For ten years, a Cold War fighter hung in the air over downtown Salt Lake City. Visitors to The Leonardo looked up and saw a former Polish Air Force MiG-21, red-and-white checkerboard on its tail, flying above a gleaming Convair C-131 Samaritan. Now the city says the MiG is coming down, and it is coming down in pieces.
Salt Lake City, which owns the building, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday that the jet cannot be removed intact. Both aircraft will be demolished in the coming weeks, and the metal recycled.
Kurzinfo
- Flugzeug: Former Polish Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, plus a 1954 Convair C-131 Samaritan
- Wo: The Leonardo museum building, downtown Salt Lake City
- On display since: The FLIGHT exhibit opened on 6 August 2016
- Why scrapped: No one could pay to remove it, and removing it whole could threaten the building
- C-131: Demolition began on 28 September 2026
- MiG-21: Withdrawn from a second auction after 6 October; to be demolished in the coming weeks
- Nachher: Metal recycled; the space will become city offices
A Museum That Closed Around Its Jets
The Leonardo opened its FLIGHT exhibit in August 2016, with the MiG-21 suspended above the C-131 and a theatre fitted with donated airline seats. In June 2025 the museum closed its doors indefinitely amid debts and repair problems with the building, Axios reported, and the city later ended its lease. The aircraft stayed behind.
A first attempt to auction the museum's exhibits in September 2025 was cancelled before it began. This year the city tried again. It held an open house for potential buyers, which nobody attended, and listed the aircraft online. Interest was thin.
Why the MiG Cannot Simply Be Lowered
The problem is in the ceiling. The city says it has little information about how the MiG-21 was installed and suspended, and taking it down in one piece could compromise the building's structural integrity. After further study of the removal process, the project team decided an intact removal was not possible. The jet was pulled from its second auction listing, which had gone up on 6 October.
Crews put building safety ahead of the aircraft. The C-131 on the floor below has been coming apart since demolition started on 28 September.
SLCtv footage from the opening of the FLIGHT exhibit at The Leonardo on 6 August 2016.
The Fighter Built in Greater Numbers Than Any Other
The MiG-21 is the most widely produced supersonic fighter in history, flown by dozens of air forces from Vietnam to Poland. Many survivors sit in museums across Europe and the United States. Losing one is not a catastrophe for the type.
It is still a sad end. A jet that once flew with the Polish Air Force spent a decade teaching children in Utah how flight works, and it is about to be cut up because nobody can work out how it was hung. It is a lesson for every museum that hangs a jet from its ceiling: write down how you did it.
Sources: The Salt Lake Tribune, Axios Salt Lake City, The Utah Review, Hoodline
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