Navy sues to get return of F3A-1 wreck

From the AP:

start
Navy Sues Civilian for Return of Plane

..c The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The federal government has filed a lawsuit against an
airplane collector demanding the return of the wreckage of a World War II
Corsair fighter that the Navy abandoned after it crashed in a North Carolina
swamp in 1944.

Historical airplane enthusiasts say the plane Lex Cralley dug out of the swamp
near the North Carolina coast is the only one of its kind known to still exist.

Cralley, an airplane mechanic with a passion for preserving World War II
aviation history, salvaged the pieces of the single-engine plane in 1990,
registered it as a ''non-airworthy model'' with the Federal Aviation
Administration and began the painstaking work of restoration, which remains far
from completion.

The Justice Department sued Cralley on behalf of the Navy on Wednesday, seeking
the plane, the cost of returning it and compensation for any damage since
Cralley recovered it.

Cralley said Friday he will defend himself, but acknowledged that the suit has
rattled him.

"I'm just a little guy,'' said Cralley, 49, of Princeton, north of Minneapolis.
"I have no wealth, work for a living, have four kids.''

The lawsuit doesn't say why the plane is important to the Navy. "We're not
going to provide anything more than what we'll be saying in court,'' said
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department's civil division in
Washington.

Cralley said the government contacted him about five years ago to see about
getting the plane back, and suggested an exchange with the National Museum of
Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla. He declined to elaborate Saturday, citing the
lawsuit.

Airplane buffs say Cralley's plane is the only known survivor of one particular
model of Corsair, a "Brewster F3A-1,'' built by the Brewster Aeronautical Corp.
of Long Island City, N.Y. Brewster turned out 735, compared to more than 12,000
F4U Corsairs built by the Chance Vought Aircraft Corp. of Stratford, Conn.
Neither company exists today.

Dick Phillips, a retired Northwest Airlines executive from suburban Burnsville
who writes about World War II aircraft, said he knows of only about two dozen
Corsairs of any model still flying. "I don't know of any airworthy Corsair that
sold in the last five years for less than $1 million,'' he said.

The Corsair, designed to land on aircraft carriers, is one of the most
recognizable World War II fighters, with its long fuselage, huge radial piston
engine with a large propeller and a unique inverted "gull wing'' design.


03/27/04 18:14 EST
end

MW