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.
No it doesn’t. It exposes one crazed lunatic who was wondering the last thing would be, going through his mind, as he crashed.
My take is that this guy would have passed any screening.
ID match = no problem (that is what they would do).
Why don’t we just expand the TSA, yeah, that will fix it!
There goes general aviation. It would be unfair to do background checks on pilots only so just eliminate the pilots. I wounder how many jobs that will save or create?
Yeah, they should shut down general aviation just like they stopped people from renting Ryder and Uhaul trucks after the Oklahoma City bombing.........
It would be f*(&’d. I fly private and like the convenience.
Heeeere we go.
Some nutcase with an F250 pickup could do alot more damage at the local 7 11, bus stop, etc. Light airplanes are not much of a threat. Better to worry about Obama worshipers who have been denied tenure - they can take out a whole academic department.
Frankly GA’s a big risk in general with little benefit except for the bored wealthy.
Someday someone will use one for a chem or bio attack like Atta wanted. This one area I’d like to see more or less cleaned up entirely.
LOL - corporate jet owners and flyers don’t intend to let TSA anywhere near them. TSA is for the little people, doncha know.
Agreed. The guy could have done a lot more damage if he loaded up an F-150 with drums of gas and drove through the front door at 90 mph than he did with the Piper. Unfortunately for general aviation, that won’t matter.
Don’t loose too much sleep worrying about General Aviation aircraft.
Trucks can do so much more damage.
Actually, neither are dangerous. The danger comes from the murderous individuals driving them.
You are on the wrong forum.
And, you are an idiot.
Great personal attack, really helps your cause.
Ya, what was that nut job in Oklahoma City (Tim McVay or what ever) flying?
I don’t have a cause.....except maybe to wonder how people like you make it through life.
Oh, this is hooey. It was not too long ago when anyone could buy a ticket and get on a plane with no, zero security. Then, for a brief time there were “skyjackers”, either radical Muslims or communists, and that soon ended with just putting on a few sky marshals.
Virtually all the rest of the “enhanced security” measures being used are just expensive and annoying crapola. We could achieve the same ends with just a little common sense.
1) Racial and religious profiling. It may not be you, but it is people who look and act like you. If you have a problem with that, take it up with them, for being troublemakers.
2) If you are drunk, stoned, or appear to be mentally ill, we reserve the right to not fly you anywhere.
3) If you disrupt a flight, for whatever reason, at best you will be bound and gagged. If you resist, you might be killed. So do not disrupt a flight.
The vast majority of problems are solved.
You, sir, are woefully ignorant of General Aviation.
A free society can’t be armored against most threats without losing it freedoms.
In the case of Muslim attackers, only extermination of Islam will work as Islam is antithetical to all others.
As a pilot, I am waiting for the collectivists amongst the American to fulminate for restrictions on private aircraft - to protect the IRS, no less.
If the IRS had not adopted many of the behavior patterns of Muslims, that deliberate crash ‘n burn probably would not have occurred.
It is time for the electorate to demand a new system of taxation. This time, it must be clear, simple and easy to both understand and follow.
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