Repo man who specializes in recovering planes from deadbeat con-artists, gangsters and drug-lords
These days, Popovich is fielding assignments as fast as he can handle them. "We've got a lot of business right now," he says. "We recently recovered planes from Okun and Nadel." Popovich is referring to Edward Okun and Arthur G. Nadel, two Bernie Madoff-manqués that have been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from unsuspecting clients who thought they were safely investing their money ($300 million in Nadel's case, the largest alleged hedge fund fraud in Florida history). Among the booty that Popovich was hired to return were two Gulfstream IIs and a Learjet...The Learjet repo manUsing his European scouts, Popovich tracked one plane in Milan; the other was sitting on the tarmac near Terminal One at Charles DeGaulle Airport. The MD-81 was covered in official-looking documentation written in French, so Popovich just ripped everything off and hopped in. Big mistake. The airport cops stopped him as he was taxiing and threw him in a cell overnight. The next day, a French magistrate had handcuffs slapped on Popovich and ordered him returned to Chicago. "I was more determined than ever to grab those damn planes," he says. "You push me, I push back harder."
A few weeks later he snuck back into the country, convinced a captain with an Air Afrique fuel bus to fill up Arpel's Boeing and flew it out. But the Milan plane was trickier. The engine was behaving erratically, and no sane person should fly a bird with a hinky engine. Popovich had a replacement engine in Munich (engine-swapping is a common occurrence in the business) and the only way to get it would be to make the 50 minute flight and pray.
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A worthy story, but I think it was already posted here.
One time I was biking to work and a few blocks away from my house I realized that I forgot my helmet. I said "fuck it", and just kept on going the next three miles until I got to work. Not as exciting as what this guy has done, but pretty damn close if I do say so myself.
This story makes me wonder whether the guy repossesses aircraft from the CIA to sell them back to the Government. I know it's been covered here before, but a number of the drug-running planes seized in recent years appear to have trails leading back to covert operations.
Now this is a cool job. Still, a little unnerving that it's apparently so easy to "steal" airplanes.
There seems to be a fair amount of informed commentary at Salon and on a pilots forum linked through from there that this story is full of grade-a prime baloney.
Donna Blue must be his g/f.
When I worked at Long Beach (at the remnants of McDonnell Douglas) I met a guy who used to be an airplane repo man. When he first told me, I could hardly believe that such a job even existed. I had never thought about it before, but then I realized that airplanes are collateral to loans just like almost every other expensive thing in the US.
I bought a headset from him, too. God only knows where it came from...
@ #1
Not the first time that BB and BBG post the same thing (inadvertently, as opposed to the regular "recently on...". Funny how BBG never posts "recently on BB")
More evidence that BB and BBG are increasingly disconnected blogs, the latter simply trading on a BB "franchise" - and diluting that by diverging from the core brand "values" (and logo), to boot.
But, frankly, I cannot blame Cory for not keeping up with BBG these days.
@2: Livin' on the edge! you're my hero.
Deja vu is usually a glitch in the matrix
Nitpickery: The article states it was Baby Doc in power in Haiti when Popovich was arrested, not Papa Doc.
Deja vu is usually a glitch in the matrix