Posted on 02/19/2010 7:38:33 PM PST by LouAvul
After 9/11, cockpit doors were sealed, air marshals were added and airport searches became more aggressive, all to make sure an airliner could never again be used as a weapon. Yet little has been done to guard against attacks with smaller planes. That point was driven home with chilling force on Thursday when a Texas man with a grudge against the IRS crashed his single-engine plane into an office building in a fiery suicide attack. One person inside the building was also killed.
"It's a big gap," said R. William Johnstone, an aviation security consultant and former staff member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. "It wouldn't take much, even a minor incident involving two simultaneously attacking planes, to inflict enough damage to set off alarm bells and do some serious harm to the economy and national psyche."
The suburban Georgetown Municipal Airport that pilot Joe Stack entered hours before his airborne attack in nearby Austin had the casual atmosphere of a sleepy parking garage. Pilots were not subject to baggage checks, metal detector scans or pat-downs. And they are usually not required to file flight plans.
"How are they going to stop it? This guy had a hangar, and he had access to the airport," said Beth Ann Jenkins, president of Pilot's Choice, a flight school near where Stack kept his Piper.
Travis McLain, manager of the airport, said: "I don't know of a rule or regulation or safety precaution that could have prevented what happened yesterday."
The easy access and lack of security are the result of years of debate - and stalemate - over how much of a threat small aircraft pose as terror weapons and how they could be regulated without stifling commerce and pilot freedom.
While the airlines quickly accepted tougher security after Sept. 11, the general aviation industry, which includes everything from privately owned propeller-driven planes to large corporate jets, have aggressively fought new measures.
The proposed rules would require that operators of medium and large general-aviation aircraft demonstrate that flight crews have undergone a criminal background check. They would also be required to verify passengers are not on the no-fly lists already used by large airlines.
Private pilots fly approximately 200,000 small and medium-size planes in the U.S., using 19,000 airports, most of them small. The planes' owners insist the aircraft have nothing in common with airliners but the sky.
"I don't see a gaping security hole here," said Tom Walsh, an aviation security consultant. "In terms of aviation security, there are much bigger fish to fry than worrying about small aircraft."
He said most would-be terrorists would draw the same conclusion - that tiny aircraft don't pack a big enough punch.
Planes like Stack's weigh just a few thousands pounds and carry no more than 100 gallons of fuel, he noted. A Boeing 767 weighs 400,000 pounds and carries up to 25,000 gallons of fuel.
Walsh and other general aviation advocates argue that stringent security and bureaucracy would deter recreational fliers and slow down a vibrant, multibillion-dollar general aviation industry, causing economic damage.
"What it comes down to is that the cure could be worse than the disease," he said.
Jeffrey Price, a Denver-based aviation expert, said: "If I own my plane, I can drive to the airport, get in and just take off. Pilots want that sense of freedom. ... Like motorcycle riders."
Every pilot, from the beginner student to the commercial airline pilot, is checked against the government's terror watchlist. Also, under federal rules imposed after Sept. 11, people enrolling in flight schools must show proof of U.S. citizenship or, if they are foreigners, must undergo a background check.
All pilots of every stripe must have with them every time they fly a medical certificate attesting to their health. The certificate is based on a physical exam, but the application form also includes questions about the pilot's mental health. Stack's medical certificate was current, dated May 2009. He was an instrument rated pilot, able to fly single-engine and multiengine airplanes, and no enforcement action had ever been taken against him.
Beyond that, however, most security measures at general aviation airports are voluntary.
The Transportation Department's inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, reviewed security at several general aviation airports last year, including three in the Houston area, and concluded that general aviation "presents only limited and mostly hypothetical threats to security."
Skinner did endorse efforts to lock or disable parked planes to prevent people bent on mayhem from stealing them.
Tougher restrictions were debated after Sept. 11 and after a few incidents in which pilots deliberately crashed small planes into buildings.
In 1994, a Maryland truck driver with a history of instability crashed a plane on the south lawn of the White House. In 2002, a 15-year-old boy stole a plane and crashed it into a downtown skyscraper in Tampa, Fla. Pilots of small planes have also frequently flown into the secure airspace over the key government buildings in Washington.
The general aviation lobby has exerted its considerable clout to fend off new measures. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, or AOPA, National Business Aviation Association, National Air Transportation Association and General Aviation Manufacturers Association spent $6 million lobbying in Washington last year.
"There was no way to impose one overall security structure that would fit every general aviation airport's needs," said AOPA spokesman Chris Dancy. The association has about 400,000 members.
At the Georgetown airport, where 240 small aircraft are based, manager McLain said she hopes Stack's suicidal attack doesn't lead to an overreaction.
"I would hope that common sense and cooler heads would prevail," McLain said.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0219-20100219,0,5463549.column
chicagotribune.com
Linking America’s anger to a suicidal madman: Now that’s madness
John Kass
February 19, 2010
Common wisdom, as expressed by a general theme in the media lately, is that Americans have turned from an abiding hope in their government to anger and bitterness.
A subtext of the common wisdom has been that while voter anger may be explained, it belongs on the political fringe.
So the belief in hope is considered rational. But anger at government is irrational. Get it?
On Thursday, madman Joseph Stack slammed a small plane into a building containing an Internal Revenue Service office in Austin, Texas.
He was angry at the federal government and its tax collectors, at the Roman Catholic Church, at GM, at health insurance companies, at capitalism, you name it.
“I am finally ready to stop this insanity,” Stack raved on the Internet in his suicide manifesto. “Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different, take my pound of flesh and sleep well. … Violence is the only answer.”
While we were hoping that Stack was the only victim of his madness, another body was pulled from the crash site late Thursday.
But his lunatic petition forecasts the liturgy to come. The spinners will scrape up his rhetorical remains and put them to use.
Inevitably, there will be an attempt to tie Joseph Stack’s insanity to the legitimate anger that Americans are feeling these days about their government and political incumbents.
Even before the smoke cleared in Austin, you could see it. The public’s anger and disillusionment was cast — in media shorthand — as dangerous and irrational.
Yes, it’s a trick, but it works
EXCERPT
Tolsti2 ??
I thought Tolstoy the anarchist was dead!
AVIATION PING
Being a moron ain’t doing your cause a whole lot of good, either.
Personal thoughts of an Austinite.
1. News crews within 30 minutes of accident were asking questions about ‘was IRS the target’ and terrorists. Austin loonies at it again. Investigation wasn’t even taking baby steps as fire fighters and EMS still inside building. The Press and some citizens want a conspiracy before the facts even are known. A bit of fear mongering I’d say, either that or a news-person with Pulitzer in his/her eyes.
2. Can’t see the terrorist angle at all against a non-downtown building with multiple tenants (incl. IRS). Best IRS target is IRS Main on IH35 South.
3. Austin does have some relatively high value targets for terrorists but not like NYC, Dallas, Houston Chicago or LA just to mention a few others.
Personally, it is an isolated incident perpetrated by a man with a grudge. Nothing more. Will not speculate on his emotional or mental state.
Exceptions are bad things to make laws on.
You are not as opposed to tyranny as you claim what with the way you want to regulate GA.
*Security* hasn't stopped terrorists from getting on commercial planes with bombs. It's not going to help with private individuals.
So, for the record, just what kind of *security* do you purpose that would work to keep an individual bent on flying a private aircraft into a building if he wanted to?
Post 70: Wow, I’ve been called a communist. My only 2 things I’m against that aren’t libertarian are planes and drugs.
If the shoe fits......
Time to notify the zot brigade?
IOW, you don't have a clue about what GA is really all about.
Your PERCEPTION is that it's just a hobby for bored, rich people, and so you want to regulate it or shut it down because YOU don't see any need for it.
It doesn't matter what the need really is. You don't see that people need to be moving around the country, you think the Constitution is to regulate our lives in this country as the government gives us permission, you attack other's opinions and freedoms and then can't figure out why they are calling you an idiot and communist.
Man, you need to get your head out of, er ..the ground.....
No, you don't know that. You just wish it. Why should we be forced to live the way you think because of your own personal paranoia of flying. You don't want to fly? Fine. Don't.
You aren't in a hurry? Fine, Don't be.
You think driving is safer when it isn't? Fine, delude yourself.
But don't demand it of us.
For the record, please tell us when private aircraft has been used for a WMD attack once.
Bio agents? Chemical agents? Nuclear bomb? Anything?
Wow, I’ve been called a communist.
You sure do play the Class Envy card like one...
And calling for government regulation, and lack of mobility, and.....
I’ve got to get one in..
IBTZ
Most of us refer to The United States as "this country," not "that country." Where are you from, that you consider the U.S. a foreign country, and our ideas of freedom are foreign to you?
No thanks, I’m not a base jumper or flier. Again, with one, the public isn’t at risk.
How do you propose we eliminate the risk of pedestrians getting run over? Should we outlaw automobiles? What other limitations do you wish to impose on Americans?
So tiresome, the part following the colon was a quote from wikipedia. The way people freak out on this thread’s just amazing.
IBTZ.
Good catch...
A state or country flag is conspicuously missing from its homepage.
Couple that with its lack of understanding of the Constitution....
How do you propose we eliminate the risk of pedestrians getting run over? Should we outlaw automobiles? What other limitations do you wish to impose on Americans?
Intersting question.
Where are you from that the American concept of freedom is foreign to you? It’s more than just your referring to this country as “that country.” After the fact, you claim to have plagarized Wikipedia, but you failed to answer any of the other questions. That doesn’t mean FReepers are freaking out. Your trolling is a reflexion on you, not the people who read your posts.
GA’s already regulated by the FAA quite a bit, would you want all that removed as well? It's not a right, it's considered a privilege to fly over public land, same as driving.
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