British Airways Training Facility, England

This abandoned British Airways Training Facility was once a bustling educational hub for airline crews. Now it lays disused; surplus to requirement and out-dated. I explored this location in 2022, and I suspect I won’t get to see anything quite like this again! I enjoyed this interesting mooch around trying to find the simulators and training cabins among the maze of corridors.

Brief history of this Abandoned British Airways Training Centre

This British Airways Training Facility opened in the 1950s, starting life as office space and classrooms. Over the next 60 years, the site expanded into a fully fledged crew training complex. 17,000 cabin crew and 4,000 pilots were schooled here over the decades. In fact, the huge complex offered courses for pilots as well as cabin crew.

Eventually, the aging British Airways Training Facility was mothballed and training re-located to a new and more modern facility. Ultimately the discovery of asbestos halted re-development plans and now the whole complex is left to decay. Since the site closed half a decade ago, it has been ransacked of copper and generally vandalism has left most of the site in a chaotic state.

1950s/1960s classrooms and teaching facilities

Theory classes and pre-flight lectures were conducted in one of several classrooms. These are in the older office blocks, which are the most decayed now. The ceilings have been leaking for years and the desks are covered with moss and the carpets are waterlogged.

Pilot training area – Boeing 737-400 Flight Simulator

There were once several flight simulators, set up for various types of aircraft. Most of these were relocated to the new training facility, but it appears that some were deemed surplus to requirement. All that remain here are a two full motion simulator for a Boeing 737-400, albeit stripped of all internal equipment.

Cabin Crew Training Area – Boeing 737 and 747 cabin Trainers

Inside a large warehouse-like building, is the SEP (Safety & Emergency Procedures) training area. Cabin mockups from aircraft such as 737 and 747 for cabin crew training. Flight simulators for 737-400. The British Airways 747 fleet was grounded in 2020, so it is unlikely that this cabin trainer will ever see use again. Perhaps it would make an interesting aviation museum piece!

In the early 2000s, the site offered a Flight Safety Awareness course. Originally this course was run for petrochemical industry employees, as part of their Health & Safety training programme. During the half-day theory course, participants got to experience a simulated emergency on an airplane. Smoke-filled cabins, shaking floors, cabin crew shouting “Brace!” and an escape out of the emergency slide. More than 15,000 people took the course, which ran right up until the site closed down.