AOPA Toughens Stance on Aircraft Searches

Stephen Pope

Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 08:38 PM ET

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** Photo by Gerald L Nino via CBP** Gerald L Nino

Key Takeaways:

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is challenging federal agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for illegally detaining and searching general aviation aircraft, often far from U.S. borders, without apparent cause.
CBP defends these stops as valid ramp checks, asserting that agents can conduct further searches based on "reasonable suspicion" (e.g., pilot being "armed and dangerous") arising during the initial check, a justification AOPA's lawyers strongly dispute as exceeding the scope of aviation safety regulations.
AOPA is actively pursuing a federal Freedom of Information (FOI) request, rallying support in Congress, and collecting detailed incident reports from pilots to restrict these warrantless aircraft searches.

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The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has filed a federal freedom of information request and is marshalling support in Congress as part of a broad effort to stop federal agents from detaining and searching general aviation airplanes flown by pilots who have done nothing wrong.

AOPA has sent a letter to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency asking it to explain its legal authority for conducting stops and searches of GA airplanes, in many cases more than 100 miles from any U.S. border. The association says it has heard from more than 40 pilots who have been stopped by federal agents, some of them more than once on the same trip.