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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.

I disagree. A guy could run out of fuel over a town and be headed for an open area--like a city park-- attempting to make a survivable forced landing. He could be (illegally) buzzing some pal in an office of the building. He could be lost and looking for ANYTHING to identfy what town he was over. This kid may not have even had a radio turned on--and if he did, likely not to the frequency where he could hear instructions from the pursuers. There'd be hell to pay if the military started shooting down every puddlejumper (like my 150) that happened to appear as if it was attacking some structure. And you'd rather have rockets and machine guns going off, ordinance putting holes in things, and pieces of flaming airplane raining down over town? C'mon--use some common sense.