Power corrupts. It is so. Every so often, you hear a story about how some government bureaucrat simply decides to screw the hell out of some private citizen, for some reason, any reason, or no reason, you know?
In 1944, a Navy fighter plane crashed in a swamp in North Carolina.
In 1990, a mechanic began salvaging the hunks of plane, moving them to a storage facility, and began restoring the aircraft, as a “non-airworthy aircraft model.”
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department, acting as an agent for the Navy, filed a lawsuit seeking the plane, the cost of returning it and compensation for ‘‘any damage to or alteration of’’ the aircraft since our hero dug it out of the swamp.
What the hell is this? The Navy was simply storing the plane in that swamp, in pieces, and now they want our hero’s head for stealing all those valuable WWII vintage plane parts?
This, friends and neighbors, is why there are civil libertarians. Because there have to be, to offset jackass bureaucrats like the one who decided it might be a good idea to sue this guy and get a free vintage WWII mostly-restored airplane…
What’s the actual law on this? Does a wreck become abandoned property after a certain amount of time? Does it depend on whether it’s abandoned on private or public territory?
An excellent question… but I’d be inclined to believe that if the U.S. Government hasn’t bothered to go out and pick up the pieces since 1944, this is a pretty good sign that they didn’t WANT the thing, you know? But, sure, I’d be open to hearing any legal “salvage” statutes that might be applicable…
It reminds me of that treasure-hunter guy who went to considerable trouble and expense a while back to recover a load of gold out of a sunken ship… only to discover that while he was doing so, the government had changed the laws regarding the “three mile limit” and therefore demanded that he turn over “their” gold, without offering to recompense him for the expense of recovering it.
It just so smacks of “Fair? Screw fair. We’re the government, and you’re the peon,” you know?
Law, WTF, this is the federal government, you know, the people you cannot sue unless they ok it. This guy needs press and lots of it. That is how you deal with the federal government.
Not exactly sure here, but if I recall correctly, the law on military salvage is that it remains the property of the United States Armed Forces, regardless of the lenght of time that it has been abandoned. I remember when they raised the sunken CSS Hunley (or would it be, after 1865, the sunken USS Hunley?) Aparently, due to the laws on military, this 100+ year wreck remained on the bottom for three months extra while they argued on 1: who gets to keep the ship, 2: will the DoD be compensated for the loss of one of its ships (No shit. The Hunley, because of the statutes witten in 1865-66, was considered a ‘mothballed’ United States warship) and 3: Whether it would be stored in Charleston or Mobile (or Calais, as the freakin’ salvage company was French and aparently wanted a piece of it, until the US government said “Go screw. You’re lucky we’re paying you!”)
Anyway, the guy grabbed what is, by law, still federal property (not excusing the pettyness of it. It really is silly.) If they considered it ‘mothballed’ in that swamp, what’s the difference between him pulling it out of its impromptu boneyard and someone going out to Tonopah, Nevada, and taking the airframe of a scrapped B-52?
[quoteI pose this though. I know in the military, there is a lot of stuff labeled with “Property of the U.S. Navy”, and such. Does that apply?[/quote]
PA, most items which are sold as surplus or obsolete retain their markings even though they are no longer owned by the DoD. I’ve got three of them myself, a M1903 Springfield, a Lend-Lease Lee-Enfield Mk3, and a M1911A3 Colt. All retain the “Property of United States Govermnent” stamp, and honestly, that actually increases the value of the items (along with matching serial numbers, which are all cataloged and stored in either Denver or St. Louis, I forget which.) But usually, when dealing with military surplus, filing off this caveat will actually draw more attention to it as possibly being stolen than leaving it on there (even if it is an Enfield Mk3, which the US Army never used.)
As a damn bureaucrat, I have to say … uh, what was the Navy and Justice Department thinking? How are their actions beneficial to the public interest? They’re not, in any way I can see.
Great. I fixed your plane, doing negative damage to it. Quite a lot of it, actually, considering it was in small pieces in a swamp. I owe you negative several million dollars.
I tend to agree with the comments posted, so far. However, I would be interested in seeing the whole story. Mr. Calley does not appear to be unfamiliar with the process of recovering old aircraft as he knew to register with the FAA and was also able to assign a value to it of over $5.5 million. It would be interesting to discover whether Mr. Calley is the victim of arbitrarily changed rules–or whether he tried to circumvent known rules regarding recovery. Flipping through various copies of Warbirds or the historical section of Air Progress and similar magazines, I note that most of the recoveries refer to the purchase of the remains, even when they are discovered in rather remote locations.
I agree that the Navy should back off, but I wonder if this is about the Navy recovering old equipment (or even money), or is it more a case of someone trying to evade normal regulations and encountering a “you tried to screw us, we’ll screw you” bureaucrat vengeance.
About his US Navy days. After graduating from aircraft mechanics school, a CPO took my dad and several other guys out to a Naval Air Station. The men were set to work , disassembling three obsolete fighter planes…each part was taken off, labelled and tagged, and all screws and bolts counted and bagged. A master list of all ofthe parts was made, and all the men signed off. Next week, the men were ready to finish the job, and were (justifiably) proud of the excellent work they had done). However, when reporting to the hanger, the parts were nowhere to be found…the officer in charge told them that all of the laboriously-bagged and labelled parts had been hauled away to a local dump, and disposed of!
That’s the government for you!
That would be my first impulse. In fact, the guy I mentioned who brought up all that sunken treasure did just that. Shoved it overboard, exactly where he’d found it, with a camera crew watching. “They want it? Let THEM get it.”
The government then hit him with a bill and charges for disposing of their property. They offered him a choice: go to jail… or bring all that treasure back up, at his own expense, and hand it over to the government. He fought like a bastard, lost every appeal, and finally went broke, bringing the government’s treasure up and handing it over to them to stay out of prison.
He fought the law, and the law won. Fair? No. Right? Hell, no. But fuck you, we’re the government. Land of the free, home of the brave, some restrictions may apply, void where prohibited.
Then again, I was not aware that all military junk apparently remains the property of the government, no matter how long it’s beens sitting and rusting in a swamp. I had NO idea what all that business was with the Hunley. I would think this would influence my decision to dig up any military salvage…
