[ARCADIA]

I'm sorry, but they should have shot it down. 3 miles is nothing.

Who is at fault on that one? The reason this relatively slow aircraft was three miles away is because we had no way to communicate with it, and our response time was very lame. Had this been a real terrorist attack, with something faster then one of the slowest of all airplanes, they would have had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted to do. The last thing we need is some idiotic zero tolerance policy, but we do need better threat assessment and much faster response times.

[cynicom]

If and when the terrorists decide on such an adventure, it will not be with a C-150. This affair has shown that anyone with the right equipment can penetrate nearly at will.

[bill1952]

No, there is a way to communicate with it.
Any student is taught to switch to 121.5 when being challenged by the USAF.

This will have to make the FAA ans GA look very, very bad.

[DoctorMichael]

Anybody have any new info on why this clown didn't respond to repeated attempts to contact him? Did he have his radio turned off?

He should at least be billed for the Pilots time and Jet fuel consumed ($10-20,000?).

[IonImplantGuru]

The reason this relatively slow aircraft was three miles away is because we had no way to communicate with it, and our response time was very lame. Had this been a real terrorist attack, with something faster then one of the slowest of all airplanes, they would have had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted to do.

Authorities were 'on the case' from the time the 150 penetrated the DC ADIZ (30 nm out from Capitol/Whitehouse). As you say, the 150 isn't fast (105 kt best case), so folks had time to make a measured, escalating, reponse as the intruder got closer. Next step, given the idiots failed to turn away, would have been to down the aircraft or force it to turn probably using the Blackhawk.

My personal gut feel is that a larger and faster-moving threat would have received an entirely different response - i.e., a missle shoot-down. There are missile batteries centrally located in DC nowadays. So far as I know, there is not a permanent CAP (F-16s already patrolling aloft), so one couldn't scramble them and get them on scene fast enough.

It's called threat assessment - why risk collateral damage (casualties on the ground) for a pretty low-level threat? I think folks are over-reacting with 'shoot first, ask questions later' bombast in this particular case.