Dave Billings Airplane Bunker: Former Bmibaby Boeing 737-500 Fuselage to Be Buried in Derbyshire Garden
Dave Billings Airplane Bunker will be created from a cabin section of a former Bmibaby Boeing 737-500 that the 44-year-old bought for £4, 000 and plans to bury in his garden in Hilton, Derbyshire. The purchase is intended to extend an existing network of underground rooms and tunnels the engineer and content creator has been documenting on his YouTube channel.
Development details: Dave Billings Airplane Bunker
Billings purchased the fuselage section as a bare shell on Facebook Marketplace and has begun gutting it in preparation for burial. He has removed lashings of insulation and found that some repairs had already been made to the fuselage body. The cabin will be rejuvenated and kitted out with materials and accessories — Billings has bought airplane seats, windows, a trolley and a first aid kit from a specialist parts dealer and memorabilia maker. He intends to retain the toilet and kitchen area at the back of the cabin and to expose the rugged aluminium framework beneath the plastic interior.
Work on the fuselage is being framed as a nuclear fallout shelter, with plans to bury the shell and add it to the start of the underground space Billings has already started to build. The project includes a planned underground red phone box feature. Billings expects to bury the fuselage in a few months but has stated that the structure will be added to his network only once planning permission is granted.
Context and escalation
Billings is an engineer and content creator who has documented a tunnel project on his YouTube channel, Tornado Dave, since 2021. The channel now has more than 276, 000 subscribers and has been gaining roughly ten thousand new subscribers each month. He originally set up the channel after working on the Guy's Garage television programme with presenter Guy Martin, who drove one of Billings' modified Land Rovers.
His home and business sit on the site of a former military camp thought to have been used by the US Army during World War Two; Billings recalls there being around fifteen Nissen huts on the site and a well dug by troops, features he has used in his underground design. The decision to acquire the fuselage was prompted by a spur-of-the-moment impulse when he saw the cabin section for sale and by encouragement from his seven-year-old son, who is a fan of aeroplanes and keen to use the bunker for a birthday party.
When Billings discussed the purchase on local radio with presenter Steve Beech of Radio Derby, it drew broader attention to the plan to turn part of the jet into a fallout shelter.
Immediate impact
The purchase and ongoing overhaul have immediate practical consequences. Paying £4, 000 for the fuselage committed Billings to significant renovation work: stripping insulation, assessing pre-existing repairs to the fuselage skin, and sourcing authentic aircraft parts to recreate an interior feel. The discovery of a personal note tucked in the galley at the back of the cabin added an unexpected, sentimental element to the build, while the presence of an intact toilet and kitchen area shaped decisions about what to preserve.
Family dynamics have been affected: Billings' wife, Beth, was initially sceptical, asking why he was buying a "pile of junk, " but she accepted the purchase after it was made. His son remains a motivating factor. Public engagement is tangible too; hundreds of thousands of viewers have followed the tunnel project's progress online, and Billings' subscriber totals and monthly growth underscore the project's audience draw.
Forward outlook
Key milestones are clear and bounded by stated actions. Billings will continue gutting and overhauling the fuselage, fitting it out with the purchased airplane accessories and the materials deemed correct for a buried shelter. The fuselage is slated to be buried in the coming months, but the addition to the underground network will await planning permission. The renovation plan includes keeping the back-of-cabin toilet and kitchen area intact and highlighting the aircraft's aluminium framework.
A piece published on Feb 15, 2026 and last updated on Feb 12, 2026, edited by Emma Matthews, documented the discovery of the personal note and the planned inclusion of a red phone box feature in the subterranean scheme. What makes this notable is how a single consumer purchase of a Boeing 737-500 cabin section has combined household building, heritage traces of a wartime camp, family priorities and a large digital audience into a construction project that now hinges on formal planning permission.
