The Learjet Repo Man

Nick Popovich runs a high-stakes repossession business that retrieves aircraft, boats and other expensive assets from borrowers who stop paying. Unlike ordinary car repossession, his assignments can involve tracking a jet across countries, negotiating with armed guards or taking possession before an owner can hide it. Banks including Citibank, Transamerica and Credit Suisse hire his firm, Sage-Popovich; he says the business brings in several million dollars annually, and he has personally repossessed roughly 1,300 planes. The work demands piloting skill, investigation, persuasion and nerve, and can turn violent: Popovich recounts facing a gunman while recovering a Gulfstream and being jailed and beaten in Haiti while trying to reclaim a 707.

The profile presents the 2008 financial crisis as a boom time for repossession. Easy credit had enabled wealthy borrowers to acquire jets and yachts, but shrinking incomes and collapsing investments left lenders trying to recover the collateral. Popovich describes tracking aircraft that debtors move far from their reported locations, and the scale of a major recovery: after a flight-school company collapsed, his crew took control of 240 helicopters at 51 sites within a day, along with equipment and spare parts. His calm, matter-of-fact manner contrasts with the danger and spectacle of the work. Other cases, including alleged financial frauds and a fatal crash involving a repossession pilot, show that recovering luxury assets can mean confronting powerful, desperate owners - and accepting risks few people would take.