Urban explorers make incredible airplane discovery inside abandoned aviation training base left to decay since 2021

A YouTuber famous for exploring little-known locations across the globe made an incredible airplane discovery inside an abandoned British Airways aviation training base in Heathrow, near London, UK, that was left to decay.

Josh from the Exploring with Josh YouTube channel has 4.66 million subscribers and posted the fascinating footage last month, which has since amassed almost 450,000 views.

Cranebank Training Centre was once the beating heart of British Airways’ crew and staff training near Heathrow Airport in the 1960s. But it was abandoned in 2021 and left to rot.

Now a haunting time capsule of airline history, it’s definitely worth a closer look – scroll down to find out more and check out the video.

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The massive facility is in the London Borough of Hillingdon, approximately 14 miles west of the City of London.

It served as a state-of-the-art hub for aviation training for decades, and Exploring with Josh took a look around.

In its heyday during the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, or even Noughties, Cranebank trained tens of thousands of British Airways staff, including pilots, cabin crew, and ground personnel.

Part of the in-depth training provided at the facility included the use of aircraft cabin mockups, evacuation slides, and full-motion simulators. There were even customer service classrooms.

However, it officially closed its doors in 2021. Since then, the site has been left exactly as it was and has become a time capsule of aviation history.

Check out the video above to see Josh explain where the flight attendants sat, and a desk where the simulation was possibly controlled for the students, like this dad who built his own Boeing 747 with a cockpit in his garden.

His co-host, Dave, also found a bunch of life vests lying around inside the airplane.

Perhaps the most exciting find, however, was the spiral staircase leading up to the top of the bigger double-decker Boeing 747 – one of which was gifted by the Qatari royal family to the USA.

“This thing is freaking huge,” he said. Not unlike Lockheed’s idea for a double-decker super jet that could carry more passengers than an A380.

“That’s just crazy how a two-floor aircraft has the ability to fly.”

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