"Unaware" Pilot Blunders Into Camp David Airspace Sunday

It's getting to be a familiar refrain -- unaware pilot bumbles into a flight-restricted area and is escorted by well-armed fighters to a landing at a nearby airport. This time, the restricted airspace was over Camp David, where the president was spending the weekend and the plane was a Firefly (we're not sure of the exact type or manufacturer) and the pilot... well, the Secret Service isn't releasing his name.

"We interviewed the pilot and he was unaware that he had wandered into restricted airspace," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told the Frederick News-Post after the Firefly was escorted out of the exclusion zone. It landed without (further) incident at Frederick Municipal Airport, MD -- home of the AOPA.

The unnamed pilot wasn't charged in connection with the incident. The aircraft is registered to Gregory Curtis of Raleigh, NC. A woman answering the phone at that address told the News-Post Curtis didn't own the aircraft and refused to give reporters her name. End of conversation.

P-40, the restricted airspace over Camp David, changes when the president decides to take the weekend off at the executive retreat. When he's not there, it's 12,500 feet tall and has a radius of three miles. When he is there, it's 18,000 feet high and five miles around. Since 9/11 (presumably when people really started keeping score on P-40), the Camp David restricted zone has been violated 167 times, according to the News-Post.

FMI: www.faa.gov