Many planes don’t really tend to be ‘owned’ as such.
There are lots of little airlines that may lease or otherwise rent a plane (or several). These tend to be arrangements conducted through numerous shell/holding companies in numerous jurisdictions who may well each have taken out various loans based on the collateral of their interest in the aircraft.
The airline industry is pretty tough and lots of little operators go to the wall all the time.
The actual ownership of the airframe can be quite difficult to track down, never mind untangling all the different competing claims.
Depending on the airframe, it may not be worth the bother.
Have you read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel? There is something like that in there.
An airliner that lands in the last city unaffected by a civilisation-ending pandemic. As one of the passengers showed symptoms before it landed, the people onboard agree to leave the doors closed rather than risk spreading the disease.
They knew exactly who owned it: whatever company that is. The problem is that that company has dissolved and deciding what happened to the assets is a lot more complex, and a job for the civil courts, not the airport authorities. It would seem weird that a valuable asset like an airplane wouldn’t end up with someone claiming it. However, the airplane is certainly mortgaged, so whoever acquired the assets of the dissolved company might not want to take on the plane if the mortgage terms were bad, which they almost certainly were. That would seem to leave the plane in the hands of the bank, but again, it’s a legal mess and the bank might not want it at this point. If it hasn’t been serviced regularly and has been idled without proper storage and registration and airworthiness certifications are all long expired, it might not be worth it to get the plane certified again. I can easily see how this could happen and I’m sure it’s not the only case of a plane being abandoned.
They know who used to own it, but that company no longer exists. The legal chain likely is on some sheet of paper in some lenders office somewhere, but where? That is the current quagmire.
A tiny company just a mile or two down the road, Erickson Aero Tanker, has a program for converting DC-9/MD-8x/B717 variants into aerial firefighting tankers. A few years ago they bought an MD-87 and and MD-88 from a bankrupt airline called SpanAir. I’m sure they’re always on the lookout for a well maintained Douglas Two-Holer.
Speaking of the type, this is a quick tour of some of the quirky aspects of the MD-80 cockpit:
Happy to take it off their hands. I can’t fly a drone, never mind a jet, but with a little renovation I think I could turn this in to a delightful airport-adjacent AirBnB.
Ah I see the problem, it’s an MD-8X. Nice to see one not being used, though I’d feel a lot better if it were cut up into pieces.
I’ve suffered through too many flights on these lemons. American would fly these on a route I flew a few times a year. For many years they were supposed to replace them and are just now getting around to it.
That guy’s got a lotta noive, praising how quiet it is in the cockpit. Meanwhile those of us in the back are getting deafened by those engines three feet from our heads. Worst design evar. Back before the days of paying extra to board early, you had to buy a ticket in the back to board first, which meant being by the engines, which meant always having to remember to bring earplugs. I always felt bad for the people who weren’t expecting this and there’s this moment of realization 2 minutes in of “is it really going to be like this for 3 hours?”
I always enjoyed flying on them. Big aluminum tubes. And since the engines were located higher up and at the back, a pilot could push back out of the gate with thrust reversers, thereby avoid having to wait for the little truck.
There are still a handful of popular tail-mounted commuter jets which suffer from the same complaint: ERJ145 series, CRJ family, etc. Although the cabin noise is on average much quieter because the exhaust stream (the noisy part) exits the engines behind the cabin, and not, like wing mounted power plants, behind the wing.
Interesting side note about tail mounted engine aircraft is in most normal operations the engines sit higher than the wings, but if you increase the angle of attack of the aircraft beyond a certain point, the turbulence created by the wings can interrupt engine operations, causing compressor stalls, and worse, flame outs. Most of these planes are therefore equipped with a “stick pusher” which pushes the stick forward if it detects too high an AoA.
I had the less-sophisticated version of that thought: claim it’s already mine. I think the problem with both our plans is that the owner will owe serious storage fees for the past eight years. It would be cheaper to wait for the upcoming auction. The real owner may be doing the same.
There is also the concern that these little planes are relative gas guzzlers compared to the Boeing or Airbus equivalent, so it may just not be economical to fly it at todays oil prices. This makes them difficult to offload on the secondary market. Plus it is at least 20 years old (MD stopped making them in the 90s) and undoubtedly has a lot of maintenance items that need to be complete before it can take to the skies again. The owner may not have any good choices here. Add in possibly some confusion in the paperwork for who actually owns it and the thing may just be too much for someone to deal with.
Sort of the airplane equivalent of a 1995 Chevy Malibu in “as is” condition. It might be worth money to somebody, but finding that person is more effort than it is worth for what you will be able to get.
