The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is
worried that criminals could buy planes without the government's knowledge, or
use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems
designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to
re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.
About 119,000 of the aircraft on the U.S. registry have
"questionable registration" because of missing forms, invalid
addresses, unreported sales or other paperwork problems, according to the FAA.
In many cases, the FAA cannot say who owns a plane or even whether it is still
flying or has been junked.
Already there have been cases of drug traffickers using
phony U.S. registration numbers, as well as instances of mistaken identity in
which police raided the wrong plane because of faulty record-keeping.
Next year, the FAA will begin canceling the registration
certificates of all 357,000 aircraft and require owners to register anew, a
move that is causing grumbling among airlines, banks and leasing companies.
Notices went out to the first batch of aircraft owners last month.
"We have identified some potential risk areas, but I
think we're trying to eliminate as much risk as possible through the
re-registration process," said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.
The FAA says security isn't the only reason it needs an
up-to-date registry. Regulators use it to contact owners about safety problems,
states rely on it to charge sales tax and some airports employ it to bill for
landing fees. Also, rescuers use the database to track down planes that are
missing.
But the FAA has emphasized the security and law
enforcement angle as the new measure has moved through the rule-making process
over the past two years. The agency says the paperwork gap is becoming a bigger
problem as authorities increasingly rely on computers to tighten aviation
security in the wake of 9/11 and other terrorist plots.
There have already been cases of criminals using U.S.
registration numbers, also known as N-numbers or tail numbers, to disguise
their airplanes. In 2008, Venezuela authorities seized a twin-engine plane with
the registration number N395CA on the fuselage and more than 1,500 pounds of
cocaine on board.
Soon afterward, airplane owner Steven Lathrop of
Ellensburg, Wash., received a call from a reporter.
"He sort of started the conversation with, `Do you
know where your airplane is? ... Your airplane's in a jungle in South
America,'" Lathrop said.
Lathrop's Piper Cheyenne II XL was locked safely in its
hangar at the Ellensburg airport. The smugglers had apparently chosen his tail
number because the model was similar to their plane.
"Anybody with a roll of duct tape can put any number
they want on an airplane," Lathrop said.
Federal law requires all U.S. aircraft owners to register
their planes with the FAA and carry the registration certificate on board. The
registration number — all U.S. registrations start with the letter N — is
painted on the fuselage or tail. The numbers are used on flight plan forms and
by air traffic controllers to communicate with aircraft in flight.
The amount of missing or invalid paperwork has been
building for decades, the FAA says. Up to now, owners had to register their
planes only once, at the time of purchase. The FAA sent out notices every three
years asking owners to update their contact information if needed, but there
was no punishment for not doing so. As of 2008, there were 343,000 airplanes on
the registry. By 2010, the number had risen to 357,000.
The U.S. registry includes 16,000 aircraft that were sold
but never updated with the names of the new owners, and more than 14,000
aircraft that have had their registrations revoked but may still be flying
because the FAA has not canceled their N-numbers. Other registrations are
outdated because the owners have died or the planes were totaled in crashes.
Some planes are simply derelicts corroding in barns or junkyards.
As a result, there is a "large pool" of
N-numbers "that can facilitate drug, terrorist or other illegal
activities," the FAA warned in a 2007 report.
The problem became more acute after the government
launched a new computer system for tracking flights called the Automatic
Detection and Processing Terminal, or ADAPT, the FAA says. The system combines
dozens of databases, from a list of stolen aircraft to the names of diplomats.
It flags suspicious flights in red on a map.
Unreliable data in the system has led to cases of
mistaken identity.
Pilot Pierre Redmond said his Cirrus was searched by
Customs and Border Protection agents in fatigues and bulletproof vests last
year in Ramona, Calif. They told him his tail number had been confused with
that of a wanted plane in Florida.
In August, police in Santa Barbara, Calif., detained
flight instructors John and Martha King at gunpoint after federal authorities
mistook their Cessna for a plane that was stolen in 2002. The Kings are famous
in aviation because they produce and star in a popular series of
test-preparation videos for pilots.
The error in the Kings' case was eventually traced to a
law-enforcement database that is cross-referenced with the FAA's registry, not
to the registry itself. But Brown of the FAA called it an example of the
real-world consequences of bad recordkeeping.
"It's very, very scary," Martha King said.
"If this keeps happening to people, somebody's going to get shot."
To update the FAA registry, the agency will cancel all
aircraft registrations over the next three years. Owners will have three months
to re-register. In addition, the FAA will do away with its one-time
registration certificate and adopt one that has to be replaced every three
years. Those who fail to re-register will lose their certificate, and the plane
must be grounded.
"We're trying to model it more closely on some of
the programs that are in effect for automobiles," Brown said. "With
the more regular renewal process, you will capture bad data much more
frequently."
Airlines, leasing companies, charter operators and banks
agree there is a problem but have complained about having to repeatedly
re-register planes.
The Air Transport Association of America, which
represents airlines, warned in 2008 that the measure "had the potential to
wreak havoc on the commercial air transportation system." On Tuesday, ATA
spokesman David Castelveter said airlines are still gauging the potential
effect of the new rule.
Other groups noted that most of the aircraft with
paperwork problems are smaller planes that pose little terrorist threat.
"I don't think we're going to see a tremendous
security benefit as a result of this," said Doug Carr, a vice president of
the National Business Aviation Association.
Banks and finance companies that hold loans used to buy
planes will be among those hardest hit, said David Warner, general counsel for
the National Aircraft Finance Association. A bank's claim to an aircraft is
often tied to the FAA registration, so lenders are having to hire more staff
and buy computer systems to track hundreds of aircraft registrations, Warner
said.
He said the FAA has exaggerated the danger.
"The threat of people wanting to do us harm is very
real, but the focus on re-registration or stale registration data on aircraft
is not where the risk is likely to be," Warner said.