Urban explorers make incredible airplane discovery inside abandoned aviation training base left to decay since 2021
Published on Jun 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Jun 18, 2025 at 10:28 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
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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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
