U.S. senators working to keep spy plane

02/04/2007

Their bill fights its relocation to Virginia


BY DAVE ORRICK
Pioneer Press


Minnesota's U.S. senators Tuesday made a bid to save a local spy plane from being shipped to CIA headquarters.

Under a bill introduced in the Senate by Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar, the nonprofit group that runs the Minnesota Air National Guard Museum would once and for all own the A-12 Blackbird that it, as well as hundreds of volunteers, is credited with saving from the scrap heap more than a decade ago.

For years, the distinctively slim, black fuselage has sat on the museum's grounds. The grounds are open to the public, though hours are restricted because it's inside the perimeter of the Minnesota Air National Guard base next to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

But the U.S. Air Force always owned the plane, and in the fall, the Air Force museum in Ohio sent word that it wanted the Cold War aircraft moved to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., as part of the agency's 60th anniversary. The public wouldn't be able to see the plane then, and the museum accused the Air Force of hijacking their most prized "possession."

"The aircraft is the only A-12 being used as a hands-on educational resource with a group of highly trained instructors who provide meaningful insight for the general public into the aircraft's history and meaning," Coleman, a Republican, said in a statement. "The A-12's home is here in Minnesota."

Klobuchar, a Democrat, echoed museum volunteers who have said moving the plane just wouldn't be fair.

"Our government should respect and encourage this kind of volunteer initiative," she said.

Last week, Air Force contractors began taking the 1960s-era plane apart to prep it for being trucked across the country. The process will take weeks; it's unclear how fast the bill could become law. It needs House and Senate approval, as well as the signature of the president.

If the plane were hauled away and the senators succeeded in getting their measure enacted, the Department of Defense would have to pay for moving it back to the Twin Cities and putting it back together, according to the proposal. It's unclear how much money the effort is costing; officials with the military couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

In 2005, after a yearslong legal battle, a Princeton, Minn., man secured ownership of a World War II fighter he rescued from a North Carolina swamp, only to see the Navy try to take the plane away.