White House Evacuated - Security Breach


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How stupid that pilot was! Idiot - he deserves do be jailed or fined :devil:

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Well he deserved to die, he got off very lucky. He turned around basically at the last second... when they fired the flares.

CNNs reporting he may not even got charged.

The two individuals were not authorized to take the plane.

Edited by OPaul
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Well he deserved to die, he got off very lucky. He turned around basically at the last second.

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Well I hope they'll make him pay for whole evacuation, F-16th in the air and other security precautions that were taken. Strip him off his pilot licence or even place him into jail. Stupid people like that should not be allowed to even come near planes.

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White House talking head on CNN stated that the VP was evacuated (left by motorcade), but Mrs Bush and Reagan were merely taken somewhere onsite (bunker?). Looks like spouses are expendable...

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Well I hope they'll make him pay for whole evacuation, F-16th in the air and other security precautions that were taken. Strip him off his pilot licence or even place him into jail. Stupid people like that should not be allowed to even come near planes.

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(Y) For sure.

I wonder how it felt to be in a Cessna 150 being circled by 2 F-16s and 2 Blackhawk helicopters... :p

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(Y) For sure.

I wonder how it felt to be in a Cessna 150 being circled by 2 F-16s and 2 Blackhawk helicopters...  :p

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Probably felt the same way ants do just before someone steps on them! :laugh:

-Ax

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er... 15 miles... ya... whatever happened to the *cough* security around the white house?

i mean jeez its totally fenced off to people you would think that they would have a defense system or something???????????

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Hehe, reminds me of the guy that landed a Cessna in whatever that square is in the heart of Moscow. Then again, the commies knew all about 'homeland' security.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Laser Warning Wasn't Used With Cessna @ SFGate.com

(05-24) 09:23 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

A new system of lasers designed to warn pilots that they've entered restricted airspace wasn't turned on Monday for the same reason the radio and the transponder of the wandering plane didn't work: the weather.

Lightning struck the small Canadian aircraft flying to Gaithersburg, Md., from Knoxville, Tenn. The plane lost both radio contact with air traffic control and its transponder signal.

Once the plane's communications went out, fighters took off from Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland and escorted it to the Gaithersburg airport.

To avoid the expense of scrambling fighter jets to escort errant planes away from the restricted area in and around the capital city, the Pentagon on Saturday had inaugurated a system of red-and-green warning lasers deployed around Washington.

First Lt. Lisa Citino, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said lasers weren't turned on Monday because the pilot couldn't have seen them through the clouds.

"The lasers didn't sparkle for the same reason his radio and transponder went out ? the weather," she said.

Hundreds of planes have entered the restricted area ? about 2,000 square miles radiating from the three commercial airports around Washington ? since it was established in February 2003 just before the Iraq war.

Most planes that transgress do so by skirting the edge of the zone by mistake, said Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Citino said fighters are scrambled when planes enter the zone and don't communicate with the ground.

F-16s were scrambled on May 11 to intercept a plane that flew unusually far into the restricted zone ? about three miles from the White House.

The Federal Aviation Administration revoked the pilot's license on Monday after determining he was so careless that he "constitutes an unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce."

The pilot, Hayden L. "Jim" Sheaffer, said Tuesday he thought he was going to get "shot out of the sky."

"There was no doubt in my mind," Sheaffer said.

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show with his lawyer, Sheaffer held his thumb and index finger about an inch apart to dramatize how close he thought he was to being shot down.

The incident involving Sheaffer had led to the scrambling of military aircraft and the panicked evacuation of thousands of people.

"When I first saw the helicopter, I knew we were some place we shouldn't have been," he said. He said he turned to a frequency that military authorities had asked him to call but that he could not get through.

The New York Times, in Tuesday's editions, reported that the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that Sheaffer was instructed to use a frequency that was not available at the time.

Mark McDermott, Sheaffer's lawyer, said the pilot is going to appeal the suspension of his license.

Meanwhile, an internal Homeland Security Department document obtained by The Associated Press indicates the agency is considering whether it should seek authority for its pilots to shoot down errant planes around the nation's capital. Putting the Coast Guard on air patrol duty in the Washington area, however, could raise questions about whether Homeland Security or the Pentagon would give an order to use lethal force in an emergency.

Sheaffer's plane was intercepted by a U.S. Customs Service Black Hawk helicopter and a Citation jet, and then by two F-16 fighters that dropped four flares.

Though hundreds of people have mistakenly flown into Washington's restricted airspace, the FAA rarely revokes a pilot's license for such an offense. In Sheaffer's case, the agency determined Sheaffer "constitutes an unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce."

The agency said no action would be taken against Martin.

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