A former airline pilot has saved his home from creditors after buying an old Boeing 747 and selling the parts for a recession-busting £150,000 profit.

Mustafa Aolad, from Avenue Road, Wallington, lost his job because of cutbacks in the Bangladeshi airline industry and was also facing losing his home as he could not afford his mortgage payments.

But Mr Aolad had an ace up his sleeve and came up with a plan that would have made Only Fools and Horses’ Delboy Trotter proud.

He said: “I discovered that there was a market in breaking-up old 747s aeroplanes and selling the parts for scrap.

“So I took out a car loan from the bank and bought an old Boeing 747 300 series for £10,000 and sold it bit by bit for £200,000 pounds.”

Having returned to his native Bangladesh, Mr Aolad recruited a small labour force and some ex-airforce engineers and began the meticulous process of breaking the plane up part by part.

The 53-year-old said: “The Boeing 747 300 had come to the end of its usefull life and had been dumped at Zia International Airport, in Bangladesh.”

“This craft had now become a liability, so the owners were very pleased when I offered them £10,000 for it and since then I have saved my home.”

Mr Aolad, a former pilot in the Bangladesh Air Force, first achieved minor fame with his "Chopperdom" flying restaurant - another old plane that he converted into a airborne diner.

Stars such as Hugh Hefner, rapper Ice T and soul-singer Isaac Hayes all apparently tucked into Mr Aolad’s mile-high cuisine including Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

He said: "Everyone thought it was a crazy idea and it would never get off the ground. They thought it was an impossibility.

“When it finished it was a massive relief for everybody - my uncles, aunties, cousins, my wife. I did feel like I'd proved people wrong."

In addition to saving his home and providing jobs in his homeland, Mr Aolad has also, as he puts it, done “his bit for the environment too” by recycling the plane.

He said: ““My future is very bright in the light of recession and I’ve bought myself a brand new car with the profits, plus I’ve just flown back to Bangladesh to purchase a second plane.”

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