Especially After London, GA Is Under The Microscope

By ANN Senior Editor Pete Combs

In the WBT Radio newsroom Thursday morning, I saw it all unfold. From initial reports that an electrical transient caused explosions in the London subway to the bus bombing and the final certainty that our cousins across the pond were under attack, I saw the whole thing.

Even as I chased tropical storm-related weather later in the morning, I couldn't keep my mind on the tornado warning up ahead. I was riveted to the radio, where I heard the BBC in real-time sorting out the details on what can only be described as Britain's 9/11.

Then I came home, sat down at the computer to write Aero-News and found myself writing this:

A 20-year old flight student now faces charges in a second state, after police allege he stole a plane and took two friends on a drunken joyride.

Then, I wrote this:

A 21-year old man is in hot water with authorities in Logan City, UT, after police say he used a single-engine aircraft to bomb a crowded parking lot... with water balloons.

My days are, probably like yours, frenzied and full. So it wasn't until the relative quiet of early evening that I reread what I'd written and realized how much worse we pilots are making our own lot.

Note that neither of the two young men involved in the aforementioned incidents was a full-blown private-pilot. One was a one-time flight student. The other was... well, able to fly, is as close as I can figure from the reports I've seen. But they're not the pilots I'm worried about.

It's us. The guys who completed our training and, in many cases, own aircraft.

I don't know if it's complacency or the whole solitary eagle thing, but we've got to overcome our reluctance to watch out for ourselves and our fellow pilots and start eyeballing our surroundings. Just as we scan the sky for traffic when we fly, we have to start scanning the airport for security faults when we're on the ground.

In the case of the 20-year old student pilot accused of stealing a plane and flying drunk, he told authorities he crawled through a hole in a fence in order to get onto the grounds of the airport in Danbury, CT, and steal a Cessna 172. I'll wager here and now that someone reading this article has seen that hole in the fence and simply failed to report it to the airport authority.

In the second case, where a 21-year old man with no pilot rating commandeered a single-engine aircraft to water-bomb a Logan City, UT, parking lot, did anyone see anything suspicious around the airport that night? Did anyone find it a little suspicious that this man had access to the field after-hours?

It's all about airport security. And it starts with you. Is your aircraft secure? Is the airport secure? Do you notice people who seem out of place at the airport -- people who look disoriented or intent on not being seen?

AOPA President Phil Boyer, EAA President Tom Poberezny, NBAA President Ed Bolen -- all of them will tell you the same thing. We're under the microscope. With ADIZ and TFR incursions mounting and the general media keeping score, we're the ones everybody is watching right now. Connecticut is conducting a general aviation security review. The Bush administration says it's looking at expanding the ADIZ -- there's only one way to stop this.

We have to police ourselves. If we don't, when it becomes impossible to get onto the field without a reservation or when the DC-3 becomes the DC-10, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

FMI: www.aopa.org/asn/watchindex.shtml