Why is Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ jet parked on Georgia’s coast?

BRUNSWICK ― The telltale registration number, N908JE, is still visible on the fuselage of the Boeing 727 even as mold, mildew and a fresh coat of pollen mar the exterior.

The aircraft sits on the edge of a coastal Georgia airfield and is better known by its nickname, “Lolita Express,” and its notorious longtime owner, the late Jeffrey Epstein, whose initials make the registration number so familiar. Inside, the converted airliner further hints at connections to the convicted sex offender, from monogrammed napkins to flight records bearing Epstein’s name and itineraries linking Epstein’s home in New York to the Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island.

Four Atlanta Journal-Constitution journalists were permitted to visit the aircraft earlier this month at its current home, a storage yard adjacent to the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.

Epstein’s Boeing has the feel of a time capsule. Epstein moved it to Brunswick in 2016 at the request of a buyer who planned to decommission the then-half-century-old aircraft, sell its three engines and other parts of value and scrap the rest.

But Epstein, who was indicted in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges involving minors and died while in custody, did little to prep the airplane for sale. Toiletries remain in the lavatories. Dirty towels hang in closets and behind doors. Place mats and napkins sit in galley drawers.

The engines are gone, but little else was salvaged and sold. The remains include the luxury appointments of the interior: couches, chairs, desks, tables and a full-size bed, discolored by time and carrying the mildew scent common to confined, non-climate-controlled spaces along the humid Georgia coast.

The cabin’s floor plan is broken into several compartments: a bedroom, an office, a living room-like area and a forward room with a dining table and additional seating.

Here’s what else to know about the Lolita Express.

How did the aircraft come to be at a Brunswick ‘boneyard’?

The Boeing ended up at the storage yard by happenstance, according to the facility’s owner, who asked that his name and his company’s name be withheld so as not to be associated with Epstein.

Epstein’s flight crew flew the aircraft from Florida to Brunswick in July 2016, according to flight records, and parked it at the airport’s private terminal. The engines were removed there, and crews were scheduled to start scrapping the plane when airport officials balked. The location was close to flight operations areas, and they worried debris would pose a danger to other aircraft, the storage yard operator said.

The storage yard is on the far side of the airfield, well away from active runways and taxiways. The facility does perform maintenance and repairs on large aircraft as part of its business, but what the owner refers to as its airplane “boneyard” is positioned beyond that repair area.

Jeffrey Epstein’s abandoned Boeing 727 has been sitting abandoned at a southeast Georgia plane boneyard for almost a decade. (Sarah Peacock for the AJC)

The aircraft was towed there, and the storage yard operator collects a monthly fee, now paid by a Wyoming-based company that operates out of a virtual office in Cheyenne. That owner, Jet Assets Incorporated, purchased the hulk from Florida-based World Aviation Services in 2024, FAA records show. FAA documents also reveal that World Aviation Services acquired the plane officially in 2020, after the Justice Department launched the investigation detailed in the Epstein files.

It is unclear if World Aviation Services was the company that removed the engines and had plans to scrap the aircraft.

Who flew on the Boeing?

Several Epstein accusers have detailed illicit activities they say took place on the Lolita Express. They say teenage girls staffed the aircraft and gave massages to Epstein and some of his guests. Others traveled onboard and partied with him and his associates.

Flight manifests list several high-profile guests, from former President Bill Clinton to Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of England’s King Charles. But the Federal Aviation Authority-required records, most of them handwritten, often refer to passengers by their initials or only their first names. Clinton and Spacey have not been accused of wrongdoing. U.K. police arrested Mountbatten-Windsor last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office in connection with his close relationship with Epstein; he has denied any impropriety.

Epstein operated jets other than the Boeing, such as a Hawker, a Gulfstream II and a Gulfstream 550. Between 1995 and 2019, his fleet of aircraft flew more than 2,600 flights, according to FAA records collated and published by Business Insider in 2021.