Father buys Boeing 737 fuselage on Facebook and buries it in his garden in bid to build underground fallout shelter and party bunker
Published: | Updated:
A father who bought a Boeing 737 fuselage on Facebook and spent £4,000 hauling it home has buried the aircraft in his back garden to create the ultimate underground party pad that doubles as a war bunker.
The three-ton body of the Bmibaby Boeing 737-500 is the latest addition to the ambitious nuclear bunker complex that engineer Dave Billings, 45, has spent years building beneath his property in Hilton, Derbyshire.
Inspired by the classic Second World War film The Great Escape, the project has cost him £50,000 so far and features a maze of tunnels, secret chambers and hidden entrances.
Surreal footage shows a team of helpers slowly winching the gigantic aircraft shell into the ground.
Dave estimates that the sophisticated subterranean hideout could sustain his family for up to three months if World War Three broke out.
To ready the bunker for action, Dave plans to install a lift shaft hidden inside a traditional red phone box to carry visitors down into the buried aircraft.
The engineer said that while his aircraft-obsessed eight-year-old son Oliver got on board with the doomsday feat immediately, it took more convincing to get his wife, Beth, to see the vision.
Dave said: 'Beth did wonder why I was spending money on an old plane and said it was junk but she's coming round now.
Dave Billings, 45, bought the fuselage of the decommissioned Boeing 737-600 in December 2025 as part of his ambitious project to create the ultimate party pad and war bunker
The engineer says that the next steps involve burying the decommissioned jet
The top of the aircraft will be two-and-a half-feet underground
The father said his eight-year-old son who is obsessed with planes inspired the purchase - but that his wife took more convincing
'It's primarily a fun thing to have and a place for us to have parties and relax but it could be made into a fallout shelter.'
According to the father, the next steps in the bunker's development involve burying the fuselage under two-and-a-half feet of concrete and soil.
He added: 'It will have electricity and water but we are also putting solar panels on the top and it has a borehole to a water supply.
'The plane toilet will be converted into a usable toilet connected to our septic tank.
'The structure will have its own ventilation system too.
'Depending on the amount of food we have down there, we could be off-grid for a long time if need be.'
While kitted out with doomsday survival amenities, Dave still insists that the bunker's primary function is for fun.
The father said: 'If I was a prepper, I'd be stopping everything else to get on with it.
'I do these things because they're cool. I enjoy it. But this one's a cool thing that's got a purpose; it can be classed as functional.
'If things escalate and it is going to be needed, I can speed the job up, but I don't think anyone will bomb the Derbyshire Dales.'
A red phone box will be fitted with a lift shaft used to carry visitors down into the buried plane
The nuclear bunker complex and party pad will have electricity and water
Dave bought the decommissioned fuselage with friends in December 2025 and transported it home for £4,000.
He estimated that it will cost another £8,000 for the concrete, £3,000 for reinforcing mesh and £2,000 in insulation before the aircraft is fully submerged and secured underground.
That’s before factoring in the food, drink and beer he plans to stock inside.
Alongside barrels for the bar, Dave hopes to store enough supplies to last between three and six months.
The ambitious project is documented on his YouTube channel, Tornado Dave, and he expects to complete it by next February.
'Beth said it must be finished before our tenth wedding anniversary,' Dave said. 'So I've got a very firm deadline to meet.'
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.