’s like something you might see in a buddy comedy movie, where some guys do something interesting and maybe a little wacky, but here, in real-life El Paso. When Ismael Lara and his brother bought a plane that had sat abandoned for years at El Paso International Airport, it was the start of what has become a long and complex process for the brothers, who are disassembling the plane to move it to their property in far East El Paso.
What will happen to the aircraft next is anyone’s guess. A bar and restaurant, perhaps? While Track One has managed to use a train car as a home of its well-known chicken wing restaurant, Lara said he doesn’t envision turning his old plane into a hot, new spot for dining or drinks. Maybe the plane could become an educational hub, maybe something else. The truth is, no one, not even the Lara brothers, are sure.
Cindy: I was scrolling around looking for El Paso news, and was just Googling different things and came across a government website, an auction website, that showed that there was some El Paso items on it.
Diego: That was Cindy Ramirez, editor of El Paso Matters, who has followed the story since the plane was auctioned off early this year.
Cindy: I also came across another story of somebody who had, I think it was a specialty magazine, that had reported that the plane was on the auction website and that’s how it started.
Diego: So, what kind of plane are we talking about here? And how much did these guys pay for it?
Cindy: The plane was a 1966 Boeing 727. They paid about $8,000 and change for it. Altogether, with taxes and fees and the auction fees, it came out to about $10,100 and some change.
Diego: So why was this plane abandoned at the airport? How did it get there?
Cindy: So, the airplane was last owned by a private charter company and its owner had died, ironically, in a plane crash in New Mexico years prior. And, so, this charter company stopped making payments on the lease required by the airport to keep it on their grounds. And in 2015 – I’m sorry, 2021, I believe – the city started making arrangements to take over it.
Diego: And there’s some kind of Nic Cage tie-in, am I correct?
Cindy: There is. Previous to this private charter plane company owning it, it was owned by the U.S. Marshals Service, and they used it to transport prisoners, much like the ‘Con Air’ movie that Nicolas Cage starred in.
Diego: So, we’re just talking a plane full of convicts getting transported around to various prisons around the country?
Cindy: That’s what it was used for back then. At some point there was some speculation online that maybe it was like, a plane that was previously owned by Chapo Guzman or things like that. That was not the case, but it does have that tie-in to the prisoner transport.
Diego: Yeah, so used by the U.S. Marshals Service and then a private charter service afterward. So, who are these guys who bought it, and what do they want to do with it?
Cindy: They’re two brothers in their 30s, they’re local educators. One of them is a principal, the other one is a bilingual education teacher who also does side gigs, I guess, side jobs. Both very entrepreneurial, and they’ve both kind of ventured in work where they’ve taken school buses or, you know, rows of locker room lockers and things like that, and refurbished them and resold them. So, they’ve kind of done some of this kind of work, but definitely the biggest purchase ever.
Diego: Yeah, and they have a third brother involved, right? Who’s maybe going to be doing some videography or something like that of this whole endeavor?
Cindy: That’s correct. The third brother kind of came into the picture a little bit later, once Ismael, who’s the brother who’s spearheading this project, started dismantling the airplane. The brother who does some videography and is somewhat of a filmmaker came into town, and is hoping to do a documentary on it. I think they’re also trying to do some kind of program on social media where you would just get some followers and just kind of follow their journey.
Diego: Yeah. So, it’s kind of a family affair. You saw the plane shortly after the Lara brothers bought it. What was it like inside?
Cindy: It was kind of cool going in there without, you know, it was kind of basically gutted out. It didn’t have the seats, it was missing a lot of parts. But just to kind of see it in that way, and you kind of see some of the inner workings of the plane that’s missing a lot of the internal parts. But you also had, like, some of the safety masks that were still in their little case and that was interesting to see how the mechanics of that worked. So, yeah, it was interesting to say the least.
Diego: Did you see the potential inside of it?
Cindy: I think there’s a lot of potential, but potential can be expensive. And I think that that’s the biggest challenge for these brothers is it’ll be financially challenging to do anything with it. But, yeah, definitely the ideas are there.
Diego: And a few weeks back, you went again and saw the brothers and some workers were still disassembling the plane at the airport for transport months after they bought it. What was the scene like there when you went recently?
Cindy: Very different from the first time. I think the brother, Ismael himself, called it like a salvage yard and I would definitely agree. They had taken off some of the wings or I think both of the wings, the engines. Some of them, they had to literally tear off and some of the parts were scattered on the area of the hangar. So very, very different. They had taken off the nose of the airplane. So, even looking at it like that, that looked like it was the “Con Air” plane after it crashed.
Diego: Yeah. And they were having to deal with hazardous materials, right? And fluids and all sorts of things in the plane.
Cindy: Yeah, a lot of things that they hadn’t foreseen. So, because the brothers had been involved in, you know, taking all this junk or salvage items before, they kind of knew that there would be some sweat equity that they’d have to put into it. But I don’t think that they really realized how much work that this was going to be. They did have to call in hazmat to make sure that it was clear of all fluids, oils and things like that. So yeah, definitely a big project.
Diego: And so where are they taking it?
Cindy: So, the brothers own a property in Far East Montana and they have, I think they said about half-acre out there. So, they are taking it apart and taking it piece by piece over to their property.
Diego: So they probably thought it would be a straight shot from the airport down Montana to the property, right?
Cindy: That was part of the basic plan, before they realized that it wouldn’t be that easy, in part because there’s a lot of construction in that area, also because they’ve had to get a lot of permits from, like, TxDOT to tow something of that size out. And, even if they’re taking it in smaller parts, they’ve had to get permits for every time that they are going to tow it out there.
Diego: And so, you know, you hear the purchase price of maybe a little less than $9,000, you go ‘Man, you know, maybe I could put that together to buy a plane.’ But it seems like the real cost is coming from hiring people to disassemble it and the transport. And that’s not even counting, you know, a sort of renovation, right, of the plane. It seems like the purchase price was kind of a small component of this whole project?
Cindy: Right. I mean, it’s $10,000. So, I don’t know that this is how they split it, but maybe they did, you know, $5,000 each. It’s not a whole lot, but when you start talking about probably $100,000 or more, $200,000, we don’t know an exact price, but it’s definitely going to be expensive for them to tear it apart. They’re working with a local company that’s helping them out, maybe giving them a little bit of a better price, but definitely racking up a lot of expense.
Diego: And how many people do you think were involved in the disassembly when you went out there? Was it a dozen guys, or half a dozen guys or just two or three?
Cindy: No, it was just a handful. It was, Ismael was out there himself with some tools and doing the best that he could. And there was maybe one or two guys from another company, I think they’re called Sol. And so it was about three doing most of the work.
Diego: So, nobody really knows what this is going to become, but have either of the Lara brothers laid out any plans?
Cindy: You know, they have a lot of ideas, not so much a plan.
I think some of the ideas that they first started with, and that they’re kind of wanting to do, is do something educational as educators and particularly in the areas of STEAM, that they wanted to provide that as a community service. I don’t know that that’s going to help pay for the expense that they’re putting into moving this thing, certainly not to refurbish it. But the ideas are plenty. They’re talking about, you know, maybe we make it into some kind of library or maybe we make it into some kind of static attraction where people, particularly kids from low-income areas, can come and see what the inside of a plane looks like.
But then, of course, there’s all the ideas that they have like, you know, maybe it could be a venue, a bar or a coffee shop. So, we’ll see. But I think that the brothers, for now, really don’t want to get into anything that has to do with restaurants or eateries or things like that that require that kind of permitting.
Diego: And you had a line in your story that maybe not all of the Lara brothers’ family are embracing this project?
Cindy: Yeah, I think Ismael, without going into detail, said that a lot of the family maybe also kind of had the same reaction like ‘Well, that’s cool. Now, what are you going to do?’ And that they’re supportive of him and the ideas, but I think that they’re facing the reality, too, that this is not going to be cheap.
Diego: Yeah, sometimes you have to prove your skeptical family members wrong, right?
And so, Cindy, what do you think the brother should do with this plane? What would you like to see happen with this hunk of metal?
Cindy: You know, I think that there’s some possibilities. Again, it just depends how much money they’re able to put into it, and if they’re able to get any kind of partnerships and maybe get somebody to help with some of the investment in it.
One idea that I really liked that Ismael had was, if they do something static with it, that they could create like a food truck park around it. I kind of like the idea, because it would still provide them a way for people to see the plane and hang out in it, but without having to get into the restaurant business themselves. So, I don’t know, we’ll see.
Diego: So maybe we’ll have a unique new party venue, or some kind of entertainment spot opening in El Paso?
Cindy: We’ll see. Either that, or they’re gonna have to figure out a way to get some of that stuff to a junkyard or salvage and sell it for parts.
Diego: Sounds good. Well, thanks for talking through this story with me, Cindy. We’ll be curious to see what these brothers end up doing with this.
Cindy: Us, too. Thank you.
The post Podcast: Two brothers in El Paso bought a Boeing plane. What now? appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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