By Cindy Ramirez, El Paso Matters The Boeing 727 that had been long abandoned at El Paso International Airport has lost its wings. And its engines, its tail and its nose. “I know it looks like a scrap yard,” Ismael Lara said, pointing at parts of the airplane scattered around the hangar where he and a small crew of workers are dismantling the metal bird to transport it to its new home. “It’ll be put back together and this area cleaned up.”

Over the last few weeks, workers have put the airplane on lift jacks and hauled in cranes and other heavy equipment to detach its engines, remove its wings, and disassemble its nose cone. And, they’ve painstakingly learned the engineering behind the 1966 aircraft is more complex than unscrewing bolts and screws off metal panels.

Ismael Lara has, to dat

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