Me vs. The Tribe Who Stole My Plane - Tribal Court

This is part 2 of a story about how an Arizona Native American Tribe illegally seized and held my airplane -- After giving me permission to land at their airport.. Twice.

[KevinN-qr]

Back in the 90s a friend and former flight instructor landed his Citabria on a dirt road to visit friends camping at Pyramid lake on tribal land. Tribal police blocked the road about 30' in front of the plane to prevent him from taking off and told him he would need to disassemble the plane to remove it. He agreed but asked if he could get in the plane to remove the radios to prevent theft.
He got in the plane locked one brake and started the engine immediately pivoting the plane and took off the other direction.

[Buzz-]

This tribe is known for extortion. I remember back in 2009 when they scooped up a paraglider pilot, arrested him and stole his gear. They're just criminals with a mandate.

[JB_Hobbies]

This isn’t legal advice, but I would rather be in federal court 10 times than in kangaroo court once.

[TimHayward]

The tribal council treats the rest of the native population the same way.

[towguy]

In a fair world, the judge would have awarded lawyer's fees and fined the tribe $50k each for the malicious prosecution and seizure of the plane. The FAA should make a NOTAM warning all non-tribal pilots not to land at the airfield or visit the reservation for any reason.

[DeerfishDistillery]

We just canceled our $6k dollar trip there next year we’d been planning. And that was just my wife and I. We’ve informed our group of 4 to do the same. And they spend way more than us! So at least you cost them over ten grand 2025.
I’ll also share this on our travel page.

[fromtexasbygod]

The fact that you got lucky and benefited from honest tribal members doesn’t change the reality that multiple predatory thugs in positions of tribal authority conspired to illegally seize your plane and then colluded to corruptly attempt to stack the deck against you by trying to make sure you went to trial without a lawyer. Again, thanks for reinforcing why no outsider should ever set foot on tribal land or spend a single cent on any tribal commercial operation with Indian Casinos at the top of the list.

[alphazulu]

As a pilot who is based in AZ - I really want to thank you for sharing your account of what happened. You always hear "folk lore" or "anecdotes" of things like this being a problem, but to see your two videos is a real eye opener. Who knows, maybe your videos will help keep that one council member in check and they won't re-file.

At any rate, it's always a good rule to stick to public use airports on this side of the line, if you know what I mean.

[Irjdunn]

Dude, don’t apologize for the absolute nonsense they put you through. They should never treat anyone like that and deserve 150% of the criticism for their scumbag laws and scumbag scams. It’s not racist, it’s objective reasoning and can’t be individually waived because they have one or two very good people who do the right thing… it’s the bad apples that assigns the risk and danger to the larger group. The world came to this conclusion and you didn’t tell anyone to think that way.

The FAA should mark that airspace restricted and label it dangerous to pilots and passengers.

[chuckschillingvideos]

I wouldn't step foot on Indian territory. Period. Crooked, crooked, crooked.

[daverohn]

The FAA should force them to destroy that airstrip.

[gabrielramirez]

In 2004, my wife and I were driving through NM and had stopped for gas that was tribal owned (won't say which reservation). After we had topped off and were leaving a dog had run out and I accidentally hit this dog (believe me I was devastated). Turns out the dog belonged to one of the tribal elders and you can imagine what happened next. I was detained (overnight), and my truck impounded. I ended up paying $200 dollars for the fine, $250 for the dog and $300 for the impound fee. Now remember this is 2004 and they allowed me to use my credit card (very lucky) After we had left that piss hole, I was able to call in a hold on those transactions, cancel the card (report stolen etc etc). One hour later they called me (on my flip phone lol) and told me i needed to return (this time with cash). I told them sure, I'm on my way. Of course, I never did and believe me they did their best to threaten me with all sorts of action. They even called my local area police and tried lying about what took place. These people are corrupt beyond belief. I avoid those places and those people. I know it sounds bad but they are bat shit crazy.

[noalear]

My guy, you must stop going back. You're going to end up arrested, or worse. Let it go to federal court where subpoenas aren't optional. Have you filed a complaint with the FAA?

[shawncarroll]

I am retired from the FAA, and spent over 20 years in flight services, before they were contracted out to Lockheed Martin. You need to contact the United States NOTAMs Office (USNOF). It is "...located in Warrenton, Virginia at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center. The USNOF operates 24/7 and is charged with quality control and dissemination of NOTAMs within the National Airspace System (NAS)."

Before they consolidated the USNOF, as part of the contracting out process, the standard procedure outside of Alaska was each state had 1-3 AFSS. Each one kept the legal records on the issuance of NOTAMs in their area, and they also had list of who can issue them, supplied by the airport operator.

Now I was located in a state with no reservations. So I have never dealt with an airport on a reservation as being any different than any other private, restricted airport. Private airports had much less oversight than the smaller public strips. BUT even private airstrips had to keep the status up to date.

You need to check the airport facility directory for that state, checking that airport is listed in it. Also the secrional charts which should indicate a private, restricted airport.

Those FAA Publications have valid dates, so just make sure your accessing the proper ones and then see what they show. The FAA takes closing an airport deadly serious, because if there's an accident their people can become liable if they did not handle airport information that was reported to them properly.

There should be a log, I assume it is fully computerized now which it wasn't when we were contracted out. The person who took the information has to indicate who gave it to them, the date and the time. They have to match that name to the list the airport operator supply them of people authorized two issue them. So if the airport was closed and then opened again all that information should be there. If it is not, then it's pretty cut and dried.

Now we didn't get that involved with the private strips, except when pilots indicated there were big x's on the end, yet the airport facility directory didn't indicate it was closed. This required us telling them that there is no way we can give them any indication whether they can land at the airport or not, we are going to try to contact the operator and find out what the status is. We then immediately called the local FAA airport field office, and informed them that a private pilot, who's information we had to give them, had reported the airport as having a large X's at the runway ends, which is supposed to indicate it's closed. It all got handled, and the airport was not only closed but I can't remember how many publication cycles it took, but it finally stopped even being listed. For a temporary closure there's a very distinct paper trail, and while I've never had to deal with it, reopening an airport that has been "permanently closed" is going to be barely any different than just opening a new airport. If you look at the list I have appended at the end, all of those offices in the FAA will have to be involved, and it's a tremendous amount of work. Once you permanently close an airport, the FAA treats it as having cease to exist. So "reopening" the airport is really treated more like just opening a new private airport.

Here's an added guide to the current FAA offices that deal with airports. It's Google AI, but I retired a decade ago so I'm hoping it's more up to date than I am. Nothing jumps out at me as incorrect.

"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has multiple divisions that regulate airports, including: 

Airports Safety and Operations Division: Responsible for airport safety and certification, including aircraft rescue and firefighting, emergency management, and damage control 

Office of Airports Safety and Standards: Responsible for airport design, construction, maintenance, operations, safety, and certification 

Airports Compliance Division: Responsible for airport compliance 

Regional Airports Division and District Offices (ADOs): Responsible for regional airports 

The FAA also has divisions for engineering, design, construction, and data and airspace. "

[cardo]

I am a retired state police officer with a large department on the west coast. After I retired I applied for several job openings as an Investigator for District Attorneys' Offices in the region. I was hired by a neighboring county as a Criminal Investigator with the District Attorney's office. There were two openings, one of the jobs was as a Casino Crimes Investigator as there are 4 different Indian Casinos in the county. The other job was as an Investigator for serious DUI cases, such as felony manslaughter, severe injuries, repeat offenders, etc. I chose to investigate DUI cases, having to deal with the trauma of the victims and their families. I know how corrupt most of the gaming casinos are and the in-fighting between Tribal Councel members. The temptations of such huge amounts of money is difficult for some people to resist, and also personal grudges between Tribal members is common.

[MarkCosgrove-bp]

Patricia, beautiful smile, and your spirit shines, you make your tribe look so good. Integrity kindness civility to our fellow humanity. Your everything that is a positive to justice.

[treadlightly]

As a native myself, both trucks would've somehow ended up on their roofs and the plane would have miraculously been gone. We don't play these games. They wanted the plane.

[jaynecobb]

Here is how tribal courts work: "We win, you loose. This is our court, our judge, our rules, and we change the rules when ever we want." Don't EVER do business or work on tribal land, and don't ask how I know that.

[hotttt]

Lucky the judge and your two witnesses had your back !

[AviationAtom]

Your legal representation was the real MVP and I think the true ambassador of the tribe. 👍👍