Private Plane Enters Restricted Capitol Airspace

Filed in archive Aviation News on May 12, 2005

By now, you've all heard the news about the Cessna 150 flown by a student pilot that entered restricted airspace over Washington, D.C. I have a question for you. How dumb can you be?

OK, so they were navigating by dead reckoning and got lost. Were they not on flight following? Did they not read the TFRs about flying near the capitol?

According to the AOPA website, their problem other than being both DUMB and STUPID was they didn't do proper flight planning.

Jim Schaeffer and Troy Martin, a student pilot, were flying from their home base at Pennsylvania's Smoketown Airport (S37), to an Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in in Lumberton, North Carolina � a path that took them into the Washington Metropolitan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and within three miles of the Capitol.

The airplane reportedly flew into restricted airspace, turned and left the airspace, AND THE FLEW BACK INTO IT!!!! Two F-16s dropped four warning flares in the path of the airplane in an effort to divert it. Had I been flying and two F-16s pulled up beside me, I'd have crapped in my pants! These two yahoos should be grateful to the heaven's above that those F-16s didn't drop them!

The airplane was escorted to Frederick Municipal Airport, site of AOPA headquarters, by Marshals Service and Air Force aircraft where it landed shortly before 1 p.m. Once on the ground, the pilot reportedly told officials his radio was not working. (Don't even get me started on that one!)

Of course, I can't hang this noose around Troy Martin's head, as Schaeffer was the PIC. He's the one who should incur penalty or punitive measures, not the student. Yet and still, I think even as a student and part owner of the plane I would have suggested to Schaeffer that maybe they were getting a little too scenic view of the Capitol and the White House. As my pappy says, "It doesn't take someone but with one eye and half-sense to figure that out!"