After landing at Santa Barbara Municipal Airport on August 28, King Schools owners John and Martha King were puzzled when ATC insisted that they taxi to a remote corner of the airport. Four waiting police cars disgorged officers who held the Kings at gunpoint, asked them to exit the airplane, handcuffed them and placed John and Martha in separate police cars. “This is a risky, lethal situation,” King told AIN. “Do not argue, don’t complain, don’t explain, just do what you’re told. I was thinking not to screw this up and get shot.” The officers finally admitted that the airplane was reported stolen by a U.S. government agency called the El Paso Intelligence Center (Epic), which tracks stolen aircraft and matches them to IFR flight activity. Epic alerted the Santa Barbara police about the Cessna 172 (N50545) that the Kings were flying, not knowing that it carried the retired N-number of a Cessna 150 that was stolen eight years ago.
Epic is a multiagency organization led by the Drug Enforcement Administration and composed of agents from 15 U.S. law-enforcement outfits and was the subject of a critical Department of Justice inspector general report released in June. The report notes that one of the databases that Epic’s Air Watch is supposed to use is the FAA registration database. The FAA database does show the correct registration of the 172 flown by the Kings, including a note that the N-number used to be assigned to the stolen Cessna 150. The Cessna 172 was detained a year-and-a-half ago in Wichita for the same reason, and John King wonders why Epic doesn’t have a system to remove stolen aircraft and check them against the FAA registry.
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