Hydraulic Systems Providing Water For A Mennonite Community In Belize

Most airplanes that end their service lives in an accident wind up being scrapped for parts and recycled, but that is not the case for a Lockheed Constellation that went down on May 19, 1976 in Belize.

Well, it has been recycled, but not in the usual way.

The 1958 Connie was on a flight from Honduras to Miami when it threw a propeller, causing extensive damage to a second engine. There was only a crew of three on board the airplane at the time, and all three survived the emergency landing. The airplane didn't fare so well.

The story might have ended up in a scrap yard, but instead, the airplane was taken apart and trucked across Belize to a small town called Blue Creek, according to a story appearing in Urban Ghosts. There, the community adapted the airplane's hydraulic system to pump water from their small dam.

Meanwhile, the fuselage has also been put to work, being used as a barn, a henhouse, and currently as a storage shed for a local mechanic.

(Image from file)

FMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Constellation