Thanks for the responses!
Next question, is there a short cut? I really hate to ground my son’s plane for 7 months, over a $5.00 screw up, waiting on the FAA to review the file?
Please. Just ground your aircraft until it's sorted!!
I had a client buy a plane out of his uncle's estate, then he flew the plane back home. On the way home, he stopped overnight (it was a long flight home), and stayed at a local hotel. He was awoken at midnight by Homeland Security and the local Sheriff's department. They had tracked his flight on radar, and when he landed, Homeland Security went out to investigate. Why, I have no idea. Homeland Security doesn't divulge their methods.
Before they woke him up, Homeland Security had called the local Sheriff to bring a drug dog. Again, why? I have no idea. They allegedly got a "hit" on the plane. So, they got a warrant to search the plane from the local judge. (I'll leave it to laywers who do criminal defense work to weigh in on the reliability of that methodology, as that isn't in my wheelhouse, or the reader to draw their own conclusions from the end result.) So, off they went, warrant in hand, back to the airport.
Now, this was an old 1950s vintage Cessna 180. His uncle had been dead for a while, and hadn't flown the plane for some time before that. So, the plane was kind of ratty on the inside. This was pretty evident in the video of the agent's search of the plane. The video shows the agent "discovering" something lodged in the carpet that appeared to me be a pebble or a crumb. Not sure what it was, as the video quality was bad. He held it in his hand and shined a flashlight on it, and declared that it looked like it was a "marijuana seed." But, after tearing the rest of the interior up, they never found anything significant. After running the tail number, they discovered that the registration was expired. They did find the log books in the plane, as well as the sales documents from that date signed by the executor of the estate. (My client had neglected to mail it in before taking off, but at Midlifeflyer notes above, that really wouldn't have mattered because the registration had previously expired.)
Undaunted by the lack of any real evidence of contraband, the agent, along with Sheriff's deputies in tow, drove to local hotel to investigate, and woke my client up from a dead sleep. Bleary eyed, he admitted that the plane was his, and he had just bought the plane the prior day from his uncle's estate, and was on his way home. They interrogated him about drugs, and drug trafficking. He denied any such claims. After finding no evidence of drugs or trafficking, (only suspicions, reasonable or not under
US v. Terry standards, I don't know. ), they let him go.
BUT THEY SEIZED THE AIRCRAFT AND INITIATED CIVIL FORFEITURE PROCEDINGS under 49 U.S.C. § 46306!!!
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46306
My client had to fly the rest of the way home by commercial airline, and spent the next few years fighting the civil forfeiture all while under threat that they would file felony charges against him. (And of course, storage charges for holding the plane kept racking up.)
Maybe you think this is isolated occurrence? Maybe it is. I'll let you decide. On the one hand, I received a call from another prospective client about the seizure of his aircraft for an expired registration by Homeland Security when he flew it into my state for the purpose of selling it. On the other hand, it was the exact same agent from Homeland security.
