Dave Billings buries decommissioned Boeing 737 fuselage in his garden
Dave Billings bought a retired Boeing 737-500 fuselage for £4,000 and has buried it 12 feet underground in his garden in Hilton.
How it was covered
- BBC One was the only channel found covering it, concentrating on the garden burial and the logistics of lowering the fuselage.
- Channel 5, BBC News, BBC Two, Channel 4, ITV and Sky News: not found in tracked broadcasts.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story. Facts only one channel reported are attributed to it.
In a report by Steve Beach, BBC One said that Dave Billings, an entrepreneur, bought the fuselage of a retired Boeing 737-500 for £4,000 after spotting it online. The aircraft had flown passengers from East Midlands Airport to holiday destinations, and in 2009 it was named Pudsey Baby for BBC Children in Need, the channel said.
Getting the fuselage to his home in Hilton was difficult, BBC One reported, and once it arrived Billings decided to bury it in his garden. The channel said he dug a huge hole and used a large crane and a team of volunteers to lower the cabin into place. He downloaded plans from Boeing to check the fit, and the cabin was lowered inch by inch.
BBC One reported that the plane, which once flew at about 30,000 feet, now sits 12 feet underground. Billings said visitors enter through what he described as an old Second World War well and go down a staircase he built. He has also made a scale model showing the concrete rings that will stiffen and support the fuselage.
Billings said his son thinks the project is brilliant and his wife is okay with it as long as he finishes before their wedding anniversary in July. BBC One said visitors to the garden would probably have little idea what lies beneath their feet.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.
| Claim |  |
|---|---|
| Only on one channel | |
| Dave Billings bought a decommissioned Boeing 737-500 fuselage for £4,000 and buried it in his garden using a crane and volunteers. | |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
The only channel in the sample treated the story as a light human-interest report, following Dave Billings from the online purchase through the delicate operation to lower the fuselage into his garden. It emphasised the unusual engineering and family details, with playful references to boarding passes and aviation, and did not examine Boeing or the aircraft industry.
- “Dave Billings spent 4,000 pounds on a decommissioned plane, which he buried in his garden”
- “I thought I can bury it in my garden. So I thought right That sounds like a really good idea.”
- “finally the plane which once flew at 30 odd thousand feet was 12 feet underground”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.