The Columbus Air Force is a nickname for a group of pilots involved in smuggling marijuana into the US in the 1960s and early 1970s. The group is based in Columbus, New Mexico, a village next to the Mexican border. The group was reportedly the first pilot to transport drugs across the border with a small plane. They are led by Martin Willard Houltin, who served as a B-29 bomber pilot in the United States Air Force. Other members of the Columbus Air Force are Robert Burke, Tim Morrison, Michael Francis, Kenneth Croucher, and Curly Phillips.
The joint state/federal task force, named Operation Sky Night, and headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration was responsible for capturing members of the Columbus Air Force in October 1973. They were represented in court by criminal defense lawyer Lee Chagra, Jamiel Chagra's brother, big drug dealer. Because some legal issues with taps were used to trap them, the group finally appealed to only minor charges and received probation. However, in 1974 six members of the group were indicted and convicted on federal conspiracy charges arising from the same case, and were sentenced to two years in a row five years. Houltin was arrested twice more in his life, after serving a 16-month sentence in 1980 and then in 1993 having allegations down because he suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He died in 1999.
The Columbus Air Force received a lot of fame after their capture, and was featured in New York Times Magazine , Argosy , and even Popular Mechanics . High Times published a 1978 interview from Houltin calling him "Flying Ace of the Dope Air Force."
The song "Treetop Flyer," written by Stephen Stills and performed by Jimmy Buffett on his album Banana Wind (as a hidden song), is reported about the Columbus Air Force. Ironically, the groundwork in Columbus where the Columbus Air Force flies out of the place is a RDAR-equipped aerostat balloon manned by the US Customs Service, which is used to detect drug traffic.
Video Columbus Air Force
References
New York Times Magazine June 15, 1975 "High in the Sky"
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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