Spirit's bright yellow planes are being sent to Arizona 'graveyards'

When Spirit Airlines collapsed, it didn't just strand passengers. It left a half-billion dollars worth of leased planes sitting at gates around the country with no pilots, no gate agents and no one in charge.

Bob Allen's company, Nomadic Aviation, was contracted by the leasing company to get those planes back. He had hours to make it happen.

"They said, get ready to go. And by 6 p.m. on Friday, I got a call that said pull the trigger, get flight crews out to all of these various airports. We're going to give you a list," Allen said.

Spirit had been struggling for months, but the shutdown was immediate. No call center, no warning. Some planes were simply left at the gate mid-operation.

"They're literally just abandoned by Spirit at that point. They close the doors. The airplanes sit where they were parked when they dropped off passengers," Allen said.

Time was a factor. The planes were sitting unattended with no maintenance, no security and no one checking on them.

"So we had six hours to find 20 pilots for that initial group of airplanes," Allen said.