Fortress in a lake

Air Classics, Oct 2003 by O'Leary, Michael

Will the lawyers be the only winners?

Warbird buff Don Brooks is attempting to recover a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress from Dyke Lake, St. John's, Newfoundland, where it has been since crash-landing in 1947. Brooks is having another B-17G restored by Tom Reilly in Florida but also found this aircraft in 1998 and has been trying to get the salvage rights from the province for five years. However, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is battling the recovery and will not comment while the case goes through the courts.

"The province is saying that it's an archeological object, and I think that their construing of their organic law about archeology is just way off base," said David Paul Horan who is a lawyer representing Brooks.

"The federal government of Canada," said Horan, "has taken our position on it and said the Federal Act of Salvage does apply and it is a subject of salvage." The federal court is expected to make its decision this summer and the ruling should set the provincial policy on salvaging aircraft wrecks. In the meantime, Tom Reilly makes excellent progress on the B-17 restoration.