Airbnb has been outdoing itself lately when it comes to celebrity-affiliated, ’80s-era stays. First there was Prince’s Purple Rain-themed Minneapolis house, and now the rental platform is offering an opportunity to stay overnight in a private jet that was reportedly owned by infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Businessman Johnny Palmer says he bought Escobar’s wingless, engine-less Boeing 727 jet and then towed it to his industrial estate in Bristol, England where he restored the high-flying piece of history to its full cocaine kingpin glory. Visitors can stay overnight in the grounded aircraft—which features a hot tub, sauna, leather seats, walnut paneling, crystal decorations and a gold-plated shower and toilet— for up to $1,000 per night.
The plane was built in 1968 for Japan Airlines and turned into a private jet in 1981 before being decommissioned in 2012. The grounded PJ—which is now powered by more than 300 solar panels—boasts two double bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a full kitchen. Other features include airstairs and working cockpit lights, as well as a light and audio show designed to recreate a take-off. Palmer said that his guests enjoy the novelty of staying in Escobar’s jet, and, according to Vice, he has even rented the colorfully-painted plane out for free to local artists for music videos.
Escobar, in case you didn’t know, was a legendary drug trafficker who collaborated with other criminals to form the Medellín cartel in the early 1970s. At his peak, he controlled more than 80 percent of the cocaine shipped to the U.S., earning the nickname “The King of Cocaine.” Escobar amassed an estimated net worth of $30 billion and was named one of the world’s 10 richest people by Forbes. He was killed during a wild shootout with Colombian police in Medellín in 1993, the day after his 44th birthday.
“I always wanted to have a private jet and this was an opportunity to get one,” Palmer, 41, told The Telegraph. the thing that I wanted was never a plane that flew, it was just having a private jet. So this was perfect. Everyone wants a private jet, right?”
The plane’s history has its own considerable mystique, with rumored past owners said to include an Arab price and members of the Mafia. “Someone said that Pablo Escobar might have owned it for a while,” Palmer told The Telegraph. He said the plane had previously been owned in the Cayman Islands, which has made it difficult to determine its true owners over time.
Palmer noted that none of his neighbors at the Skyline Park industrial estate in Bristol have complained about the 150-foot-long plane, which sits 32 feet in the air. “On industrial estates people don’t really care what you do because, visually, they are not very nice,” he said.
“That gives a creative opportunity to do weird things like planes. If I tried to do this in an agricultural or residential setting you just wouldn’t get planning permission for it. I did a lot of the electrics myself, I had a plumber, a carpenter—there have been lots of people who have been involved in the process.”
Palmer plans to tow second plane to be placed next to the existing one, which he said will be “bigger and much more impressive.” The entrepreneur added: “There is a bit of a role-play cosplay thing going on there. People enjoy that experience and living that fantasy for a little while and then living their normal lives. The contrast [between being a] billionaire and real life is actually really healthy to people.”
