White House & Capitol Evacuated

[PeteCO]

I'd like to put my 2 cents in, if I may....


I've been reading the posts in this thread, and the discussion regarding the damage potential of a "small aircraft" is interesting. I was talking with my father one day a year or so ago, and he asked me what I thought about small, GA aircraft and the potential threat they posed. Naturally, I pointed to the FL incident in which the kid crashed into the building. "See? Little to no damage."

He pointed something fairly interesting out to me, though. It could (stress the word COULD) be possible to load a small (say 150 or 172) with explosives and cause quite a bit of damage and loss of life. My dad theorized that, if a pilot took off at a major airport, flying a C150 with max payload of C4 and crashed it into fully-fueled airliners parked at the ramp, the results might be surprising.

At first, I dismissed this theory as somewhat impossible. After all, how long would it take a GA aircraft to take off, circle around, and find a nice, neat row of commercial aircraft to plow right into? However, like another poster said, airplanes taking out skyscrapers was somewhat far-fetched at one time....

I wonder--is the reaction downtown overdone? (I work directly across the street from the Pentagon--can see it from my window as I type this.) I grant you, a C150 wouldn't do much structural damage to a building or bridge, but a little WMD in the mix would paint a very different scenario.

What do y'all think? Am I suffering from paranoia due to living in the DC Metro for too long (was here for 9/11)?

--Don

No, but I do think you need to remember that the threat is relative - a truck bomb is much more deadly and accurate, and easier to pull off. A tango could shoot up a mall, strap dynamite to himself, and introduce biological and chemical weapons in other ways - it would be to their advantage to have the dispersal undetected if possible.

The reaction of banning small planes due to the failure of the airport security simulation is like banning trucks rather than tightening our border security - it's a red herring and doesn't work to reduce the threat.

As far as this ADIZ crap, the feds have already shown that they won't shoot a plane down, which only increases the miniscule threat level. Since any terrorist bombing anything via a small plane is already breaking about 100 laws, why should it bother them to blast into the ADIZ and hit a target? There don't seem to be any consequences for doing so. The government whining is valid from one aspect - it forces them to show their hand to the tangos.

 

[TDTURBO]

Not so fast, oh ye of hasty judgment.


Besides the two things you might conclude, there is at least one other. A private pilot is allowed to carry a passenger, even if the passenger happens to be a student pilot.




.

This is a joke right?

Are you telling me that a student pilot can take another student pilot up for joy rides?

That's like the blind leading the blind but it wouldn't surprise me coming from the incompetent FAA. I do realize that the student pilot can take up a licensed pilot as long as he has a current medical but the reports from every news source stated said it was a CFI. (Not that the media ever got anything right either).

It doesn't change my opinion, they should have blown him out of the sky so that the biggest piece hitting the ground was the size of Michael Jacksons tool of molestation.

 

[TDTURBO]

Not so fast, oh ye of hasty judgment.


Besides the two things you might conclude, there is at least one other. A private pilot is allowed to carry a passenger, even if the passenger happens to be a student pilot.




.

I admit my English isn't always perfect but the way I read it, he states a student pilot can take another student pilot up for a ride.

I think you better read it again.


This can be taken both ways, depending who English is referring to as "passenger". If the "passenger is PF, than he is correct, if otherwise, well, you get the drift.



This is all academic, the SP was with a CFI and got lost, people wonder why I am so critical of 250 hr wonders teaching, I think this instance as well as hundreds of others ought to put that argument to rest unless you're a CFI, LMAO!

 

[lowlycfi]

This is all academic, the SP was with a CFI and got lost, people wonder why I am so critical of 250 hr wonders teaching, I think this instance as well as hundreds of others ought to put that argument to rest unless you're a CFI, LMAO!

Guy wasn't a CFI. Looked up Jim Sheaffer on the FAA Registry and he holds a private pilot ASEL certificate. The other guy in the airplane was Troy Martin who holds NO certificates, not even a student pilot certificate. The "facts" in this thread have risen to about the same level as the mainstream media.

 

[JonJohn82]

Seems like the whole incident was a good way for the security procedures for an actual attack to be practiced. Drill drill drill....

 

[the_dimwit]

No, but I do think you need to remember that the threat is relative - a truck bomb is much more deadly and accurate, and easier to pull off. A tango could shoot up a mall, strap dynamite to himself, and introduce biological and chemical weapons in other ways - it would be to their advantage to have the dispersal undetected if possible.

The reaction of banning small planes due to the failure of the airport security simulation is like banning trucks rather than tightening our border security - it's a red herring and doesn't work to reduce the threat.

As far as this ADIZ crap, the feds have already shown that they won't shoot a plane down, which only increases the miniscule threat level. Since any terrorist bombing anything via a small plane is already breaking about 100 laws, why should it bother them to blast into the ADIZ and hit a target? There don't seem to be any consequences for doing so. The government whining is valid from one aspect - it forces them to show their hand to the tangos.

I agree completely--simply banning GA will is not the answer here. However, the easiest way out is often chosen in matters such as this. GA pilots may disagree with me on this, but I believe one way to lock down airport security is by requiring GA pilots (including student pilots) to undergo the same background/security checks that commercial pilots endure. An identification card should be worn, displaying the name, rating, and a picture.

That, of course, won't solve the problem. I submit that the only way to truly make our skies secure is to ban all aviation. Since that is obviously a ludicrous idea, we have to look at other ways to at least improve the security. I deal with information security all day long and, from a systems perspective, if one part of the system is open to security vulnerabilities, then the whole system has been compromised. Aviation is no different. Parts of the system are being monitored, while other parts go virtually unchecked.

We can't hide from terrorism. It is the bully on the playground that must be reckoned with. Whether the attack is by airplane, truck, or bombs strapped to a suicide bomber, the effects are the same. The differences are in how it is prevented.

--Don

 

[Whirlwind]

What a bunch of idiot Chicken Littles in Washington D.C. Our Fearless Leaders!

It's a freaking Cessna 150. You can put a bigger weapon load in a Honda Civic. And there's not one journalist with brains enuf to figure it out either. These are the people who manage our nation folks. The ignorance is just breathtaking...

Couldn't have said it better...

 

[ManofAction]

New FAR

I see the need for a new FAR: FAR 91.999 All persons designated as a retard by the Administrator shall remain within a 1 nm radius of their home airport (.5 nm if said airport is located in Pennsyltucky).

 

[A1FlyBoy]

Light up the Cessna....

Officials Weighed Shooting at Errant Plane

By LESLIE MILLER
SUITLAND, Md. (AP) - When the klaxon sounded at Andrews Air Force Base, Lt. Col. Tim Lehmann abandoned his lunch, sprinted toward the runway and jumped into one of the two waiting F-16 fighter jets. He had no idea how close he'd come to shooting down a small plane headed straight for the White House.

He didn't have details about the plane - the ``target of interest'' in fighter pilot lingo. But he'd practiced the scramble some 25-30 times and he'd intercepted about a dozen aircraft that strayed into restricted airspace since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

He didn't know thousands of people were running frantically from buildings in the heart of Washington, D.C., that Wednesday, or that the vice president and first lady were rushed from the White House. Like most fighter pilots, he was happy to be in the air.

At 11:57 a.m., the F-16s were airborne. His cockpit radar told Lehmann where the target was. He got a vector directly where he needed to go and raced toward it.

It was when he saw the plane and the Washington Monument behind it that he realized how serious the situation was. The plane was headed straight toward the White House.

``There's a little bit of adrenaline going,'' he recalled Thursday. ``But then our training takes over.''

He figured the plane, a single-engine Cessna 150, was probably not much of a threat. It was a small two-seater and couldn't carry a big bomb; it was moving slowly and it was maintaining its altitude.

Still, he said, you can never be certain. His job was to look for the threat and to be in position to fire a missile should he receive the order to shoot.

Customs officials had also scrambled a Black Hawk helicopter and a Cessna Citation jet at 11:47 a.m. to intercept the plane. The Customs aircraft pulled away when the fighter jets arrived and tried to park at each wing of the little plane. They dipped their wings - a pilot's signal to ``follow me'' - and tried to raise the pilot on the radio.

But the Cessna didn't change course, and it was flying too slow for the F-16s. The frustrated pilots had to take turns dropping flares, breaking away and returning to drop more flares.

Meanwhile, national security officials were on the phone discussing whether to give the shootdown order.

It was ``a real finger-biting period because they came very close to ordering a shot against a general (aviation) aircraft,'' one senior Bush administration counterterrorism official said.

``How many more seconds away or minutes - it was within a very small window where there would have been the decision,'' said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Finally, when the Cessna came within three miles of the White House - just a few minutes flying time - it altered course.

``Perhaps it dawned on them finally, this is no good, I've got to change something,'' Lehmann told reporters at Andrews, located just outside Washington. ``When that happened and the aircraft turned west, we all breathed a sigh of relief.''

The plane landed safely at an airport in Frederick, Md. The pilot and his student were handcuffed and questioned before being released. Authorities said the two pilots had become lost en route to North Carolina from Pennsylvania.

Hundreds of planes have encroached on the airspace since the Sept. 11 attacks, but none is believed to have gotten so close to the White House. Administration officials spent Thursday reviewing the events.

Lehmann said the system to defend the nation's capital worked flawlessly. Immediately after the Cessna entered the restricted 30-mile radius Air Defense Identification Zone at 11:28 a.m. EDT, authorities activated the Domestic Events Network to share information as they tracked the plane.

The network, a conference call of officials from the Homeland Security Department, Customs and Border Protection, the Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration and a handful of other agencies, lasted until the Cessna landed just over an hour later.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was apprised of the situation as it unfolded. He is among a small handful of top Pentagon officials who can order a shootdown. The president also may give such an order.

President Bush was riding his bike at the time and was not told about the suspected threat until later.

Lehmann, 43, is a veteran Air Force pilot who returned to active duty in the Air National Guard after he was furloughed by United Airlines four years ago. He has 4,150 hours flying fighter-type jets.

He was at Andrews Air Force Base playing backgammon when his father called to tell him that terrorists had flown into the World Trade Center.

Ever since then, his squad has been practicing how to prevent another such attack.

``Our squad's been training for this very event since 9/11,'' he said of Wednesday's incursion.

 

[Whirlwind]

Ok..I don't like 100 miles. I couldn't even fly to Atlantic City or Cape May.

How about just a total ban on non airline traffic in the current ADIZ? Maybe expand it to 40 or 50 miles?

A total ban only helps if you're really prepared to shoot down a 150. Otherwise it accomplishes nothing other than to suspend the tickets of those pilots stupid enough to fly through it.