On Mon, 23 May 2005 12:35:38 -0400, Corky Scott
wrote in
::

The two pilots who flew their Cessna 150 into the Washington ADIZ have
issued a statement explaining what happened. It's at:
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#189826

That link redirects you he
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050520/205544.html?.v=1here

Because these news articles referenced tend to become unavailable
after a time, I have copied the body of the article below for archive
purposes:


----------------------------------------------------------
Press Release Source: Sheaffer/Martin


Statement from Hayden ''Jim'' Sheaffer and Troy D. Martin Regarding
Events Associated with the May 11, 2005 Encroachment of Restricted
Airspace in the Nation's Capital
Friday May 20, 6:13 pm ET


LITITZ, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 2005--We are mere private
citizens from a small Pennsylvania town who have found ourselves
thrust into the national spotlight after an unplanned and
unintentional brush with local, state and federal authorities, during
what was meant to be an uneventful flight from Lancaster to Lumberton,
North Carolina. In an effort to help everyone understand what happened
during this incident, the following is a recounting of those events
associated with our flight on Wednesday, May 11, 2005.

In preparation for our upcoming flight, on the evening before
departure, we consulted several current weather maps and sectional
maps of Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The morning of the flight, Jim as the pilot in command, once again
checked various weather websites on his home computer for the flight
area and consulted the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA)
website, looking for Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR). We were not
required to file a flight plan because we were going to be using
visual flight rules (VFR) for our journey.

Jim conducted a thorough pre-flight inspection of the airplane, a
Cessna 150, its communication devices and navigational devices and
filled it with fuel prior to departure.

We agreed that Jim, as the pilot in command, would supervise the
flight while Troy would fly the airplane, which he did during the
entire flight.

In an effort to be extra careful, and wishing to avoid the restricted
area of Camp David during our flight, we over compensated by taking a
more than anticipated southerly route, which consequently caused us to
infringe upon the Washington, D.C., restricted zones.

After an undetermined amount of time, a Blackhawk helicopter appeared
off to the right side of our airplane and attempted to communicate
with us using a hand-held sign indicating the emergency radio
frequency we were to use to receive instructions. Although our radio
had been working during the flight, which we know, because we were
able to monitor other aircraft communications, we were unable to
communicate with the Blackhawk helicopter on the frequency indicated.
A helicopter crew member used hand signals to indicate a second
frequency option. We tuned to that frequency, identified our aircraft,
and requested further instructions. We received no response on either
of the indicated frequencies despite repeated attempts by both of us.
The helicopter then disappeared off to the right and within a short
time thereafter, two F-16 fighter planes appeared and began making
repeated passes. After making several passes, the F-16 planes dropped
warning flares.

In response to the dropped flares, we made a 90-degree turn to the
right to a westerly direction. At this point, for the first time, we
were able to visually identify our location as being in a Flight
Restricted Zone (FRZ). Once again, a helicopter appeared, whereupon we
were then able to establish two-way radio communication on the
original emergency frequency that we had been instructed by placard to
use by the first helicopter crew. We were then instructed to stay on
our current heading and proceed to the Frederick, Md., airport, where
we landed safely and were subsequently met by representatives from
civil, state and federal authorities and agencies. We were treated
exceptionally well and proper, and with great courtesy after we
explained what had happened.

On a personal note, we would like to sincerely thank everyone for
their prayers and their expressions of concern for us with regard to
this incident. We very sincerely regret all of the disruption that
this event has caused for so many people in our nation's capital.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Jim Sheaffer, 69, retired, is a licensed pilot residing with his wife,
Joyce, in Lititz, PA. Troy Martin, 36, is a local business owner and
student pilot with 30 hours of flight time who lives in Akron, PA,
with his wife Jill and two young sons.

Both men are active in their communities and belong to the
Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 540 as well as the Vintage
Aero Club.

A principal in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Joseph, McDermott &
Reiner, P.C., Mark T. McDermott is engaged in general practice with an
emphasis on litigation, aviation law, and pilot medical certification.
Previously, he served as an attorney with the Federal Aviation
Administration. He is past president of the National Transportation
Safety Board Bar Association and currently serves as the association's
Vice President. McDermott has been retained by Jim Sheaffer to
represent him in the FAA's investigation of this matter.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Sheaffer/Martin
Media Contact:
Mark McDermott, esquire, 202-331-1955
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It's troubling to think, that those with authority to shoot down two
pilots were unable to establish radio communication with the
innocently errant flight. All ended well this time, but what of
future incidents? Will other pilots stumbling across the invisible
airspace boundaries be as fortunate, or will they suffer the fate of
the missionaries erroneously shot down over Peru?



http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/24/24002.html


CIA helps Peruvian jet shoot down Christian missionaries over Amazon

The Peruvian anti-drug tactic of blowing suspected drug smuggling
planes out of the sky aroused little notice in the press or elsewhere
as long as the victims were presumed bad guys. Since April 20th - when
a Peruvian pilot guided to his target by contract employees of the CIA
in a plane leased from the Defense Department attacked a civilian
Cessna and killed a US missionary and her infant child - the airwaves
have been filled with mutual finger-pointing and hand-wringing as Peru
and the US each seek to assign blame to the other.

Such recriminations, however, may miss the forest for the trees.
Arguing over who followed which procedures does not affect the point
encapsulated in the Convention on International Civil Aviation's
Article 3, amended in 1984 in the wake of the Russian shoot-down of
KAL007:

"The contracting States recognize that every state must refrain from
resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and
that, in case of interception, the lives of persons on board and the
safety of the aircraft must not be endangered."

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the
Montreal-based body that administers international aviation
regulation, reemphasized its position in 1996 when it passed a
resolution recognizing that "the use of weapons against civil aircraft
in flight is incompatible with elementary considerations of humanity,
the rules of customary international law as codified in Article 3 and
the norms of governmental behavior."

Both the United States and Peru are signatories to the convention.
That did not stop the two from cooperating in a policy that results in
the summary execution of persons suspected of - not convicted of or
even charged with - flying cocaine across Peru. While the actual
numbers of shootdowns and resulting deaths are buried in security
bureaucracies in Lima and Washington, the figure of 30 aircraft shot
down has been widely reported.

In a 1997 article in ICAO's house journal, Safety in Flight, the
body's legal officer, John Augustin, explained that even if Article 3
is held in abeyance, international law forbids shooting down
non-threatening civilian aircraft:

"In all cases," wrote Augustin, "where an aircraft is identified as
civilian, the State is entitled to request it to land or change
course; the aircraft must obey such order unless unable to do so. In
attempting to give directives to an aircraft, a State must avoid
subjecting it to danger. The primary remedy for the state is to make
appropriate diplomatic representations to the aircraft's state of
registry. If the aircraft does not pose or appear to pose a threat to
security, force must not be used even if the aircrew disobeys orders
to land or to change course."

The problem with international law, of course, is enforcement. ICAO
spokesperson Denis Chagnon told DRCNet that the ultimate recourse
would be the International Court of Justice in the Hague. However,
said Chagnon, "I doubt that would happen. The only entities that would
have status to bring the case would be member countries, not private
citizens or organizations."

Even if some country were to bring the matter before the court, the
United States has simply ignored the court when it proved
inconvenient, as was the case when the tribunal found the US guilty of
violating international law by mining Nicaraguan harbors in the early
1980s.

The "fly and die" tactic has quietly been US policy since 1994, when,
after it was briefly halted because of legal concerns, President
Clinton and the Congress approved changes in US law that allowed US
officials to escape legal liability. US radar stations and
surveillance planes track suspected drug smuggling flights, then
notify the Peruvian authorities, who send up fighter jets to intercept
and force the planes to land, or blow them out of the sky if they do
not respond quickly enough.

Peruvian and US authorities say the tactic was justified in the effort
to stop the flow of cocaine into the US. Peru garnered rave reviews
from US officials for its fierce anti-drug programs of the 1990s,
although the degree to which the "fly and die" policy contributed is
difficult to quantify.

Not everyone shares the US government's anything goes attitude, and
certainly not pilots. Dan Morningstar, spokesman for the Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association, which represents more than half of all
US pilots, told DRCNet there is "no justification" for shooting down
civilian aircraft.

"We condemn the shoot-down, and have reminded everyone that we opposed
resuming assistance to Peru in 1994, said Morningstar. "We warned then
that there was a real risk of shooting down civilian aircraft."

AOPA decried the policy as inhumane and a double standard. "We
wouldn't tolerate shooting or killing anyone inside US borders simply
because they were suspected drug smugglers," said Morningstar. "You
can't do that in the US - shooting down someone's plane constitutes,
at the least, an unreasonable search and seizure." "Look," he said,
"we believe that any nation that has the resources to track and
intercept an aircraft also has the resources to follow that aircraft
to its landing point and make an arrest. We acknowledge that it would
require some negotiation and bilateral agreements, but again, the risk
to innocent civilians far outweighs the risk to national security.
This is a lesson we should have learned from KAL 007."

Latin America activist organizations also condemned the shootdown.
"This incident is a reminder to all of us that the war on drugs is
indeed a war with casualties," Gina Amatangelo of the Washington
Office on Latin America told DRCNet. "In this case, the victims are
innocent individuals from the US, but every day the US drug war in
Latin America creates more victims," she said.

"The US government absolutely is responsible for the deaths of these
US citizens because of its role in promoting this policy, supplying
the personnel and equipment to make it possible, and even funding the
base from which the Peruvian fighter took off," Amatangelo noted. "A
liberal shoot-down policy is obviously dangerous, but it is carried
out by Peru as part of a larger effort to militarize drug enforcement
in the region. This is a tragic example of what we can expect to come
as the US increases military funding in the region."

Adam Isaacson, senior policy analyst at the Center for International
Policy, concurred. "We bought the plane used to shoot down the
missionaries, we trained the people who pulled the trigger, it was all
ours until the very last moment," he told DRCNet. "We share the blame.
This also calls into question the nature of the people with whom we
are working. The Peruvian military has longstanding problems of
corruption, human rights violations, and lack of accountability," he
said. "Nor has it made any difference in the street price of cocaine,"
he noted.

The deaths of missionary Veronica Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old
adopted daughter Charity were foreshadowed years ago. The US began
setting up radar posts to track airborne drug smuggling in the Andes
during the administration of George Bush the elder and began sharing
the information with Colombian and Peruvian authorities in an effort
to repress the region's thriving cocaine trade. After Peru shot down a
suspected smuggler's plane in 1993, the program was briefly halted the
following year when Justice Department lawyers determined that US
officials could be prosecuted - and even sentenced to death - under US
anti-terrorism laws for their involvement in shooting down civilian
aircraft. At that time, the program was already causing grave concern
among pilots and air transport industry groups and even some program
participants.

Stuart Matthews, founder of the Flight Safety Foundation, told Air
Safety Week in June, 1994, he strongly opposed renewing the shoot-down
scheme. "It's contrary to international law, it's contrary to US law,"
he said. "Even if an airplane were full of drug smugglers and was shot
down, what ever happened to due process, to which we all subscribe?"

The Air Transport Association of America relayed the same sentiments.
"There is concern here, because it's always been the policy of our
members to oppose any government shooting down of any civil aircraft
for any reason," he told the industry weekly. "It would then allow
that government to target civil aircraft for other reasons. It's one
more step down the slippery slope."

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which quickly condemned
the shootdown can lay claim to a certain prescience. "The AOPA will
vigorously oppose any action by the government which would condone or
encourage the use of deadly force against civilian aircraft," wrote
AOPA president Phil Boyer. "Those in Washington who applaud the
so-called 'shoot-down' policies of the Colombian and Peruvian
governments cannot have forgotten that two civilian airliners were
shot down in recent years after they were mistaken for military
aircraft," Boyer continued. "Considering those horrifying events - one
of which involved our own armed forces - how can anyone feel assured
that a twin-engine Cessna carrying members of Congress on an overseas
fact-finding mission will never be mistaken for an identical
twin-engine Cessna full of drug smugglers?"

An Associated Press dispatch from the same period quoted some Customs
agents and radar operators as also having deep misgivings. "I don't
think we should be doing it," radar operator John Fowler told the AP.
"I'm a Christian man. I am a believer. How can I as a believer work
toward an end which deals with killing people? How can you justify
this situation where our Constitution says innocent until proven
guilty?" asked Fowler, who was suspended for five days in 1993 for
refusing to participate in a similar program in Ecuador.

Another operator quoted by AP spoke anonymously to protect his job.
"This definitely doesn't jibe with our version of democracy and human
rights," he said. "Probable cause doesn't warrant the death penalty.
Mistakes can happen."

However, congressional hard-liners, prodded by armchair warriors such
as New York Times columnist Abe Rosenthal, brushed aside such fears,
instead using the halt to polish their drug warrior credentials. Rep.
(now Sen.) Charles Schumer (D-NY) slammed the Clinton administration
decision to halt the program as "unwise, untimely, and unusually
dangerous," while Rep. (now Sen.) Robert Torricelli (D-NY) called it
"surrender and retreat."

When contacted by DRCNet, the official line at Torricelli's office
was, "We are concentrating on other matters." One staff member who
asked to be quoted only off the record told DRCNet Torricelli had
"nothing" to say about the dead missionaries.

DRCNet calls to Sen. Schumer's office went unreturned. An embattled
Peruvian embassy gamely offered a defense. "The program was good for
Peru and good for the United States," a spokesman told DRCNet. "It
helped reduce coca cultivation."

Actually, it didn't. Source country eradication programs have
historically only shifted cultivation from place to place not lowered
overall growing. A chart of Bolivian, Peruvian, Colombian and total
coca cultivation figures (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/coca-growing.gif),
for example, shows that cultivation in Peru did decrease significantly
during the 1980s, but that total cultivation nevertheless hovered at
around 200,000 hectares (nearly 800 square miles) as Colombian growers
took up the slack.

Eradication and interdiction programs such as the shootdowns combined
have also failed to achieve their goal of decreasing cocaine
availability to increase price and discourage use. In 1988, for
example, the Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates the
purity-adjusted retail price of cocaine (1998 dollars) was $213, but
only $149 by 2000. Heroin prices fell even more steeply during the
same period, from $3,153 to $1,029.

Will the deaths of Veronica and Charity Bowers then be in vain? Or
will they spark a rethinking of our global drug policies?