U.S.
Intruding pilots released without charges
Prompted red alert at White House, mass evacuations
Thursday, May 12, 2005
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A pilot and a student pilot were released without criminal charges Wednesday after their plane flew within three miles of the White House, prompting evacuations throughout the capital, officials said.
A Black Hawk helicopter and two F-16 fighter jets forced the Cessna 150 aircraft to land at a small airport in Frederick, Maryland at 12:37 p.m., officials said.
If you live in a cave, this news item brought quite a bit of attention last week.
I listed to it while it was going on, before the Cessna was forced down, and realized that it was most likely another idiot that got lost near the capital.
'Most likely', isn't the same as a foregone conclusion and I was appalled to hear the reaction from some quarters that call it an "over-reaction".
The Cessna 150 is considered a trainer, (There is some confusion in the information I have found), with a maximum passenger load of 300lbs and maximum cargo/luggage load of 120lbs. It is a slow flying 2 seater aircraft and quite small.
Lets say that the pilot weighs 170lbs, that gives us 250lbs to play around with. That doesn't sound like much does it? But what could we do with 250 lbs.
We couldn't haul around a lot of chemical weapons because the plane is too small for the equipment it would take to disperse them effectively. The same for biologicals but you could still terrorize the population far in excess of the actual threat would warrant.
But lets consider another scenario.
Suppose we put a nuclear device onboard and a pilot on a suicide mission.
What? You say that 250lbs is too small?
You would be wrong!
I have seen them with my own eyes and I'm not talking about the fabled brief case bombs. There were nuclear rounds made for the 155mm and 203mm howitzers that weighed less than 100lbs and 240lbs respectively and quite a bit of that weight was the heavy steel casing of an artillery round.
If we had them, the Soviets had them and since the fall of the Eastern Block, there has been much confusion over exactly what did happened to these weapons.
Now imagine a small plane, skirting radar, flying low with one of these on board. Congress is in session and a small nuclear device is set off over the capital building.
BOOM!
11 comments:
Do you remember when a crazy German kid flew to into Red Square . I think the kid was named Mattius Rust and it also was a Cessna.
Yea Beak, a small airplane like that is pretty much invisible to regular radar as long as it keeps its altitude below 2000 ft and avoids airports.
As far as I know it takes a downward looking radar similar to the AWAC. That's why that kid was able to get past the Soviets.
Elijah,
As time passes, the threat from those nuclear weapons becomes less. Many were weapon specific and far from maintenance free.
The neutron bombs are largely useless because the tritium in them has a short half-life (a little over 12 years) and must be replaced. Tritium is very expensive and a lot of it came out of the USSR after the collapse. It is very useful for night rifle and pistol sights and exit signs as well as watches whose faces glow in the dark.
I believe that a greater danger exists from the missile warheads and bombs which contain plutonium or U235 which could be scavenged for their fissionable materials then reassembled into a crude bomb.
I believe that we had a much greater risk of that happening before we invaded Afghanistan. The Islamic terrorists had been convinced we wouldn't reply to an attack in any meaningful way.
Saddam, was convinced that we actually wouldn't dare invade Iraq.
They rest uneasily on their collective ass and wonder if Mecca could become a blue glowing hole in the ground.
Still, there is a great danger and we do ourselves no favor by pretending there is not.
And the only way you can do that -- live large while the people starve -- is telling your people that others are to blame for your lot in life. And you can have three guesses (and the first two don't count) as to who the Mullahs blame.
As for the cessna...that was totally scary! A friend of mine works in the Capitol and was very scared when this happened. Idiot pilots who "wander" into airspace really should face repercussions, if you ask me.
Great blog, warren! And thanks for visiting mine. :)
Thank you, elegant Esther!
You are always welcome here.
Warren
Esther is a great person.
I upset someone pretty bad . Now they are sending me French Porn
Would you still be complaining, beakerkins, if they sent you a French Porn Star?
Big Bubba
These people would send me a guy or livestock. So yes.
Thanks warren and beakerkin for your kind words. :)
French porn? Oy, lol.
Beak, I actually typed a reply to that porn freak.
I was going to ask if it was him in the picture with the horse on top.
Unfoturnately,(or maybe fortunately), I lost my IP connection at that precise momement.
I do like to turn the tables on them and mock them!
(Does that make me a bad person?) ;^)
Esther, better, Oy!, than ou la la! LOL
Warren that would make you creative .
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