Burning Man art piece made from 747 now a tourist attraction in the Black Rock Desert

The Burning Man Camp Big Imagination used a 747 Boeing plane to create a massive art piece for the 2018 festival. The plane is now parked on private land in the Black Rock Desert. The Burning Man Camp Big Imagination used a 747 Boeing plane to create a massive art piece for the 2018 festival. The plane is now parked on private land in the Black Rock Desert. Photo: BLM Photo: BLM Image 1 of / 127 Caption Close Burning Man art piece made from 747 now a tourist attraction in the Black Rock Desert 1 / 127 Back to Gallery

A Burning Man camp's massive art piece made from a Boeing 747 is now a tourist attraction in Nevada's remote Black Rock Desert, and the Bureau of Land Management says 20 private planes landed in the area Thursday to visit the oddity.

In recent weeks, many other cars and planes have journeyed to the out-of-the-way spot in the northwest corner of the state, though the BLM doesn't have an exact number.

"Who knew this would become such a thing," says Fernando Pitones, a spokesperson for the BLM's Winnemucca office. "It's like, "Yeah, let's just fly to the desert?'"

While the plane was moved to private land after the festival, it's now 10 miles from the Burning Man location and steps from the Black Rock Conservation Area and what's known as the "playa," an ancient lakebed that's basically a bowl of 10,000-foot-thick compact ceramic dust.

ALSO, Police report from Burning Man: 44 arrests, 1 death, armed car jacking and plane crash

Landing a plane on the playa and driving on designated routes is allowed, but the BLM says the route the visitors have created across dune fields to access the plane is unauthorized and violates the Congressional Act that banned the creation of new roads and routes when conservation area was created. The vehicle activity is leaving tire tracks across the fragile landscape.

"The more you drive around on it, the more irregular the surface becomes," says Rudy Evenson, a spokesperson for the BLM. "The untouched natural condition of the landscape is one of the features of the National Conservation Area. That's one of the things people visit the Playa to see and experience. Now you have this vast untouched swath of land and if it's all marked up with tire marks it."

The plane first drew attention after this year's Burning Man when the owners, a nonprofit called Big Imagination, faced logistical problems in moving it off the Playa, breaking one of the annual festival's most important rules, "leave no trace."

MORE, Burning Man without drugs: 'The type of fun you have sober is on a different level'

Ken Feldman, co-founder and CEO of Big Imagination, said the original plan was to move the plane to a piece of private property near the Playa, but the landowner backed out at the last minute.

Feldman and his team scrambled to resolve the situation and secured a new location, moving the plane on Oct. 1. The plane had sunk into the ground, says Fernando, and a crew dug into the playa to move it. The BLM visited the Playa on Thursday to assess damage to the landscape and Fernando says they're waiting on a final report.

SFGATE reached out to Big Imagination for comment and will update the story if we hear back.