Relatives Said They Planned To Fly Between Two Restricted Zones

Student pilot Troy Martin and his instructor, Jim Schaeffer, were headed from Lancaster, PA, to an air show in Lumberton, NC, Wednesday when, for a brief few moments, they came within a hair's breadth of losing their lives.

They had flown into the Washington ADIZ, restricted air space surrounding the nation's capital, causing a flurry of evacuations and forcing both military and DHS aircraft to scramble. Only after two of those aircraft -- F-16 fighters from Andrews AFB in nearby Maryland, fired flares as a warning-of-last-resort, did Martin and Schaeffer turn away from the White House and head west for Frederick, MD. They had come within three miles of the White House.

"Troy was discussing with me last night after they made their flight plans all about the no-fly zones and how they were going to avoid them," Martin's wife, Jill, told the Associated Press. "He said they were going to fly between two different restricted areas."

Their aircraft, a Cessna 150K built in 1970, is registered to the Vintage Aero Club of Smokestown, PA. Club members confirmed that Schaeffer had scheduled a flight to North Carolina for the weekend air show.

There was never any order to shoot the C150 down, according to White House officials. But they admitted it was certainly an option, one that grew more viable as the two pilots on board flew closer to the White House. At one point, a pursuing F-16 fired four flares as a warning to the civilian aircraft. Schaeffer and Martin turned west shortly thereafter.

The two men were arrested as soon as they landed at Frederick Airport, home of the AOPA. They were being questioned late Wednesday afternoon by the Secret Service, which had requested a bomb-sniffing dog to go over the aircraft.

FMI: www.dhs.gov