When banks need to repossess a jet from a bankrupt company or a loan-defaulting mafioso, they call Ken Hill, one of America’s only airplane repo men.
On a muggy summer day in 2011, Ken Hill walked onto a small landing strip in DeLand, Florida, and announced his intention to repossess two airplanes.
Usually, the process goes smoothly enough: He’ll slap a seizure notice on the aircraft, look over the logbooks for mechanical issues, weasel his way inside the cockpit, and fly it off into the sunset.
But this time, the planes’ lendee, a disgruntled flight school operator, was on-site — and drunk as all hell. As Hill prepped the planes, the man charged toward him with a 2×4 and started swinging.
“I had to have a complete knee replacement because of that,” says Hill. “But I still got both airplanes out of there.”...MUCH MORE
For Hill, it was all in a day’s work.
One of America’s only airplane repo men, he’s spent more than 2 decades flying all over the world on behalf of banks, reclaiming aircraft from broke businessmen, crumbling corporations, and drug lords.
The repo business
Hill makes his living on the back of delinquent borrowers.
When you buy something using a loan, you have an obligation to make timely payments to the lender. If you fall far enough behind on these payments, the lender (typically a bank) has the right to reclaim the good in question without a court order.
To get this job done, it often enlists the help of a repo company.
In the US, repo is an $800m industry with 11k firms; nearly all of them focus on cars, where the bulk of the business lies. But sometimes a bank needs to reclaim something bigger — much bigger — and that’s when Ken Hill gets the call.
At 77 years-old, Hill is far from the stereotypical repo man.
He isn’t jacked, bearded, or tattooed to the gills. He uses words, not fists, to wrestle airplanes away from loan defaulters. With kind blue eyes and an affinity for grandpa sweaters, he looks more like Mr. Rogers than a member of the Hells Angels.
But looks deceive.
In the words of one airplane lender, Hill is a “legend” in this niche industry — a man who comes back with a plane no matter the risk or circumstances.....
