On Fri, 27 May 2005 15:50:00 -0700, "gatt"
wrote in ::


"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.

It hasn't worked out that way yet. But the lethal force dictum has
only been in place for a few years so far. Given the narrow margin
the Cessna flight escaped tragedy, I would expect that someone will
get shot down for no good reason within the coming decades.

If you're arguing that the margin of error was a little slim and shows flaws
with relying on radio communications, I might agree.

Thank you.

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?

It's only a necessity if you consider the security measures effective
in stopping terrorist activity. I find it difficult to see how the
current security policy accomplishes what it purports to address.
More intelligent people need to reassess what measures might be more
effective, IMO.

'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.

Humans make mistakes; it's human nature. If those mistakes intrude on
the rights or safety of others, they should be made to compensate
those affected by their mistakes/inelegance. In this case, the
disruptive evacuation in DC was a result of misguided security
officials/policy, and the only threat to the safety of others occurred
as a result of those misguided security officials/policy not the
Cessna PIC.

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

I have no sympathy for the Cessna PIC at all, but I don't consider
that to be the issue here.