Museum Wins Dogfight Over Keeping MIGs

After a yearlong dogfight with the federal government, a Chino air museum claimed victory this week in its battle to keep two Soviet MIG combat jets that officials charged were imported illegally.

Under a special exemption approved Wednesday by a joint congressional panel, the Planes of Fame Air Museum will not have to surrender the shiny silver MIGs and a Soviet-designed biplane, which are displayed with other vintage aircraft in the museum’s hangars at the Chino Airport.

Although the exemption is part of a $14-billion foreign operations appropriations bill that must still be approved by the House and Senate and signed by President Bush, congressmen who worked on the legislation characterized it as a completed deal.

“The airplanes are staying in Chino,” Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) said.

“This is the end, and it’s a very happy ending,” Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) added.

Until their victory, museum officials said, their struggle to hang on to the disarmed aircraft was a bureaucratic nightmare for which they were totally unprepared.

“We’re too whacked out from this experience to have a party or celebration,” spokesman Frank Mormillo said. “But I think a great big sigh of relief is in order.”

The museum, a nonprofit organization founded 31 years ago by volunteer plane buffs, imported the MIG-15 and MIG-17 jets in mid-1988 through a broker who bought them in Poland. The aircraft soared through U.S. Customs in Los Angeles, but a few months later, federal agents acknowledged a mistake, saying the planes should not have been allowed in because they had been purchased in violation of regulations forbidding the importation of military equipment from “unfriendly” countries.

An edict was issued: Surrender the Korean War-era MIGs and a Soviet-designed biplane purchased from Hungary two years earlier or destroy them.

Since then, museum officials lobbied frantically for a reprieve, launching a “Save the MIGs” petition drive and enlisting the help of congressmen and Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.). They persuaded U.S. Customs agents to extend several seizure deadlines, but the final extension was to expire Nov. 17.

The exemption approved Wednesday is narrowly worded to cover the Chino planes and eight disassembled Czechoslovakian aircraft imported by a museum in Central Point, Ore. It allows museums that imported planes from Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia before June 30, 1989, to keep them without penalty, providing that they are disarmed and are at least 20 years old.

While pleased with the victory, Chino museum officials expressed regret that Congress had not gone further to liberalize the regulations. They noted that the nation’s armed forces routinely purchase MIGs and other aircraft from countries deemed unfriendly, using them for training and in military museums.

“In a way this is a hollow victory because this double standard still exists,” Mormillo said. “As long as we aren’t destabilizing the world or threatening national security, I don’t see why museums can’t import these planes and share them with the public.”