Posted on 10/15/2004 2:37:14 PM PDT by olde north church
Maybe Edward's drunk brother drove his car onto the runway...
I can't say what REALLY STANDS OUT in this paragraph because.. oh never mind.
"sleazy attempt to garner sympathy"
This is my guess .. and it also give the kooky conspiracy goons over at DU another excuse to blame Bush.
October 15, 2004Airspace breach forces landing
By JONEL ALECCIA and JOHN DARLINGMail Tribune
A small German-style plane that violated restricted air space during President George W. Bush’s Southern Oregon visit was forced from the sky Thursday evening by red flares from two F-16 fighter jets.
The aircraft, described as a fixed-wing, single-engine plane decorated with Maltese crosses, a red nose and camouflage paint, touched down at the Ashland airport at about 5:30 p.m.
The pilot, Edward S. Zager, 47, of Hayward, Calif., was handcuffed and detained, along with a passenger, by Secret Service and local law enforcement officials. Zager is the registered owner of the 1957 plane, according to federal Civil Aviation Registry records.
Zager could face suspension of his pilot’s license for entering restricted airspace during a presidential visit, said Oregon State Police Trooper Dewayne Price, who searched the plane.
"There’s nothing to indicate that he’s up to anything," Price said. "He really should have done his homework."
Zager said he gained clearance from California officials before taking off en route from Hayward, Calif., to Aurora, near Portland.
When he got near Ashland, the small plane was urged to the ground, a witness said.
"We heard this fighter jet; it made a lot of noise," said Ashland resident Marc Valens, 55, a private pilot since 1967. "It shot some flares that made these big puffs of smoke. Then after a while, I could see a small, single-engine propeller plane doing a sort of tight circle, coming down, down, down."
Nancy Corey, a spokeswoman in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Seattle office, confirmed the grounding.
Temporary FAA rules restricted most aircraft operations within a 30- nautical-mile radius of Medford from 3 p.m. Thursday to 9 a.m. Friday, according to a government Web site. Strict prohibitions on flight also were enforced in a zone within 10 nautical miles of the Medford airport. All aircraft entering or leaving the restricted zone were required to emit a special assigned radio code before taking off and during the flight.
Flight training, aerobatic flight, gliders, parachutes, ultralights, balloons, crop dusting and banner-towing operations were prohibited.
Zager’s predicament stirred sympathy among fellow pilots. The sight of an F-16 shooting red flares would spook anyone.
"It would be very scary," Valens said.
I thought my programming faux-pax (Pardon my French, PLEASE!!!) would have taken mine out. That and the perfectly incendiary headline.
LOL!....shouldn't "Khalid" be home celebrating opening day of ramadan...?!?!?
If Hillary comes to the Presidency as VP (2 years, then presidency) should could try for a maximum 18 years as co-president (8 years co-president when Bill was election, 2 years filling out the late JfK's time, and 8 years elected under her own name - no comment at this time if she would permit Bill Clinton to be HER co-president).
Oh lookie here. A thread on this that the mods haven't pulled (yet).
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just stared at that sentence thinking, but... grandma gets frisked because she's going to a macrame conference with knitting needles and KHALID is in charge of the planes.
Ohhh kay.
Nothing to see here, move along... oh wait, there's an indicator light.
That sounds plausible to me. I don't want anything bad to happen to them, but I got to say I am still pissed at them for how badly they have treated the Cheneys-- the Edwards are not good people.
Khalid????
Much safer than trying to pass Ted Kennedy on a bridge.
Because the pilot was pro-choice and exercised his right to abort?
For those who don't know, the FAA issues these "No-Fly-Zones" wherever and whenever a candidate decides to go with no advanced notice, usually.
Of course it will turn out that the pilot of the "German-style" aircraft was just out sightseeing, but hey, we have to protect our politicians at all costs, right?
Some of the responses on the thread I posted had gotten ugly.
;)
There are many misguided people here on FR who advocate exactly that.
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