Roseau Man’s Plane Seized by Red Lake Nation After Making Emergency Landing

Updated November 3, 2025 to add that Lakeland News reached out to the Red Lake Tribal Council for comment but did not hear back.

On October 15th, Darrin Smedsmo was flying from his hometown of Roseau directly to the Bemidji Regional Airport for flight rule training when his plane started making a weird noise.

“In the back of my head I’m like, “Did I just make that up?” says Smedsmo. “And then I looked up and my engine had seized, the prop was not turning. That tells me catastrophic engine failure, so I’m going down.

Smedsmo has close to 30 years of off-and-on flying experience, and says he did what any other pilot would do in that situation and quickly began looking for a place to make an emergency landing.

“I had three options,” explains Smedsmo. “I had the lake, I had the swamp, or I had the road, and the road was definitely my best option.”

Smedsmo successfully landed the plane close to Mile Marker 102 on the west side of Lower Red Lake and sustained no injuries.

“The landing was no big deal,” adds Smedsmo. “10 out of 10 pilots would have done the same thing and would have had the same results.”

It didn’t take long for someone to help, as a friend of Smedsmo’s was driving through the area, witnessed the entire event, and was right there as Smedsmo was exiting the plane. The story, however, doesn’t end there.

“I saw that it was him and shook his hand, then the fun began,” says Smedsmo.

The friend was able to call Red Lake Tribal Police, who showed up in a matter of minutes. Smedsmo says they were initially very helpful, but the situation quickly turned once officers said they were seizing his plane.

“The director of the police department had gone back to the tribal headquarters and gotten some instructions to bring back to me,” says Smedsmo. “They were citing me with flying lower than 20,000 feet over their sovereign nation.”

That resolution was passed back in 1978: “prohibiting the flying of airplanes over lands of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians at an altitude of less than 20,000 feet.”  Smedsmo says he was unaware of this resolution.

“If that were the case, it would have been marked on my VFR aeronautical chart, or my map so to speak.” says Smedsmo. “There’s no airspace designated over Red Lake. The FAA has jurisdiction over all airspace, and that supersedes anybody’s resolution or whatever you call it.”

Smedsmo says the plane was originally worth around $35,000 before the engine failure, and is concerned that the plane will lose value the longer it sits there.

“They arranged for transportation and they hauled it into town and left it within a fenced area,” adds Smedsmo. “In the 4 years that I’ve had the plane, it sat outside 2 nights and it’s life. It’s not worth much as of right now because it has a blown engine, but it’s worth less every day.”

Smedsmo says he has no timeline on when or even if he will see his plane again. Smedsmo will appear in Tribal Court on Monday, where he plans to represent himself to plead his case.

“At that point, I’m a man without a country,” says Smedsmo. “I have no rights on that land, so I have really nothing to say. I have no idea what I’m walking into as far as court goes. I honestly don’t know what they have to gain.”

Smedsmo says that if he doesn’t receive a favorable outcome with the trial on Monday, he will appeal to the federal courts.

Lakeland News reached out multiple times to the Red Lake Tribal Council for a comment on this story but have yet to hear back.

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11/4/2025