Posted on 01/11/2013 9:14:16 AM PST by KeyLargo
Secret 'no-fly zone'?
Pilot seeks answers after arrest
By Sarah Brown
Pilots returned, one by one, to Bermuda High Soaring in Jefferson, S.C. By about 5 p.m. on July 26, 2012, the lift had died and everyone had returned to the gliderport—everyone except Robin Fleming. No one remembered hearing from Fleming since 1:30 or 2 p.m., and Jayne Ewing Reid, co-owner and chief tow pilot of the glider club and commercial operation, was worried.
She called pilots who lived in the region and asked them to try to contact Fleming on their handheld radios. She flew the club’s Piper Pawnee in the direction of Fleming’s last known radio call, but found no evidence of the missing glider or its pilot.
“This is when you get that feeling that something’s not right,” she said. Fleming always called if he landed out. Worried that something had happened to Fleming, an avid glider pilot and instructor at Bermuda High, Jayne Ewing Reid and business partner Frank Reid decided to file a missing airplane report. Neither suspected that Fleming was in trouble with the law.
Fleming, 70, had been arrested for breach of peace after flying his Rolladen-Schneider LS8-18 sailplane noiselessly over the H.B. Robinson Nuclear Generating Station at an altitude of 1,518 feet msl—by his estimates, about 1,000 feet over the power plant’s dome—on his way to search for lift at nearby Lake Robinson.
No airspace restrictions were printed on sectional charts; no notam marked the area off-limits. When a woman at Hartsville Regional Airport relayed over the Unicom that law enforcement wanted him to land, he had flown to that airport and landed, greeted by a swarm of law enforcement vehicles.
Nonetheless, Fleming spent the night awake in a cell with 11 other inmates.
(Excerpt) Read more at aopa.org ...
A secret no-fly zone seems incredibly stupid to me.
You can’t expect pilots to be clairvoyant.
Ignorance of the secret laws is no excuse. < /sarc>
This is where you file lawsuits and seek to have the prosecutor disbarred.
As America seeks to emulate the former Soviet Union in every way, look for more and more secret laws that people will be arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for.
Video:
Obama signs bill ‘in secret’ making FREE SPEECH ILLEGAL!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKjy0PDlKV4
LOL! That nails the level of absurdity we’ve reached in modern America. Haven’t seen the likes of it since the days of the old Soviet Union.
In Stalin’s Russia, the arrests for violating “secret” laws were also “secret”. People just disappeared in the middle of the night never to be seen or heard from again. What an effect method to terrorize a weaponless population into submission.
Stick and Rudder ping....
Wow, interesting that we made what is essentially the same point about the Soviet Union. And as usual, you’re about six steps ahead of me, Laz! :-)
-PJ
This is double jeopardy. If LEO's can arrest you on made up charges, and then tell you that they will drop the charges if you agree not to assert your own rights against false imprisonment, then no one is safe anywhere ever. I might have stood and fought the charges, just so I could press criminal charges against the local yokels here.
I'm no pilot but you might not want to be soaring over nuclear power plants.
Yes. I read the article and the guy agreed not to take legal action against the Darlington Police, if the charges were dropped. BIG mistake. he should have sued them for several million, and an apology.
This demonstrates the dearth of common sense prevalent in the LEO ranks of small town, USA.
If the glider was an explosive laden, suicide bomb, it would have been over before the police were ever called.
That the police were present when the local airport operator called the FAA and the FAA said there was no violation, indicates they (police) didn’t need “no stinkin violation” they were looking for chance to go full SWAT on the guy.
The Police Chief should be fired and the others put on unpaid leave, at least.
If you read the story, the pilot’s intent was not to fly over the powerplant, but in the unpowered, small glider he was seeking rising air to gain altitude that day.
I live and fly a RV6A out of FL37.
Just this morning I took off and flew towards the area just outside of Fort Pierce International Airspace south and was heading towards the ocean where I regularly fly south along Hutchinson Island and go either directly over the Saint Lucie Nuclear Power plant or I go over the Indian River.
I’ve NEVER have a problem but me thinks this guys problem is that he is flying a non detectable craft.
Nearly invisable to radar.
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