Flights of fancy

NO SOONER had the sound of 7.47 kilos of explosives obliterating a six-tonne tailplane finished echoing around the harbour last weekend than there arose an equally arresting din. It was the sound of slavering entrepreneurs.

In true Hong Kong style, the soggy demise of China Airlines Flight 605 prompted a crazy, classic Hong Kong response. Faced with an equation which read 'massive plane in harbour, looks like it will be salvaged and sold as scrap with a value of $60,000', oneHong Kong businessman came up with the obvious solution.

'Turn it into a restaurant,' declared publisher Albert Cheng.

Could he possibly be serious? 'Yes!' insisted Cheng. 'If we can find the right location, the right venue for it then I will contact the owners. You would only need half of the fuselage, the bit including the upper deck, then you would need to put it in a building or build around it.

'Many people are doing things like this around the world, but it has never been done with a jumbo. I knew from the first day it went down that it would be a total loss - I used to be an aircraft engineer.' And now he's an astute businessman - one who has already put much thought into Project Jumbo.

'Of course they will take me seriously because I'll solve their problem of removing this thing,' he said. 'Maybe I'll even do the salvage myself. $60,000 isn't a lot of money, you know.' But a 240-tonne headache can't just be dumped in the middle of Lan Kwai Fong - despite it being a tailor-made structure with a seating capacity in the hundreds.