Where on earth do these news outlets find this stuff?
It only costs $5 for an owner to register a plane with the FAA. Once the clearing process is complete, the FAA will assign the aircraft a tail code that starts with an "N." If that insignia was not present, the plane would have difficulty transversing across the US border and could be intercepted by US Air Force fighter jets.
A 2013 audit by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Transportation said there were about 5,600 aircraft across the US that "lacked key information" about ownership.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget the Greenies who cry and whine about all the CO2 emissions from coal plants.
According to the WFAA report, there have been several incidents involving aircraft registered by trusts that raised significant red flags:
In 2006, A U.S. bank became a trustee on an aircraft for a Lebanese politician who turned out to be "backed by a well-known U.S. Government-designated terrorist organization." "It wasn't until the bank found out that they were affiliated with Hezbollah that the relationship ended," Lynch told WFAA.
In 2010, an airplane registered to a trust approached the Tripoli International Airport with no landing permit just hours before the U.N. Security Council met to approve a "no-fly zone" over Libya. The owner of a foreign oil corporation had registered the plane through a trust but sold a "large percentage" of his company to a Chinese company.
In 2012, an FAA inspector was unable to find out who was flying a Boeing 737 registered on behalf of a foreign owner. When the FAA contacted the foreign owner, officials were told the airplane had been leased to a United Arab Emirates-based rental company. The foreign owner couldn't "provide the inspector" with information about who was flying the plane.
Much more @ A Texas Mystery: Small Town Has 1,000 Registered Aircraft But No Airport
