- The things you lose are always in the last place you look, aren’t they?
We’ve all done it. You lose something you really need and accept that it’s gone, only for you to find it years later, exactly where you last left it.
Still, there’s a limit to how important a thing you can misplace like this. Nobody could forget where they left their car or, say, airplane.
Well, Air India did just that.
The Indian airline operated a certain Boeing 737 jetliner for several decades. After an illustrious career, the plane was retired in 2012 and moved to a remote parking bay at the Kolkata Airport to wait for further processing.
And that’s where the plane would stay for years to come.
For some reason, the decommissioned plane fell through Air India’s accounts, and the company forgot about it. Kolkata Airport didn’t, and it kept sending the airline parking bills, which they ignored.
Finally, the airport had enough and told Air India, “Town your d*** plane out of our parking lot.” A deep-dive through past records eventually revealed that Air India did indeed own the jet — they’d just forgotten it existed.
In the end, Air India paid the more than $100,000 they’d accrued in unpaid fees, so good on them. They also got an unexpected bonus — the old plane still has its original engines, so it’ll become a valuable training tool for ground crews.
A Long Career
The specific plane in question is a Boeing 737-200 jet aircraft registered VT-EHH. It was originally built as a passenger jet, but the old girl has served in many roles since it first took to the skies in 1982.
For 16 years, it flew as Indian Airlines jetliner. In 1998, it was leased to Alliance Air and continued to ferry passengers on shorter routes.
The year 2007 was a big one for VT-EHH. It changed ownership as Indian Airlines merged with Air India and assumed the latter’s name. Additionally, VT-EHH was pulled from passenger duty and converted to cargo transport.
In 2012, it was finally time for the aircraft to end its 30-year, incident-free career. Air India pulled VT-EHH from service and stored it at a Kolkata Airport parking lot until the airline figured out what to do with the decommissioned plane.
As fate would have it, VT-EHH would spend quite a while in that parking lot.
‘We Didn’t Know We Owned It’
Due to some mishap in accounting and bookkeeping, Air India quickly forgot about VT-EHH after its decommissioning. The aircraft vanished from the records, with the company stating that staff turnover and the 2022 privatization probably contributed to VT-EHH disappearance.
“Though disposal of an old aircraft is not unusual, this one is – for it’s an aircraft that we didn’t even know we owned!” Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said, according to The Independent.
So, VT-EHH simply sat in its parking spot, developing a nice green coating of algae and moss from being exposed to eastern India’s weather. Yet, there was somebody who never forgot the old workhorse.
That was Kolkata Airport. After all, the plane was sitting in their parking bay — and eating up a spot that somebody had to pay for.
The airport kept sending parking bills to Air India, but the company ignored them. With each bill, Kolkata Airport would get back the same response: “This must be a mistake, we do not own Boeing 737-200 registered VT-EHH.”
Come Get Your Plane!
Fast-forward 13 years, and we get to late 2025. Kolkata Airport had big plans to expand its covered aircraft storage facilities, and it wanted to build hangars in a parking lot on the airport’s outskirts.
There was just one issue. VT-EHH still sat there, blocking the project.
At this point, Kolkata Airport had enough. They sent a strongly-worded letter to Air India, telling them to tow their wreck of a plane away.
While they were at it, they might as well pay the nearly $112,500 they owed Kolkata Airport for storing the thing for 13 years.
At this point, Air India started questioning whether the plane really was theirs. They began poring over old records, going back to the early ‘80s — and there was VT-EHH in black and white.
“Over time, it was lost from memory and only came to light when our friends at Kolkata airport informed us of its presence in a (very) remote parking bay and asked us to remove it,” said Wilson.
Well, Kolkata tried telling Air India earlier, but they chose to ignore it. But I digress.
Now, in Air India’s credit, they have handled the issue quite well. They’ve removed VT-EHH and paid the overdue parking fees in full, since it is their plane after all.
Despite its admittedly dilapidated state, VT-EHH isn’t headed for the scrap heap. That’s because, due to sitting neglected for years, the aircraft still sports the original Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines.
Although the engines are quickly becoming outdated, they’re still used on jetliners flying around the world. So, as a complete aircraft, VT-EHH makes for an ideal dummy for training ground crew engineers.
Here’s hoping the old plane can serve in this role for at least as long as it sat in the parking lot.
Want some more airplane oddities? Read the story of Deli Mike, the sentient jetliner that refused to fly right. Afterward, check out our list of some of the weirdest aircraft ever built.