Well, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time but the inclusion of the fuselage of a Boeing 747 at Burning Man, in the Nevada desert, last September has turned into a giant headache for just about everyone involved. One of the credos of Burning Man is that the impromptu counterculture city that crops up on the playa north of Reno leaves no trace behind. The 747, complete with an open-air bar on its cutaway upper deck, was reportedly popular during the event but its travels after Burning Man have caught the attention of regulators who will be determining if its most recent journey caused environmental harm.
Immediately following the event, the vestige of the old airliner was towed about 12 miles across the dry lake bed and parked for a couple of weeks while the owners, Big Imagination Camp, looked for private property on which to store it. The fuselage got stuck in the soft ground and Big Imagination had to lay down mats under the landing gear to roll it to some private property and off the public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It’s now parked on mats on private property and in the process of being covered in camouflage netting. Big Imagination has said volunteers fixed the ruts caused by the landing gear. Whether the fuselage will return to next year’s Burning Man is not clear. There was opposition to its attendance in 2018 and some attendees are pushing to ban the aircraft next year.
