Plane Enters LGA Without OK

new york newsday ^ | 12/28/03

[knak]

A small plane flew into LaGuardia Airport airspace without permission Sunday afternoon, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The incident happened around 1:45 p.m. when the craft, a Mooney M20C flying south, entered the airport's space, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. Air traffic controllers tried to make contact with the pilot, who continued down the East River.

Peters said authorities were investigating reports that the craft circled the Statue of Liberty. It was intercepted by the Nassau County Aviation Unit and came down at Republic Airport on Long Island, he said.

[bootless]

Mooneys... (remember the Mooney pilots snagging our snacks at SMX?)

[bootless]

Thanks for the facts... and you're right. The mainstream media is not too swift in covering everyday new stories (like, uh, our government), and is even less adept at aviation.

I'm about to skip over to Avsig to see what's up. But it's probably not much ... airspace incursions are expensive forehead-slappers. I'll bet he gets the bill for the NYPD escort, too.l

[HairOfTheDog]

Makin' us look bad. This is NOT good. GA has enough of a problem right now without boneheads like this.

Indeed.

Folks, it is not impossible for this guy to be monitoring the wrong frequency to hear the attempted contacts, not be familiar enough with the local airspace and have made this mistake. A violation, but not a death penalty one. Let alone the danger to those on the ground of plane parts coming down in flames. We have to be a little careful about what is down-range when deciding to shoot down planes over the city without VERY sure probable cause.

I am glad Homeland Security has a calmer trigger finger than folks on this thread. Shooting down a family on a sightseeing trip, would be a tragic setback to future attempts to go after real threats.

[HairOfTheDog]

Good post.

[bootless]

Unless the FAR changes recently, monitoring 121.5 is not required. If an aircraft has two Nav radios, you've got, say, your en route frequency in one, and either the next en route freq, or ATIS, or tower in the next one. The workload just gets too high to keep on radio on 121.5 all the time, and keep flipping the other one for your working frequencies.

121.5 is reserved for emergencies and ELT transmission, and chances are pretty low that the police would try to contact him on a freq that most pilots are not monitoring all the time. When flying cross-country over mountains or high plains, we often keep the other radio on 121.5 to listen for other pilots who may be in distress.

Flying in the NYC metro area is a real challenge, with lots of frequencies (see Criminal No. 18F's excellent post). This guy just screwed the pooch and blew it. I don't know how many hours he's flown recently, but Christmas vacation is prime opportunity for occasional pilots to take their families out for a jaunt.

[bootless]

Shooting down a family on a sightseeing trip would be a tragic setback to future attempts to go after real threats.

Bump.

[RogueIsland]

Folks, it is not impossible for this guy to be monitoring the wrong frequency to hear the attempted contacts, not be familiar enough with the local airspace and have made this mistake. A violation, but not a death penalty one.

I'm sure most of the comments are from people who simply haven't any idea at all about VFR flying. There is a misconception among much of the public that everything in the air has a rigid flight plan with every facet monitored and mapped out by some omnipotent air traffic control system, when nothing could be farther from the truth. And especially around NYC, if you're flying out of Teterboro or Essex County, it can be easy to get too close to the NYC airport TCAs (yeah, I know they don't call them that anymore. I haven't flown in a bit!).

BTW, in days long gone, I used to fly VFR up the Hudson and back again. Absolutely beautiful looking at NYC up close at night from the air. A shame nobody will experience that anymore because of a bunch of psychopathic moron jihadists.

[HairOfTheDog]

I still say TCA too.... My CFI is out of date and I am not sure I could pass the re-up with all these new-fangled words for things.

[bootless]

Don't worry, I still call them TCAs, too.

The Hudson Tour (or whatever it's called - I'm in the Bay Area now) is a spectacularly beautiful flight, esp. at night.

And thank God our VFR flight is not strictly controlled every step of the way. It's still a piece of independent America.

However, I think that manners in the traffic pattern would be improved if we could have the option of having hard points on our aircraft... :-)

[ASA Vet]

RADAR and FOX1 = SPLASH = The End.

Fox 1 refers to the launch of a "Sidewinder" AIM-9 heat seeker missle.
A better choice might be a AIM-7 "Sparrow" (radar guided.) A sparrow launch would be a "Fox 2"

[Criminal Number 18F]

I'm sure I've missed somebody but I pinged everyone I saw on this thread. Please take a look at the story that Cindy posted here (it's the same one that is currently linked at Drudge). It goes into great detail about how the incident happened.

The pilot's wife is ready to kill him, and he feels like an idiot.

Excellent reporting bt Blomquist, Celona and Neuman of the NY Post -- they beat Newsday on facts, and it's in Newsday's back yard.

If you read the links I posted, they advised pilots like Mr Langone to fully familiarise themselves with the airspace (which is complicated) and the procedures before flying the Hudson corridor. Poor Langone was trying it for the first time, on impulse and unprepared.

It looks like everywhere that Langone flew, except for when he busted the LGA Class B (TCA, you stuck-in-the-past geezers [grin]) he was legal, including his ring around the Statue of Liberty. You don't have to talk to anyone to fly in the VFR corridor -- one reason it's there is so planes without radios can get through NYC -- but it's a really, really, bad idea to do this without planning it first. A little study would have saved Mr Langone a lot of embarrassment and trouble.

In about a week or two he will have a letter from the FAA. He will not like what it says...

I'm a little concerned about Mr Looney of the NY Police wanting more restriction. These little planes are not a threat -- Langone's Mooney weighs a whopping 3000 lbs or so, of which probably 250 lb is fuel. We all remember the Cessna that smashed into the building in Tampa, and the Cessna that a nutball kamikaze'd into the White House. In both of these cases damage to the building was minimal, but the suicide attacker was successful at the suicide part.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[snopercod]

this plane should have been splashed into the East River without a second thought.

I don't do it very often, but I hit the abuse button on that comment. Being a newbie, you should understand that advocating violence is against the forum rules here on Free Republic.

And that particular comment brands you as an idiot, which means you are more than likely a democRAT troll.

And while you are chewing on all that, think how you'd like it if your family van was blown off the road by a cop with an RPG for making an illegal left turn.

[snopercod]

Good post C-18F.

I spilled my guts over on the parallel thread, here.

[snopercod]

I see that Post #13 is still there.

I need to know. Has the prohibition against advocating violence against innocent American citizens changed here on FR?

[ChefKeith]

My bad

Thanks

[cheesebus]

Are you kidding me? Before you go branding people as trolls and hitting the abuse button, perhaps you should read some of my other posts. Even my posts in this thread explain the reasoning behind what I said. Maybe my suggestion was a little extreme, but sitting here in NYC waiting to get blown up, while rogue airplanes are allowed to approach landmarks without timely consequence, is quite an extreme experience in itself.

While we're on the subject of breaking forum rules, I am not aware of any rule that prevents people from posting suggestions on how we can defend our nation. I was not advocating a punitive terrorist attack on this pilot after the fact. I merely suggested that given the circumstances: the Orange PLUS Alert (NYC is always on Orange, when Orange goes national, we go to Orange PLUS), the WARplanes flying overhead, and the fact that this incident occurred 2 days removed from a thwarted attack in which small planes were to be used as missiles at an airport, it seemed like this was an instance where a good "talking to" would not be sufficient. If this incident didn't call for a defensive response, what the hell does? How close does a non-responsive plane have to be to hitting something before action is taken? If the rules of engagement for those fighter pilots rattling my windows are so strict as not to be able to at least fire a warning shot at a plane 3 seconds from a crowded airport, why should they be up there at all?

About this "no violence rule" you speak of...there are hundreds of posts everyday advocating violence against foreign countries, including some by me. Do you click the abuse button for those too?

If anyone broke any rules, it was you, for calling me an "idiot." The golden rule of Free Republic, and just about every other civilized forum is "attack ideas, not people."

[_Jim]

Nope, any aircraft that has deviated from its flight plan should be considered a threat.

Overly broad generalization made without regard to and outside the realm of reality ...

You have been watching too many movies.

[snopercod]

About 13 years ago, I quit the AOPA because Phil Boyer insisted on using the phrase "our flying privileges" in his magazine. I took him to task for that in a long letter, and told him he should substitute "our right to fly".

It took him until recently to come around to my way of thinking. Here is his latest:

The TFRs may help revelers to feel safer, but AOPA prez Phil Boyer says they are unfair to GA pilots. "Security-related TFRs usually single out general aviation aircraft, which have never been used in a terrorist attack," Boyer said yesterday, in a news release. "The restrictions are an additional burden for pilots to carry. AOPA believes they should only be issued based on credible threats -- not on a political need to be seen taking strong measures." AOPA noted that in both New York and Las Vegas, air carrier operations are not restricted from operating in the no-fly zones.

"AOPA and all GA pilots understand the need to maintain national security in the face of credible threats," said Boyer. "But ever since the airlines were allowed back in the air after the attacks, GA has been the scapegoat -- the victim of unfounded fears. ... We've got to help decision-makers better understand GA if we want to see realistic regulation of the nation's airspace."

[_Jim]

It took him until recently to come around to my way of thinking. Here is his latest ...

It's amazing how fast people 'come around' when their ox is finally getting gored (no pun intended)/when their *fave* activity comes under tne heavy hand of a bunch of somewhat disintersted, tax-levying, self-centered Washington bureaucratic and so-called 'law' making types ...

[snopercod]

I haven't locate my original letter to Phil Boyer, but here is one of my posts about it from AVSIG (the world's first on-line forum). The date was March, '94:

Your definition of "privilege" is correct, but I think you are falling into the same trap that several other forum members have regarding the definition or rights.

Rights are conditions of existence necessary to the survival of a rational being. In fundamental terms, all rights flow from the right to life. Since man is alive, he has the right to remain so unless he violates this right in another. Basically, this is the philosophical meaning of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Since man survives by the use of his mind and his labor, he therefore must be free to use his mind, thus the right to liberty, and he must be free to keep the products of his labor, thus the right to property. Since happiness results from the achievement of one's values, and man must be free to achieve his values in order to survive, he also has the right to pursue happens.

Rights are not /granted/! Not by government; not by your neighbors; not by anybody. If you are /allowed/ to do something, then you are doing it either by privilege or by contract. Although ideally the only function of the FAA should be to enforce the regulations that we pilots deem necessary for safe flight, in reality the FAA sees itself as our master and we pilots mere slaves hos only job is to obey. Fortunately, their only power over us is our willingness to accept this relationship.

That was, and is, my original complaint against the AOPA. They not only accept, but foster this master-slave relationship. The efforts of the AOPA will continue to fail until they acknowledge that we pilots have a right to fly, and the FAA's only function is to administer and enforce such regulations as we pilots voluntarily agree are needed to protect our rights and the rights of others.