It once was a Learjet 60 used by the Dallas Cowboys. The corporate jet touched down in a small Alabama airport Jan. 14, 2001, hit two deer, ran off the runway and burned, according to federal accident investigators. The jet now resembles bonfire residue.

What is left of the Learjet joins hundreds of other damaged and worn-out airplanes in their final resting place 38 miles south of downtown Atlanta.

UNIQUE FLYING MACHINES
	It's not just small, privately owned planes such as Piper and Cessna models that rest at Atlanta Air Salvage in Griffin, but larger commercial and unique aircraft also reside there: Jetstar 731 , a four-engined jet once owned by singer Kenny Rogers. Ayres Thrush, a long-nosed single-engine agricultural plane used for such things as crop dusting. Embraer Brazilia models used as commuter airliners. Cessna Citations used as business and corporate aircraft. Source: Atlanta Air Salvage, Griffin

Atlanta Air Salvage in Griffin was founded 16 years by Ronnie Powers. The company started out in what Powers calls "the hole" as an aircraft parts dealership.

"We had one building and two acres," Powers said.

Today, the company is one of only a handful of general aircraft recovery operations in the country. It is next to Griffin-Spalding County Airport, employs a staff of 14 and has the carcasses of about 500 general aviation airplanes stored wingtip-to-wingtip across 10 acres.

Parts from the wrecked and abandoned planes provide parts that are refurbished and sold. Federal Aviation Administration-certified overhaul operations rework the parts and return them to Atlanta Air for sale.

As do automotive salvage operators, Powers' company recovers airplane wreckage. His crews travel around the world to recover planes off mountain tops or dredge them from the sea.

"Planes never crash in a good spot," Powers said. "They are always difficult to get to."

A particularly messy retrieval of a Convair 340 near San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1998 is a prime example of a testy workplace. The plane, hauling medical supplies to storm victims, flopped into four feet of a large, murky lagoon inundated with tidal backwaters.

"The water was black, just black," Powers recalled.

Atlanta Air Salvage also is among the few companies that recovers wrecked planes for the National Transportation Safety Board, the FAA and insurance companies. Crash investigators also use the Spalding County company's maintenance hangars to examine wreckage.

The Cowboys' plane is on the impound lot, still the subject of an investigation into the cause of the crash and fire.

Atlanta Air covers five Southeastern states, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico for the NTSB. But insurance companies may ask him to go anywhere.

Powers won't discuss revenues, but salvaging planes provides him enough cash to buy old airplanes for their parts from Europe and the Middle East. Not all the planes in the graveyard are wrecks. Many are just old and the owners sold them to Atlanta Air.

Also, parts are still a large part of the company's business. Need to refit a Jetstar 731? Parts are available from a plane that once belonged to singer Kenny Rogers, who sold it because repairing it cost too much, Powers said.

Atlanta Air Salvage became a recovery operation out of necessity.

"The primary guy who did it for years died," Powers said. "So, the insurance companies started calling me."

As a parts operation, Atlanta Air Salvage had the trucks, cranes, mechanics and cutting equipment needed to retrieve a broken airplane. Some of the flatbed trucks are equipped with hydraulic lifts to raise and lower their loads on the routes from crash sites.

The company uncovers insurance fraud all the time, Powers said. A Bonanza F33 crashed off Myrtle Beach and the pilot claimed it was full of Rolex watches and computers.

"It was in 40 feet of water and the guy figured nobody would go looking," Powers said. "We found it and there was nothing in it. We save the insurance companies a lot of money."

Atlanta Air's trademark piece of equipment is nicknamed "Godzilla," a yellow tracked flatbed vehicle with a crane. The squat tractor was specially built to move welding equipment around the construction site of an airport in Japan.

"I bought it out of a magazine for $7,800," Powers said.

Powers said he wished he could buy several more Godzillas, because it can go just about any place. It runs in water, once being used as a tug to pull a boat to a wreck site.

"We have only one, so we take real good care of it," Powers said.