Federal assistance sought to help retrieve airplane seized by Red Lake Nation

FARGO (KVRR) – The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is asking Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to help a pilot recover his airplane after it was seized following an emergency landing on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

The AOPA says pilot Darrin Smedsmo was forced to make an emergency landing “solely to preserve life and property and was necessitated by mechanical failure, not by choice or negligence.”

The aircraft, a Stinson 108, was confiscated by the Red Lake Nation, citing a 1978 tribal resolution that claims jurisdiction over airspace up to 20,000 feet, and bans overflights of “any airplanes.”

“This assertion raises serious concerns, as regulation of navigable airspace is a matter of exclusive federal authority and administered by the Federal Aviation Administration,” according to AOPA President Darren Pleasance.

“Moreover, a state highway—though it may traverse tribal land—remains a public right-of-way, and the emergency use of that roadway by an aircraft in distress is a permissible and lawful incident of aviation operations.”