The airplane cemetery of Guayabal

The silence left by Olaya Herrera airport

If you walk along Calle 5A Sur with Carrera 44 in Guayabal, the first thing that hits you is not the noise of the city, but the silence. A heavy, metallic silence that smells of burnt oil and rusted iron. There, behind a chain-link fence that time has been corroding, sleep the remains of what was once the gateway to Medellín: Olaya Herrera airport. But I'm not referring to the active terminal we all know, but rather the area of abandoned hangars that stretches southward, an airplane cemetery that few tourists know about and that locals have learned to ignore.

In August 2026, this place remains a mystery to most. The taxi drivers passing along Avenida Regional don't even look at it. The residents of Guayabal simply call it "the old hangars." But for those who know how to look, each rusted fuselage tells a story of Colombian aviation that doesn't appear in textbooks. There are no commemorative plaques or interactive museums here. There is only noble scrap metal, a witness to an era when Medellín dreamed of being the center of South American aviation.

Olaya Herrera airport was inaugurated in 1932 and for decades was the heart of national air transport. Companies like Avianca, SAM, and Aerotaxi took off and landed here, connecting Medellín with the rest of the country. But when the José María Córdova international airport opened in Rionegro in 1985, Olaya Herrera lost its prominence. The large commercial flights left, but the hangars remained. And with them, the planes that no longer had anywhere to go.

What you see today is the result of decades of selective abandonment. It's not that the mayor's office decided to create an airplane cemetery; it's that no one has dared to decide what to do with this space. Meanwhile, nature and parts thieves have been doing their work. Some planes are complete, others are skeletons that barely retain the shape of a fuselage. But they all have something in common: they are waiting for a decision that never comes.

The forgotten hangars: which planes are there and how they got there

Getting into this place is not easy. There is no official entrance, and most access points are blocked or guarded. But if you're lucky, or if you know someone who knows someone, you might get a security guard to let you in for a few minutes. What you find inside is a sad and fascinating catalog of Colombian aviation.

The Avianca veterans

The most imposing planes are the remains of the Boeing 727s and 737s that operated for Avianca during the 70s and 80s. These aircraft, which were once the pride of the national fleet, now lie with broken windows and disassembled engines. Some still retain the airline's blue and red colors, although the sun and rain have turned them into a faded pink tone. The planes arrived here in the late 90s, when Avianca decided to retire them from service and found no buyers. Instead of completely scrapping them, they left them in these hangars with the promise that a museum would someday be built. That museum was never built.

The Aerotaxi relics

Smaller but equally interesting are the Aerotaxi planes, a regional airline that operated charter and cargo flights from Medellín until the 90s. Here there are several Douglas DC-3s, those legendary World War II planes that found a second life in Latin American commercial aviation. One of them, the HK-1180, has a particular story: it was used to transport coffee between Medellín and Bogotá for over 30 years. Now its propeller is twisted and its cockpit is full of pigeon guano, but if you get close you can still read the company name painted on the nose.

The unknown and the forgotten

Not all planes have a clear story. There's a Cessna 310 that seems to have been used for agricultural fumigation, with chemical residue in the tanks. There's also a Learjet 24 that probably belonged to some private company, although no one has been able to confirm its origin. The Civil Aeronautics records don't have an updated inventory of what's in these hangars, and the security guards who have worked here for years don't have clear answers either. "That one arrived one day on a crane and was never moved again," says one of them, shrugging.

What is clear is that most of these planes arrived between 1995 and 2005, when Colombian airlines were renewing their fleets and had no plan to get rid of the old models. Olaya Herrera became a de facto, not de jure, storage site. And no one took responsibility for cleaning it up.

The security guard who knows every model

If there's a key figure in this airplane cemetery, it's Don Álvaro. He's been working as a security guard in the hangar area of Olaya Herrera for 22 years, and he knows each plane like a child. "That's a 727 that flew the Medellín-Cali route in the 80s," he says, pointing to a white fuselage without wings. "I had a cousin who traveled on that plane every week. Now look at it, full of dirt and fear."

Don Álvaro is not an official employee of any airline. He works for a private security company that has a vague contract with the mayor's office to "monitor and protect" the area. But he interprets his job differently: he feels like the guardian of Medellín's aeronautical memory. When he sees someone with a professional camera approaching the fence, he approaches and asks: "Are you one of those who likes history, or one of those who come to steal?" If the answer is the former, a dialogue opens up. If it's the latter, the conversation is over.

Ruin photographers and urban planners who have managed to get in say Don Álvaro is a goldmine of information. He can recite from memory the technical specifications of each plane, the years of service, the routes they covered, and even anecdotes about pilots he knew in his youth. "I like people to know that this isn't garbage," he says. "This is history. The thing is, nobody wants to pay to maintain it."

If you decide to visit the place, a practical tip: bring him a coffee. Don Álvaro is a simple man who appreciates the gesture, and with a cup of tinto in hand, he becomes more talkative. He likes to talk about the times when the airport was the center of Guayabal's social life, when families would go to watch planes take off like going to the movies. "That was something else," he sighs. "Now the kids don't even know this existed."

Current use: video shoots and illegal races

Abandonment doesn't mean emptiness. The Guayabal airplane cemetery has a parallel life that few know about, and it's not always legal or decorous.

The improvised film set

Since the early 2000s, this place has been used as a location for music video shoots, short films, and even Transversal commercials. The post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the rusted planes is perfect for low-budget productions looking for an "industrial" vibe without having to pay for a studio. One of the most well-known videos filmed here was for a local rap song about the decay of Medellín. The director mentioned in an interview that he found the place by chance, looking for a space for a chase scene. "When I saw the planes, I knew it was perfect," he said. "We didn't need to build anything. It was all there."

Scenes for web series and a couple of independent feature films that never made it to commercial theaters have also been shot here. The security guards have an unwritten policy: if the film crew is respectful and doesn't damage anything, they can enter. But if they leave trash or try to take pieces of the planes, the permission is revoked.

The illegal races

The dark side of this place is the illegal car racing. On weekends, especially at night, some young people from the area use the abandoned runway next to the hangars to race. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's been going on for decades. Authorities conduct raids from time to time, but they always come back. The runway is long, straight, and has little traffic, making it ideal for this type of activity.

Guayabal residents have divided opinions about this. Some see it as a nuisance, due to the noise and danger. Others consider it a way to keep the space alive, a way to prevent the place from falling into total oblivion. Don Álvaro, for his part, prefers not to comment. "I just do my job," he says, although everyone knows he sometimes opens the gate for the racers in exchange for a tip.

The shelter of the homeless

Another reality that cannot be ignored is that some of the abandoned planes have been occupied as housing by homeless people. Especially the larger fuselages, like the Boeing 727s, offer a roof and some protection from the rain. This situation has generated tensions with the airport administration, which has tried to evict them on several occasions, but without lasting success. The occupants are temporarily relocated, but they always return. "It's sad," says Don Álvaro. "But it's the reality of this city. We can't pretend we don't see it."

The mayor's plan (or the lack of one)

The question everyone asks is: what's going to happen to this place? And the answer, in August 2026, is that no one knows for sure.

In recent years, there have been several announcements and promises. In 2021, the municipal administration presented a project to turn the area into an "Aeronautical Memory Park," which would include the restoration of some planes, an interactive museum, and a public space with green areas. The project was applauded by urban planners and history enthusiasts, but the full budget was never allocated. It ended up in a drawer, like so many other Medellín plans.

In 2023, a group of city councilors revived the idea, but with a different approach: they proposed demolishing everything and building a shopping center with apartment towers. The logic was simple: the land, located in a strategic area near the city center and with access to Avenida Regional, is worth millions of dollars. For some, keeping an airplane cemetery in such a privileged location is an economic waste. For others, it's an attack on the city's memory.

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