An Adventure with Aircraft of Years Past: Mexico City’s Zombie Theme Park

Mexico has always been a great place for seeing old planes. Airports like Mexico City and Toluca still have lots of old aircraft parked up, and there are several other airports in just the same situation. Some of those aircraft have been left to rot for over a decade. But fortunately, some of them get preserved for use as other attractions. From a DC9 preserved in Mexico City as a library to a Boeing 727 preserved as a virtual and educational theme park on the side of a hill in Tlaxcala, their uses have become almost endless.

For the last few years, Zombie Adventure Park has been using aircraft as part of its adventure playground alongside other vehicles and props. Participants have to navigate their way through the course attempting to avoid being killed by zombies, part of which includes zip lining onto a Gulfstream and exploring inside.

Should you want to participate, the courses only operate on selected dates and are for up to 400 people. But the park was open for me to walk around when I visited, and many of the attractions can be seen from the entrance. It’s located in San Nicolás Totolapan on the outskirts of Mexico City and is listed on Google Maps. It has five aircraft on site, although only two appear to be in active use as part of the course.

N899GA  Gulfstream 2

Constructed over 50 years ago — in 1969, to be exact — this Gulfstream was initially purchased by Prince Kiram Aga Khan and registered as F-BRUY. After 13 years, it was sold in the U.S. where it remained registered with various different owners. In 2007 it was reportedly seized in Mexico by the Procuraduria General De La Republica. It was seen parked at Mexico City before being purchased by the adventure park in 2016.

XA-UGF  Boeing 737-300

Coming off the production line in 1987 this was the 1435 Boeing 737 built. It was initially delivered to Piedmont Airlines, before merging with US Air  in 1989. It remained there until 2006 when it was purchased by Aviacsa.

XA-UGF, a Boeing 737-300. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Mark Evans)

It only lasted a few more years and was put into storage in Mexico City in 2009. It now sits at the adventure park but has been broken up into several pieces and doesn’t seem to form part of the adventure course at this time.

XA-UFW  Boeing 737-300

Boeing 737-300 XA-UFW sits at the park in Mexico. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Mark Evans)

This Boeing 737 came off the production line just a few weeks later than XA-UGF with line number 1449, and strangely enough, has the exact same history, having been delivered to Piedmont Airlines and purchased at the same time by Aviacsa. Also placed into storage in 2009, the aircraft now resides at the adventure park. Its fate is much better though. The aircraft is intact and used as one of the attractions.

3104  Antonov 32

An Antonov at the adventure park. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Mark Evans)

Delivered in 1992 as RA-48060, it was initially operated by Krylya Sibiri and based at Novosibirsk, before being transferred to Sibir Airlines in 1995. It was sold to the Mexican Air Force in 2000 and then sold for scrap in 2013. The adventure park purchased the aircraft and has beautifully preserved it at the entrance of the park in a very colorful and tropical-looking color scheme.

AMT-212  Antonov 32

This one was delivered in 1993 to Ukraine Air Alliance. But it didn’t last long and was sold to the Mexican Navy in 1996. It was presumably sold for scrap at a similar time to the one above. However, this aircraft was not looked after so well. It has been broken up with the bare metal fuselage sitting in a field at the adventure park covered in graffiti.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Mark Evans

Mark has been interested in aviation since the age of eight when he first went plane spotting at Manchester Airport, England. Trips around various European airports in the following years and then to the USA as a teenager furthered his desire.

This led to Mark wanting to work in the industry and at the age of twenty one was accepted to train as an Air Traffic Controller. After training and working for several years in England, Mark moved to Bahrain in the Middle East where he worked for six years. He then moved to Sydney, Australia where he resides today after twenty years in the profession.

Mark's pursuit to see planes has seen him visit over 140 countries and territories, including places, like North Korea, Sudan and Iran. He has flown over 1,100 times, visited over 700 airports and can always be found researching his next trip.

Latest posts by Mark Evans (see all)

• Airbus A220 – Corporate Business Jet Competition - December 1, 2022
• Russian Aircraft Relics of Germany - October 17, 2022
• Russian Aircraft Relics of Hungary - October 5, 2022