To settle Alaska case of pilfered plane parts, Georgia salvagers pay up

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/2013/12/19/3238933/to-settle-alaska-case-of-pilfered.html



F-82E Twin Mustang at Adak Island, Alaska, 1948

To settle Alaska case of pilfered plane parts, Georgia salvagers pay up
By CASEY GROVE
December 19, 2013

A Georgia airplane restoration company has reached a settlement with federal prosecutors in Alaska over old and abandoned aircraft parts its salvagers took without permission from a crash site on federal land near Fairbanks.

The restorers -- Douglas, Georgia-based B-25 Group LLC -- paid the U.S. Bureau of Land Management $55,000 to settle a five-year investigation into their unauthorized use of public land, according to a written statement Thursday from the Alaska U.S. Attorney's Office. The parts they took were left on the Tanana Flats south of Fairbanks from the crash of an F-82 Twin Mustang nearly six decades earlier, the federal prosecutors said.

"B-25 Group initially asserted the parts had been lawfully acquired from a salvage yard in Fairbanks," the statement says.

According to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, the F-82 fighter resembled two P-51 Mustang fuselages joined together on one wing and was designed to escort bombers on long-range missions.


unhappycamper comment: A little more on the F-82:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-82



Role Long-range escort fighter and night fighter
Manufacturer North American Aviation
First flight 15 June 1945
Introduction 1946
Retired 1953
Primary user United States Air Force
Number built 270
Unit cost
US$215,154[1]
Developed from North American P-51 Mustang (original cost:$50,000)

The North American F-82 Twin Mustang was the last American piston-engine fighter ordered into production by the United States Air Force. Based on the P-51 Mustang, the F-82 was originally designed as a long-range escort fighter in World War II; however, the war ended well before the first production units were operational.

In the postwar era, Strategic Air Command used the planes as a long-range escort fighter. Radar-equipped F-82s were used extensively by the Air Defense Command as replacements for the Northrop P-61 Black Widow as all-weather day/night interceptors. During the Korean War, Japan-based F-82s were among the first USAF aircraft to operate over Korea. The first three North Korean aircraft destroyed by U.S. forces were shot down by F-82s, the first being a North-Korean Yak-11 downed over Gimpo Airfield by the USAF 68th Fighter Squadron.