Customs Clearance Story

The thread on customs clearance at Roche vs. Friday reminded me of something that happened to me years ago.

In 1986 I was a part owner of an aircraft sales business. We had taken a Lear 36 in trade and were having it refurbished (paint and interior) for resale. The paint was done and we were waiting on the interior shop reupholster and return the seats when we got a call from a humanitarian relief agency that was working on the San Salvador earthquake relief. They were looking for airplane operators that were able to fly supplies down there. The operators would provide airplanes and crews and the agency would pay for fuel and per diem.

We decided to help out with the Lear. One of our pilots and I flew the airplane down loaded with cases of medicines. On the way back we stopped at Brown Field in San Diego to clear US Customs. We walked into the customs office and were met by an ancient-looking agent. He looked us over and asked what we were flying. As I pointed to the gleaming Lear outside he raised an eyebrow. I could see what he was thinking...two guys in jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes flying a nice corporate jet from El Salvador with no passengers... hmm. At that point he said he wanted to look inside the plane and dashed out. Before I could explain, he peered inside and saw it had no seats but had a cargo net and cargo tie downs. He turned to me and said, "Start explaining."

Finally, after I went through the whole explanation and showed him the relief agency paperwork he said, "OK, you look honest enough." and cleared us. Before he walked away he looked at me again and said, "Son...you two have this all wrong. You don't take drugs to Latin America....you bring drugs from Latin America!" At which time my co-pilot said, "Gee Raul, that's why we're broke. We've been doing it wrong all along!" :D

Raul

[SomeSailor]

Reminds me of an old trick the Navy used when returning from an overseas deployment. When a squadron returned, we typically brought ourselves home in two transport aircraft. One for the ground-pounders (maintenance personnel and such) and their personal effects, and another for squadron supplies (tools, spares, materials, etc.).

Usually we'd swing a C-5 or a pair of C-141's for the cargo and airlift, and then charter a 747, L1011 or other commercial carrier to bring our sailors home.

The trick usually came when arranging for the chartered aircraft to clear customs. You'd have a senior Officer assigned as the Airlift Officer, and we'd usually only do a cursory customs inspection as we left the foriegn deployment site. If your intentions were to clear upon entering the US, they did very little to look at anything when departing. If the Airlift Officer was really sneaky... he'd schedule us for a very late arrival at the point of entry (Anchorage, or such). Being as how we'd show up so late... the Custom's Officer usuaully would merely walk through and head home for the night.

This backfired on us once though as our Airlift Officer got his time-zones mixed up and we landed at Anchorage International at around 2:00 a.m. He thought since all of paperwork was in order, he'd just call the Customs Agent on duty, and he'd let us depart without any fanfare. Well... he caught the guy in a REAL bad mood and he had us UNLOAD the whole L-1011 right there on the tarmac, in the middle of winter... in the middle of the night. To make matters worse, everyone aboard was in dress whites. About a dozen kids were greased from head to toe after unloading all those bags. We were delayed getting home almost a full 16 hours because of this and crew rest. And... on top of that, because we were not cleared... we couldn't even leave the gate area... no food, no nothing. :(

If you catch those guys in the wrong mood... they can ruin your whole day for sure.

Once, as a corporate pilot I landed in Ft. Lauderdale to clear Customs from St. Kitts. The son of the company's CEO had a Sony TV broadcast camera with him. The Customs agent wanted to know if it had been bought in the US or not (it was) and was asking for receipts or a US Customs registration number. I thought the agent was going to let us go without producuing a receipt but the CEO's son made a snide comment.

We ended up staying in Ft Lauderdale until we could find an agency that could post a bond with US Customs for the amount of duty that would be due on the camera...3-4 hours. :(

Raul

[Dawn Dreamer]

In the mid-60s I served in 1 Wing, Marville, France. In early 1967, de Gaulle left NATO and kicked us out of France, so we moved to Lahr, Germany and booted the French out of the caserne there.

Things were still in upheaval in August when I was posted back to Canada. A week or so before departure, I went to the Customs office to find out the routine and was asked how many boxes and pieces of luggage I anticipated. I did a quick estimate of eight or ten, and he reeled off a dozen yellow labels, which said "Canada Customs Cleared - Europe". I went shopping.

[bradvo]

Good stories of past experiences, to bad we don't have a customs agent in our boating group- be fun to hear what he see's.
Brad

[Numbknots]

Good ol Brown field. Got time for another quick story?

Having grown up in Alaska I started flying as a kid. While flying a Beaver on Floats in SE Alaska I got caught by an insurance auditor for "not" having a license--Darn don't they know them lessons cost money??? Well my good friend the owner of the company being a good guy handed me a ticket on AK airlines and told me to go get a license! I took him up on it and went to San Diego and enrolled in a flying school on Mongomery field. I was only there a week when some 'student pilot' landed a C-150 at Miramar Airfield and the same week a Navy pilot managed to land a F??? at Montgomery field both mistaking the runways for their home fields. What does this have to do with Brown Field, (nothing) just reminded me of those old times (mid 70's) The same week I had to make an "precautionary landing" in an avocado field when I lost oil pressure---flight school was really shook up when I called them and told them all was fine and that I had fixed the pressure sender and take off should be no problem if I could get the mexican care taker to let me leave with out shooting me~~~ The cops came and I had to explain that I truly was not hauling pot out of the 'Field of Dreams'. Heck bush flying in Alaska turned out to be less challenging!

Tim

[SomeSailor]

Made many aa flight out of Brown Field (and Montgomery). Our flying club (Navy North Island) had to stop fueling on base and we'd have to hop to Brown to gas the planes before we could head out.

Great flying down there.

[MartySchwartz]

Hey SS, is an "AA" flight related to that other program of the same initials?

[SomeSailor]

I flew with AA on a detachment from Diego Garcia to Sri Lanka once. Very non-descript bunch of folks... but they'd get ya there no questions asked :)

[Randygh]

OK guys, what is AA.

As far as know AA stands for antiaircraft, alcoholic anonymous, American Airlines.