Just What we Needed...

A Canadian-registered Cessna 340 aircraft was the subject of another evacuation scare in the nation's capital, late Monday.

As a result of the attendant Security Alert, the Senate recessed for a brief period late Monday afternoon. Due to the recent activity over Senate filibusters, a number of senators were preparing for an all-night debate over filibusters and judicial nominations when Senate majority leader Bill Frist recessed the activity just after 6 p.m. EDT.

Frist then left the chamber, while others remained. 

Within minutes, Capitol Police tramsitted an e-mail stating that, "An unidentified aircraft violated the restricted airspace and was escorted out of the area."

The transgressing aircraft, traveling from Knoxville, TN, to Gaithersburg, MD, attracted the attention of a number of alert fighters that were scrambled to intercept the aircraft after it developed communication issues with ATC. The aircraft was intercepted, flares were fired, and the aircraft led to Gaithersburg. It was reportedly determined that the aircraft was experiencing some mode of electrical or communications failure that may have affected comm radios but (according to some published reports) not necessarily the transponder (reports differ as to whether the TXP was, indeed, operable).

FMI: www.faa.gov