A Photographer Quit His Job To Document The Aftermath Of Plane Crashes Around The Globe

In 2010, photographer Dietmar Eckell was the general manager for Southeast Asia at a German Fortune 500 company, working and living comfortably. But, since his childhood, Eckell says he's felt the strong pull of "wanderlust," so that year he resigned his post and began traveling the world, documenting abandoned and decaying relics of earlier times.

Since then, he's traveled almost 75,000 miles and visited four continents. "I haven't regretted it for one day," Eckell tells Business Insider.

For one of his main projects, Eckell researched and photographed 15 downed planes around the globe. The series is titled "Happy End," because not a single passenger died in any of the crashes. "Pictures of fatal airplane crashes are all over the news. There's no need for me to document graves," Eckell told Slate. "I want to surprise the viewer with stories of heroes and miracles and give their viewing experience a 'happy end.'"

Acting as part detective, part explorer, and part artist, Eckell traveled by any means necessary to some of the most remote areas of the world, tracking down these abandoned planes, many of which were difficult to locate.

"It's just a great feeling to finally sit on the wing of a plane that you've been trying to reach for years," he says.

Eckell has shared some of his photos here with us. For the full story on many of the planes he visited, we suggest you buy his beautiful new book.