747
In 747, Burden was photographed firing shots with a pistol at a Boeing 747 passenger airplane while it took off from Los Angeles International Airport at about 8 am on January 5, 1973.[2"> It had a single witness, photographer Terry McDonnell, who filmed the act.[citation needed"> Burden was later interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after a photograph of the piece was published in a magazine; a calling card was left by the FBI at his studio. A meeting subsequently took place at his lawyer's house, where he explained the nature of Burden's work in performance art to an FBI agent who conclusively agreed to call off any further investigation.[3">
Burden said of the piece that "the plane wasn't in any danger. I went down to the beach and fired a few shots at a plane flying over head. I wasn't trying to shoot the plane down, it was more a gestural thing, trying to get it photographed — to make an image". Burden said in a 1980 interview with David Robbins that he additionally explained to the FBI that the piece was "about the goodness of man — the idea that you can't regulate everybody. At the airport everybody's being searched for guns, and here I am on the beach and it looks like I'm plucking planes out of the sky. You can't regulate the world".[3">
