Kamikaze Small Plane Pilot Hits Tampa's Tallest Building

newsmax.com ^

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

A fifteen-year-old student pilot apparently trying to recreate the 9/11 kamikaze attack on the World Trade Center slammed a stolen Cessna 172 private airplane Saturday into Tampa, Florida's Bank of America building, the city's tallest structure.

Charles J. Bishop, a 15-year-old flight student from Great Britain, stole the small aircraft from Albert Whitted Municipal Airport in nearby St. Petersburg at about 5 p.m., law enforcement sources said.

Bishop was killed as the Cessna carrying 56 gallons of fuel slammed into the Bank of America tower, leaving the tail section of the plane dangling precariously from its side.

The fuel did not ignite, though authorities remain concerned over the potential for a Twin Tower-like conflagration.

Despite sharing national origin with American Airlines shoe bomber Richard Reid and attempting to mimic the 9/11 hijackers, the FBI said Bishop's stunt had no connection to terrorism.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was in pursuit of Bishop's plane after being alerted by local air traffic controllers of the unauthorized take off. Witnesses said the plane made no effort to avoid the Tampa skyscraper as the Coast Guard chopper crew frantically signaled it to land at a nearby Tampa airport.

The plane's wings tore from the fuselage when it struck the 23rd and 24th floors, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

Bishop, a student at East Lake High School in Palm Harbor, Florida who had taken flying classes for two years, was at the airport with his mother and grandmother performing a pre-flight check when he got into the plane and unexpectedly took off, Pinellas County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Greg Tita said.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Anyone know of the kid was arabic or is newsmax just being newsmax?

[austinTparty]

Richard Reid is English. So is the kid. Nothing Arab about either one. Reid may be Muslim, but he is of Jamaican and English extraction.

[austinTparty]

Correction: so WAS the kid.

[Howlin]

I want you to know that I clicked on the title of this thread EXACTLY when you changed the title to the correct one.

I thought I was in Poltergist.

You freaked me out............LOL.

[monkeyshine]

I have no idea, but the obvious lead is that this is some kind of copycat crime. The motive may be unrelated to the method.

[goldstategop]

A crazy loon. The plane was too small to bring down the skyscraper. Shows you he didn't know the hell what he was doing except making a not too spectacular "final exit." Obviously Al Qaeda didn't drill this young'un in the fact it takes more than ONE plane to bring down a tall building and they'd never use a teensy weensy lil Cessna to do the job.

[Snoopers-868th]

Don't ya wonder where those planes were that should have shot it down?

[cimon]

Richard Reid is English. So is the kid.----England seems to be a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Several notorious types are living in London on the dole as we speak. I'm not sure if this kid is one of these fanatics or not, but I wouldn't be suprised. If so, the press will be sure to let us know as slowly as possible...

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

I wonder if the kid was trying to copycat 9/11, looks as if he was.

I wonder if his parents will make an execuse for him i.e. Johnny Walker

[goldstategop]

Same here. The National Guard idiots should be fired. They should have shot down the plane the moment they saw what its intended destination was. One of life's mysteries they let this kid recreate 9/11 even though they had been forewarned someone might be crazy enough to try something like it again.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

A crazy loon. The plane was too small to bring down the skyscraper. Shows you he didn't know the hell what he was doing except making a not too spectacular "final exit."

Well, your right, a small plane wont do much to big building BUT if flown into a school bus, a stadium, another plane...That plane should have been shot down.

[kattracks]

Reuters Photo

[goldstategop]

Agreed my friend. If the kid had been more careful in his choice of targets we could have had a major loss of life on our hands. [shudder]. You're right there's NO EXCUSE for the plane not having been shot down.

[Cultural Jihad]

I wonder if his parents will make an execuse for him i.e. Johnny Walker

Only if they are well-connected liberals living in Marin County. My condolences to the family of this pilot, but will they sue the airport for keeping an unsafe business? Maybe we need to start rounding up these ambulance chasers.

[exit82]

This seems like a stretch for the newswriter to ascribe a motive to this 15 year old kid. The 9/11 pilots had intense religious and ideological motives for their actions. Unless this 15 year old kid was a radical Muslim with the same motives, then you could say that this was a copycat flight.

But do we KNOW that? A 15 year old kid could have a lot of motives--the word"apparently" gives a lot of wiggle room while at the same time, allowing for a grave mischaracterization of why this happened.

I'd like to find out more about this kid. It is of interest that his mom and grandmother were at the airport when he stole the plane. I wonder if that if this an integral part of this story.

[GeronL]

'Kamikaze' assumes it was on purpose.

[Post Toasties]

What the hell are we doing letting underage, foreign student pilots get flight training in the US?

[monkeyshine]

How are you going to shoot down a small craft over downtown and surrounding areas? Wouldn't you just be trading damage from a highrise to the buildings/people below? And if you miss, you could make double the damage.

[goldstategop]

A good question. There are inevitable tradeoffs but if a shoot down order were in effect maybe it would dissuade someone from even trying it in the first place. Publicizing such an order might help to prevent future incidents from happening.