"Larry Dighera" wrote in message

It worked. The plane was diverted, nobody was killed,
the media made a bunch of money and an idiot lost his certificate.

What if the C-150 had gotten close enough to the White House to
trigger ground fire as a result of its inability to communicate via
radio? Would you still characterize the policy as having worked?

Nope. But it didn't work out that way.

If you're arguing that the margin of error was a little slim and shows flaws
with relying on radio communications, I might agree. Except, there's no way
to hook a landline to an airplane, or board it, so using radio to
communicate with it is more or less necessity, isn't it?

'Course, publishing the ADIZ, TFRs, FARs, requiring weather briefing and
expecting a certificated pilot to be able to navigate in VFR don't seem to
have worked either.

Personally, I don't have much sympathy for the guy.
-c