WFAA, an ABC-affiliated television station, has revealed a secret in a small East Texas town called Onalaska, which has more than 1,000 registered aircraft – and no airport. The investigation found planes were registered to two standard post office boxes in Onalaska.
According to the most recent government data, the town had a population of 2,755, indicating that there were enough registered aircraft for nearly 37% of its residents.
Considering the median income for a household in the area was $28,750, it is kind of difficult to fathom that a considerable number of residents owned a plane. WFAA said Onalaska had more registered planes than New York, San Antonio, Seattle, and San Diego.
The report said most of the aircraft owners were not based in Texas nor the US but were foreigners.
WFAA learned Onalaska is the epicenter for a practice that allows foreigners to register their planes anonymously; a former FAA official warns this practice allows drug dealers, terrorists, and other criminals to register aircraft in the US quickly.
“When you can conceal the true ownership of a plane, you’re putting a lot of people in jeopardy,” said Joe Gutheinz, a former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) special agent. “If you’re a terrorist and you have a way of concealing your secret ownership of a plane in the United States, you’re going to do it.”
Industry leaders told WFAA that foreign multinational corporations often use trusts to register a plane because the FAA demands registrations have a US citizen on file.
To register an aircraft, owners are required to be a US citizen. However, there is a loophole. The FAA allows foreigners to register their planes by transferring a title to a US Trustee.
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.
WFAA said it examined “trust companies” that handled registrations for foreign owners, and some of the trusts told the television station there was a vigorous vetting process that each foreign owner went through.
“We shouldn’t require less information to…to register a car than to register an aircraft,” U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “If you are a foreign national…you can register an aircraft here and the government doesn’t know anything about it. Come one. It’s laughable.”
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.
In another audit of the five major trust companies, federal investigators found the companies “could not or would not provide” the identities of 75% of the foreign owners requested.
One trustee told federal agents that they would need to subpoena the information.
“Without collecting and maintaining complete and accurate aircraft data, FAA increases the risk of not meeting its aviation safety mission,” the audit found.
Lynch said trustees are now required to handle over critical information to the FAA relating to foreign owners within 48-hours.
“That is not a good policy,” said Lynch, who chairs the House National Security Subcommittee. “We shouldn’t be into accident re-construction. At that point we’re too late in the game.”
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.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Head games, front companies, black marketeering, money laundering, the drug trade, and terrorism.
Seize the planes and use the proceeds to build the Wall. In the meantime, you’ll probably find a few rogue spooks are involved, too.
Funny, the article implies ownership by foreign nationals, but my first thought was CIA.
My thought exactly.
There’s laws for the little people, and laws for Them.
Same as it ever was…
Immediately wondered if there were a connection to Mena.
Had to look it up as my map did not show its location; found this “claim to fame”:
The district is led by Onalaska ISD Superintendent Lynn Redden who recently posted disparaging comments regarding Houston Texan Quarterback Deshaun Watson, “That may have been the most inept quarterback decision I’ve seen in the NFL. When you need precision decision making you can’t count on a black quarterback.” Redden later resigned after receiving national attention.
Some things never change.
Similar situation outside the U.S. and south of Cuba in the Cayman Islands, which has one of the higher standards of living in both the Carribean & the world, where the numbers don’t quite foot:
citizens: ~ 60K
foreign guest workers: ~ 21K
# of banks: 158
378 citizens per bank
513 inhabitants per bank
Just like the off-shore banks in the Channel Islands.
What?
No mention of TSTC airport outside Waco?
70,000+ shady flights annually in a small college town?
This article is another Limited Hangout to divert your attention away from the real WHOPPER.