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tropicalstorm |
03/08/07 |
Four F-14 fighter jets seized at two California airfields
03:20 PM MST on Wednesday, March 7, 2007
By SHARON McNARY
The Press-Enterprise
Federal authorities seized four F-14 Tomcat fighter jets from two air museums in Chino and a Victorville company on Tuesday, declaring that a Navy official improperly sold them.
Story continues below
Terry Pierson / The Press-Enterprise
William J. Hayes, an assistant special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, right, stands with an agency officer near one of the F-14 Tomcats seized at the Chino Airport.
Featured in the 1986 film "Top Gun," the Navy stopped using its fleet of F-14s last year.
Two Tomcats were seized at Yanks Air Museum, and a third at Planes of Fame, both located at the Chino Airport.
A Yanks employee, who showed the plane to an undercover investigator in 2005, bragged that he had rebuilt the F-14 from parts and that it still had its afterburners, which give a jet extra thrust, according to an affidavit prepared by an investigator with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
The fourth Tomcat, used as a prop on the TV show "JAG," about military lawyers, was seized at Aviation Warehouse, a business tenant of the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville.
The seizure was intended, in part, to prevent the non-functioning jets or their parts from being bought by U.S. companies acting on behalf of Iran, the only country whose air force still flies the F-14, the affidavit said.
The Inland owners of the jets are not suspected of supplying parts to Iran, according to a federal agent involved in the investigation.
A Navy official sold three of the planes to a scrap dealer, who sold them to a used aircraft dealer who sold them to Yanks, which sold one to Planes of Fame. The Navy official sold the fourth plane to a scrap dealer which resold it to Paramount Pictures, which sold it to the aircraft dealer, according to the affidavit.
The F-14 was introduced in 1972 as a replacement for the Navy's primary fighter, the F-4 Phantom.
The United States permitted the government of Iran to buy F-14s during the 1960s and 1970s under the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran.
After the fall of the shah and the Iranian hostage crisis, the United States placed an embargo on the trade of parts for the plane, and a flourishing black market developed, the affidavit said.
The Pentagon halted sales of spare parts from its recently retired F-14 fighter jet fleet because of concerns they could be transferred to Iran, The Associated Press reported in February.
Investigators from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service seized the four planes, immigration and customs spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
The agency has the authority to seize military and technical equipment to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists or countries hostile to the United States. The other two agencies have jurisdiction over the disposal of surplus military equipment.
"It is important that we eliminate the vulnerability that any of this technology could be transferred to those who would wish to harm us or our national security," said William Hayes, assistant special agent in charge of investigations for the immigration and customs agency in Orange County.
Headed for Scrap
The planes will be reduced to scrap, Hayes said.
The owners of the airplanes are not suspected of selling spare parts to Iran or any company representing Iran, Hayes said.
Investigators discovered the planes' existence in September 2005 during the probe of a Bakersfield company that is suspected of being a company secretly acting on behalf of the Iranian government.
Federal law requires military aircraft to be destroyed when they are sold as scrap for recycling, but an officer put in charge of disposing of the four planes at Point Mugu Naval Air Station failed to do so, the affidavit said.
Instead, the officer sold relatively intact planes to two scrap metal companies for $2,000 to $4,000 each in 1999, depositing the proceeds in a base "morale, welfare and recreation" account.
An investigation is continuing into the circumstances of those sales,
rest of story
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Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/09/07 3:15 pm:
Elliot
I did some time at Grumman, but not involved with the F14 It was a nice place to do summer work . My father was an engineer/ project manager and helped design the wings and parts of the lunar module (as well as other projects I was not privy to .) It was his work for them that sent us to Tehran .
Grumman would have large family picnics at their Calverton field and where the museum currently is . The museum is new and small but growing .It's not worth going out of your way to see ;but if you happen to be in the east end of LI near Riverhead for some reason drop in. Clarification/Follow-up by tropicalstorm on 03/09/07 3:26 pm:
I enjoyed my family picnic at my daugher's airbase. Also the air show across the road from me at what is now my other daughter's airbase.
I hope they do a family picnic too this year
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/09/07 3:26 pm:
As a side note ;one of my friends was employed at Republic and built the A-10 Warthog for a living . That plane has been so durable that they plan to use it until sometime around 2025 .
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/09/07 4:15 pm:
Calverton was Grumman's big testing air field . They had 10s of thousands of employees so the picnic was a major event for the area. For a kid a big moment was just entering the parking lot and having employees tossing candy into the car . There was plenty of food ,soft ball and for the boys a boxing tournament that was a blast .(not exactly a pc thing to do these days )
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