Red Lake Nation was smart to give the Stinson back. This thing had gotten complicated.
As AvBrief reported, Minnesota pilot Darrin Smedsmo made a forced landing on a public road in tribal territory last October. The tribe seized his plane and initially looked for $7,750 in restitution from Smedsmo. He fought back and with the help of AOPA and, finally, the FAA, the tribe had a change of heart and government gave the vintage plane back with no legal strings attached earlier this week.
The engine quit. The pilot made an emergency landing. The airplane did not ask for a tribal boundary map, or a lawyer. It asked for a landing spot, and a pilot who would not break too many parts.
The landing was uneventful. Darrin Smedsmo walked away. That was about seven months ago.
Red Lake had a 1978 rule prohibiting aircraft from flying below 20,000 feet over tribal land. I get it. Not many people want airplanes buzzing homes, lakes, wildlife, sacred places, or people who never invited the noise. Tribal land is not empty land. It belongs to people with history, memory, and real authority on the ground.
But claiming 20,000 feet of sky, or any piece of the National Airspace System, as a separate local air domain is where this comes off the rails.
That is not practical aviation. It creates a patchwork of private skies. If every tribe, county, ranch, city, or landowner could draw its own airspace, pilots would need a lawyer in the right seat and a sectional chart the size of a bedspread.
Claiming airspace also raises a basic safety question: Who takes responsibility for managing it? Air traffic separation, emergency coordination, published procedures, pilot communication, and the risks that come with the system.
That is why the 20,000-foot claim was impractical. It was taking a bite out of a safety system the tribe was not equipped, certified, or legally positioned to manage.
Once the airplane was on the ground, Red Lake had proper authority to secure the scene, protect people, check for fuel leaks, keep traffic back, and coordinate recovery. That is land authority. That makes sense.
Holding the airplane for seven months over a forced landing did not.
The FAA pushed back. The airplane went home. No judge made courtroom law, but a practical lesson came out of it: A dead engine should not become a confiscation case.
Pilots should not get cocky either. Reservation land is not empty land. Respect it.
But the sky is federal. The ground belongs to the Red Lake Nation. Both truths have to fit in the same safety system.
Its easy to fall for the usual political propaganda upon incidents like this one. Its almost guaranteed that some will damn the tribe for overstepping boundaries while others will scream for the burning of the disrespectful white male as punishment for abusing the poor tribe. Turning the volume on this noise down is fairly difficult because every idiot with a quarter ounce of brain (on both sides) feels triggered.
As stated before, the only way forward is through litigation. Depending on how the Stinson was stored it may be a write-off. Whoever allowed or caused it to be stored improperly, is subject to a lawsuit.
Some education about the national airspace structure and jurisdiction is in order and for that, the FAA needs to move some paper.
Then, some judges need to be educated about the tribes wants and needs, the FAA and the pilots dilemma and then everyone needs to come to a conclusion about how to move forward for this case and in the future.
With the term “dialog” largely removed from todays environment and due to the fact that opinions appear to be treated like laws and regulations – a more litigious society is inevitable.
We knew about what happens when we stop trying to find common ground and selected the path we are on. We (as a society) did this deliberately.
If empathy and trying to communicate in a mutually respectful manner isn’t possible, we have very expensive and emotionally unattached attorneys and courts to help us along…
Lets pound the table, then the law and finally ……sand.
This is not the first egregious over reach by a tribe when pilots made a successful forced landing from engine failure. The FAA, BIA, DOJ, and Federal courts have long since failed to prevent tribal governments from over reach.
Great line Jason, “Turning the volume on this noise down is fairly difficult because every idiot with a quarter ounce of brain (on both sides) feels triggered.”…an opinion and a keyboard together, aren’t necessarily a good thing. God bless the internet.
One would assume the tribe would do the same for a Type 1 tanker emergency landing while fighting a fire or a medivac helicopter with critical patients if either lost power over their land? Will they re-examine this toothless 1978 rule now?
Not their finest hour…
If they thought they owned the bottom 20,000 ft of sky they should have told the FAA in 1978 and gone from there. The FAA can get that printed on maps.
Raf and Jason – couldn’t agree more.
Questions: What caused the engine problem, was it repaired and flown out or was it trucked out?
“The vintage Stinson (owned by Darrin Smedsmo of Roseau) was retrieved via a flatbed trailer after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) intervened and prompted the Red Lake Nation to dismiss all charges and release the seized aircraft. The aircraft was returned on June 3, 2026, ending a tense, seven-month impound dispute.” MPR News
Credit to Smedsmo.
I’m a pilot, not a politician. Tell me what I need to know on the chart I have in front of me, and I’ll work with it. If the tribe and the feds agree on 20,000′, chart it and I’ll go around it. But if the Powers That Be can’t agree, WTF is a non-politician pilot supposed to do?
The internet generation says “Pix or it didn’t happen.” For me, it’s “Chart it or don’t expect me to fly it.”
DonW, I agree. Pilots fly by charts, NOTAMs, ATC, weather, fuel, and the airplane’s performance.
A 20,000-foot airspace restriction is complicated. It has to be legally recognized, published, coordinated, and usable in real time.
The Red Lake Nation is about 1.5% of Minnesota. On a sectional, it fits roughly inside a 33 by 25 nautical mile box, about 825 square nautical miles. Not large, but stack that to 20,000 feet, and it becomes a serious block of usable airspace affecting Class G, E, and A operations.
Now multiply the idea. The U.S. has roughly 326 federally administered Indian land areas. They are not all the same, and not every tribe would make this claim. But if each land authority could create its own airspace rule outside the FAA system, the NAS would become an interesting patchwork.
However, to continue with your premise. If it were to be federally restricted airspace, put it in the FAA system.
If it is not published, NOTAMed, and recognized by the FAA system, do not expect a pilot, especially one with a dead engine, to remove it as a landing option.
Raf –
I wasn’t advocating for such restrictions. All I’m saying is that whatever the feds and the tribes work out, chart it or don’t expect pilots to abide by it.
Remember the post-9/11 restrictions around college football stadiums, only when games were being played, but no one posted the football schedule in the NOTAMs? Telling pilots, “You should know these things” is a recipe for problems.
Put it in the chart or don’t blame me for not knowing.