Interesting analysis of DC cessna incursion...

[Skogen]

Interesting reading...

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A Cessna 150 is one of the tiniest planes you can imagine: it travels at

about 110 MPH and can carry only two people who weigh 170 lbs or less

each. The plane itself is around 1,100 lbs with a thin aluminum shell --

perhaps a third the weight of most cars.

If a Cessna 150 hit a large government building, the impact damage would

be localized. People who weren't near the impact site might not even

notice. As the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association notes: "The

suicide crash of a Cessna into a Tampa office building demonstrates the

ineffectiveness of a general aviation aircraft as a terrorist weapon."

Yet one of these tiny Cessna 150s reportedly strayed into the controlled

airspace near Washington, DC this afternoon and prompted a panic

evacuation of the White House and the Capitol. Politicians, aides, and

journalists were told by police to run from the buildings as fast as

they could away. "Run, this is no joke, leave the grounds," a U.S.

Secret Service agent told one CNN correspondent.

But was this panic justified?

By the time the buildings were evacuated, F-16s and Blackhawk

helicopters seem to have been in the air and the Feds should have known

that the threat was minimal. The area around Washington, DC is

well-monitored by radar and security agencies should have realized that

the plane was a small aircraft (the cruise speed of the Cessna is lower

than the slowest speed at which large jets can fly). It should have a

very different radar profile too.

There's also a broader question about whether the size of the

"controlled airsapce" near Washington, DC is too large and raises false

alarms like this one.

Contrary to popular believe, it's not just the airspace directly over

the White House. I'm looking at the FAA's VFR Terminal Area Chart right

now, and the "Air Defense Identification Zone" stretches from the *east*

side of the Chesapeake Bay almost to the mountains an hour's drive from

DC to the *west*. Any pilot who wishes to fly in the ADIZ must have an

altitude-encoding transponder and open a flight plan.

The Cessna was reportedly N5826G based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We

don't know the all the details but it seems as though the pilot was

heading from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, and a GPS-plotted course

takes you right through the ADIZ. Older, pre-9/11 maps don't show the

ADIZ, and that's led to a series of ADIZ violations especially in 2001

and 2002.

What you won't hear on CNN or Fox News is that the ADIZ was supposed to

be temporary. The House Transportation committee said in a report last

month: "The ADIZ was never intended to be permanent. The committee

believes that the FAA should not make the ADIZ permanent."

It's actually pretty easy to become disoriented aloft (there aren't

exactly marks on the ground telling you where controlled airspace begins

and ends), as one pilot explains here:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Travel/story?id=748540&page=1

The post-9/11 DC area essentially has three layers of security: the huge

ADIZ, the Flight Restricted Zone (FRZ) at roughly a 15 mile radius

inside it (that can be entered if air traffic controllers tell you to),

and a prohibited zone directly over the White House and Capitol.

Details are still trickling in, but some conversations among DC-area

pilots who were witnesses to what happened today suggest that the Cessna

was inside the ADIZ but perhaps not the FRZ until the F-16s dropped

flares to warn the pilot. If that's true the timing is odd: an FAA

database lists scores of ADIZ "incursions" that didn't lead to emergency

evacuations. Another pilot reports an ADIZ (but not FRZ) incursion as

recently as last Saturday at the Gaithersburg airport, complete with

intercepting helicopter and police, that led an arrest but no red alert.

Some pilots are already wondering about the timing. Congress is

considering legislation this week to fix the ADIZ (basically, to remind

the FAA and Transportation Security Administration it was supposed to be

temporary) and re-open Reagan National airport to general aviation. If

the FAA and TSA wanted to derail the legislation, this line of thinking

goes, exaggerating the threat from a tiny Cessna would be a great way to

do it.

-Declan

(member of a DC-area flying club and a pilot-in-training at an airport

inside the ADIZ)

[Winnow]

It's not the plane itself but what suitcase nuke or biological/chemical weapon might be aboard it.

[Skogen]

too true...but what about all of the other incusions that went by with much less fanfaire than this one? Why this particular incursion, and why now?

[Nick]

Reminds me of that scene from American dad.

"we're on Orange alert today, which means that something might happen somewhere at sometime, so be careful!"

[Hoarmurath]

It's not the plane itself but what suitcase nuke or biological/chemical weapon might be aboard it.

In both of these cases it would still be safer to be inside a building rather than outside in the open.

[miir]

It's not the plane itself but what suitcase nuke or biological/chemical weapon might be aboard it.

A Cessna 150 is not capable of carrying a payload that could deal any significant damage. It's logistically impossible.

This is the potential impact damage of a Cessna 150.




Even if a bio/chem weapon could be transported in a Cessna 150, it would be ridiculous to deploy it with such a slow delivery vehicle. It could be shot out of the sky before it got within hundred miles of any strategic target.... a muslim on a Segway with a BB gun on the lawn of the White House would be a bigger threat.

[Winnow]

Even if a bio/chem weapon could be transported in a Cessna 150, it would be ridiculous to deploy it with such a slow delivery vehicle. It could be shot out of the sky before it got within hundred miles of any strategic target.... a muslim on a Segway with a BB gun on the lawn of the White House would be a bigger threat.

Was the plane recently that caused the evacs within 100 miles? Was it shot down?

[VariaVespasa]

It's not the plane itself but what suitcase nuke or biological/chemical weapon might be aboard it.

If you've got a suitcase nuke or a bio weapon its much easier to just drive down the street outside the whitehouse to use it, than to go through all the silliness of trying to fly it there. /whap

*Hugs*
Varia

[Kelshara]

Fear mongering.

[noel]

I read a few articles about this, and I believe the pilot did not respond via the radio, and only changed his course when the F-16s dropped flares on him. If that's the case, perhaps the reason for the evacuation was due to the lack of response from the pilot.

[nobody]

i heard on cnn last night that the pilot is losing his liscence b/c he froze when he saw the fighters and the student with him had to take over and land the plane.

[Kelshara]

I read a few articles about this, and I believe the pilot did not respond via the radio, and only changed his course when the F-16s dropped flares on him. If that's the case, perhaps the reason for the evacuation was due to the lack of response from the pilot.

Happens pretty often actually. Read quite a few articles about pilots not responding on flights over Europe. Quite scary when you think about it.

[kyoukan]

if saddam's 6 foot wingspan remote controlled balsa wood plane can be classified as a weapon of mass destruction then surely a cessna can?

[Kylere]

The only logical explanation for this response would have to be that this unlucky pilot pulled this, while for some reason unbeknowst to me they were on a heightened state of alert already due to other intel they possessed.