We just watched an entire episode of “Airplane Repo” on Discovery.
And we don’t understand what it’s about.
If the bank forecloses on my house, I don’t think they’ll send a bounty hunter to repossess it. It’ll just be a deliberate procedure involving serving papers and possibly getting a court and the police involved and getting me to vacate the premises, or at least to negotiate. Right?
I’m aware that airplanes move around more than houses do, and apparently planes can move around without the authorities knowing where they are, and there must be some paperwork and delays involved to repossess a plane in Idaho from a New York owner for a Texas bank.
Still, why do these repo men seem to operate outside the law if they’re lawfully repossessing vehicles for the creditors? Why can’t they get the authorities to cooperate in repossessing the planes?
Why can’t the local police be notified, at least, that a repossession is taking place? A bank should be able to supply a very convincing paper saying that this-or-that airplane is being repossessed.
There must be some kind of device (a Denver boot? a Jeep with a big, legal chain?) that would allow them to pin the plane at its current location until the legal process can, uh, proceed.
I’d think the way they operate must lead to misunderstsnding and conflicts.
Like if I had a plane, or worked at an airstrip and saw some mercenarylooking guy roll up in the middle of the night trying to break into or mess with a plane…I’d think he was a thief or terrorist or something
Even though an airplane would seemingly have better mobility than a car and could be spirited away to a secret location more quickly, in reality it’s more difficult to move a plane around surreptitiously. With a car, you can hide it in your uncle’s shed and drive it late at night on back-country roads for months until a cop notices that your registration is out of date and runs your plate number. With a plane, you’re going to eventually need to land at a public airport, for gas if not just to avoid “disappearing” from air traffic control in a cornfield and bringing investigators right to you.
Similarly, 99% of the people getting served with court papers or getting their cars repo’d go off without a hitch, it’s the one 1% that go flying off the handle that make for shows like All Worked Up or Lizard Lick Towing.
In fact, the Lizard Lick Towing guys have said in interviews that they purposely get the car owners a little wound up just to make for better TV. They can then offer to not charge them with battery (since they tend to hit the tow truck drivers) in return for them signing the waiver to air the segment.
It probably doesn’t hurt that the people they’re towing (or at least the ones that the cameras go with them for) are sometimes known criminals with outstanding warrants that are going to be twitchy when people are sneaking around on their property AND the two main people on the show were originally going to be on a different reality show (Wife Swap) so you know they have big personalities.
Sounds like you saw a boring version of a program 20 years ago about a fellow who repo’d small to medium jets.
He generally worked on planes owned by used-to-be-rich folks who didn’t want to give back their toys.
There are plenty of private airstrips, and biz jets are designed to operated from short fields - it’s kinda a selling point, actually.
His big story was a plane owned by some racist with his own army - according to him, he just walked up to the guys with the guns, told them he was going to take the plane and go.
This was on a private compound. He claimed they just stood there.
I’m sure the owner understood why they let some twit take his pride and joy without a shot
I am not a lawyer but I do know a few general things about this. Whether or not the show is fake or not has no relevance on this discussion. The idea is sound because repo men are real in general. They aren’t operating outside the law either (quite to the contrary).
The key point is that the people they are taking the planes, cars, boats or whatever else from don’t actually own them just like most people don’t actually own their own homes as long as they aren’t yet paid for. They are simply paying for the privilege of using them on a kind a layaway plan until they can pay the loan off and have the bank turn over the real title. If those payments stop for long enough, the contract has the assets (a plane, car or boat) revert back to the true owner (probably the bank) and it isn’t possible for them to steal it because it is theirs in the first place. The reason that doesn’t happen as much with houses is that most states have tenancy laws that protect people living there for some period of time because of the recognized necessity of having a place to live. The same is not true for planes, fancy cars or boats.
If you want to see an example of people literally allowed to operate outside of the normal law with greater than police powers, look up bounty hunters. Those are real too. If a bounty hunter posts bail for you and you skip the court date, they have the legal right to hunt you down and kidnap you almost anywhere in the U.S. to get you into court and get their money back. Even the police cannot do that. That is based on an old tradition of U.S. law and no other major Western countries have it.
There are also a few people that specialize in international, high-value repossessions for things like large ships and airliners that are stolen (it does happen). They aren’t operating outside of the law either. Their job is to get the plane or ship and bring it back into U.S. territory or international waters where the property rights to it can be defended again by any means necessary. Most of it just requires firing it up and taking off when it is unguarded because those types of vehicles do not have keys.
My first reaction is to say “how?”. They’re not making any threats are they? They’re making an offer. If you beat me up can’t I say “Tell you what, I have it on camera, I know where you live, if you want to let me put this on my TV show we’ll just let it go, if you don’t I’m going to press charges?” OTOH, I have heard that could be construed as a threat. I’ve heard it said that saying “I’ll sue you if…” is a threat and that what you should do is just ask the person to do what you want done “Pay me for the damages” or “Finish the job” and if they don’t then just go ahead and sue them, but don’t threaten to sue them…of course people say that all the time and if that was actually extortion it’d be common knowledge.
My second reaction is to say “I’m not going to defend the guys from Lizard Lick Towing” It’s just something I heard them say.
I went with my sister when she repossessed a C-210. It was hidden in an hanger. Took a long time to find it. She also repossessed the first Beech Bonanza that she ever flew in.
I repossessed many mobile homes. Had to take a sheriff deputy along many times when it was against the faulting persons wishes…
Me and another guy went to Jamaica to repossess a Grand Commander that was being held by the Jamaican police. We were supposed to pick up a 540 Aero-Commander in the Turks on the way back. Why the other guy was along. It was too far gone to get out without a lot of work. Another guy we heard went to get it and went down in the ocean about 2 miles from the airport.
That trip had way more adventures than I really wanted.
My favorite episode is when they are trying to wheel a helicopter from one hangar and “hide” it in another (seems like someone would tell you that they saw a bunch of guys and a film crew moving your stuff). While the repo guy is arguing with the obviously fake police, the owner sneaks on the helicopter, fires it up and flies away, leaving the repo guy screaming at the cop and throwing his clip board onto the ground. The fakery made it rather funny.
One thing we noticed last night: they had some emergency with the newly-seized bush airplane and had to land it at a small grass airstrip. They called in and were told “You’re cleared to land”.
Grass airstrips don’t have a real control tower with a real air traffic controller who has the legal authority to say “cleared to land” to an approaching plane. At best, some employee on the ground could mention what the weather conditions are and which direction is in prevalent use, but they certainly can’t “clear” somebody to land. And even that hypothetical employee is unlikely at a grass airstrip.
World’s Worst Tenants, which purports to follow professional property management eviction specialists on their wacky adventures, says that what airs are reenactments based on true events. (I.e., maybe something like this once happened somewhere – who’s to say it didn’t?). My guess would be that Airplane Repo is similar.
I was led to believe that the planes had large bills at their airports for hanger space and fuel. The bank doesn’t want to pay the debt they didn’t run up. The airport doesn’t want to give up the plane without being paid.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, a repo on the show will have them jumping an airport fence at night, breaking into a hanger door, and using flashlights to inspect and repair the plane. If security comes, they say they’re working for the owners or something. Security leaves to call the owner while they break into another building to steal a spare part, finish repairs, steal a tractor to pull the plane over to the fuel pumps, fuel up, hop in and take off as security is speeding towards them with lights and sirens blazing.
It’s completely fake. There was one plane he had to repo so he posed as a pilot applying for a job. He parked right in front of the owners office and told the camera guy to wait in the truck (anyone could have seen him with the camera as they pulled up). He went in for the interview with nothing but a small hidden lapel camera to record it. But they also had shots of him sitting in the guys office being interviewed which were filmed from the same room where the receptionist was sitting.
The first four episodes, featuring Nick Popovich, did seem relatively realistic. They were mostly about the company and its operations, with the actual operations almost an afterthought. But yeah, the newer ones, even with real repo guys, are plainly just as staged as “Pawn Stars”. It seems like it would be a lot easier to go in the front door, say who you are and why you’re there and go do the work - just bring a deputy or a detail cop with you if you expect an emotional response from anybody.