Red Lake Nation returns Roseau pilot's vintage airplane

RED LAKE — After more than seven months, the Red Lake Nation returned a vintage aircraft to a Roseau pilot Wednesday, June 3.

The plane went down Oct. 15, 2025, after an engine failure above Lower Red Lake while en route to Bemidji at about 3,500 feet.

No one was injured in the emergency landing, but Red Lake Tribal Police impounded Darrin Smedsmo’s airplane on the grounds the landing violated the band’s airspace rules as well as endangered public safety.

The issue gained the attention of international media and pilots associations, particularly regarding the rights of pilots when making emergency landing decisions.

“I think justice prevailed, cooler heads prevailed,” Smedsmo said in a Thursday phone interview. “It took a while, took longer than it should have, but I am pleased.”

The Red Lake Nation had a 1978 resolution that barred any aircraft flying below 20,000 feet — to oppose proposed low-flying military exercises in the area — following the Cold War-era military tests around the Big Bog Recreation Area in Waskish.

In an announcement last November, the Red Lake Tribal Council stated it welcomed the Federal Aviation Administration for guidance on its airspace resolution.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reported in May that the FAA threatened to take the tribe to federal court if the plane wasn’t returned.

A request for comment from Red Lake’s legal counsel was not returned as of Friday morning.

Smedsmo gave KAXE a letter from the Red Lake prosecution team.

In the letter dated Monday, Chief Prosecutor Ogema Neadeau wrote that as the only fully closed Indian reservation in the U.S., the Red Lake Nation “takes its responsibility to exercise its sovereignty very seriously,” and that the decision to return the plane “is the result of the Red Lake Nation’s responsible exercise of its inherent sovereignty.”

The band has agreements with three air ambulance service providers as well as specific protocols for wildland firefighting activities with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Neadeau’s letter states. He wrote that the incident opened communication with the FAA for the Red Lake Nation’s airspace concerns to be accommodated.

Smedsmo said restoration work is underway for the element-exposed airplane, with hopes to showcase it at an event in Oshkosh later this summer.

“I've been encouraged, even if I can't fly it down there, to trailer it down there, because it's kind of a famous little airplane now,” he said.