A south London man remortgaged his home so he could transport a crashed Bangladeshi passenger jet 230 miles and turn it into a restaurant.

The wife and family of Mustafa Aolad, of Wallington, despaired when he embarked on the two-year project which cost £100,000 and required a workforce of 50 people.

But the financial risk and hard work paid off as he sold the finished restaurant for a profit and now has similar projects in the pipeline.

"Everyone thought it was a crazy idea and it would never get off the ground," Mr Aolad, 44, said. "They thought it was an impossibility.

"When it was finished it was a massive relief for everybody - my uncles, aunties, cousins, my wife. I did feel like I'd proved people wrong.

"The British High Commissioner to Bangladesh and the Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh airforce came to look at it."

Mr Aolad, who works as charter pilot, had seen restaurants inside railway carriages and believed a similar thing could be done with a plane.

When he learnt a Fokker F-28 had crashed after over shooting the runway at Sylhet airport he bought the 29 tonne aircraft at auction from Bangladeshi airlines for £11,000.

He then removed the plane from the crash site by cutting it into four pieces and lifting it onto lorries with a crane.

Once at its destination, Dhaka, the entire plane, including wings and flight deck, was reassembled and refurbished as a restaurant.

It was opened by the Bangladeshi cricket team and his achievement was celebrated in the press and led to a meeting with Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.

He now plans to turn another aeroplane into a restaurant in Bangladesh and may even repeat the feat in the UK.

"I did very well out of this project," he said.

"Bangladesh is a third world country and only the elite and upper-classes ever get to fly. Ninety-eight per cent of the population have never seen in the inside of an aircraft. The restaurant is not overpriced and it has given thousands of people the chance to see what the inside of a plane for the first time."