Boyer Blast Aimed At FAA
Stop blaming general
aviation pilots for government security communication lapses. That
was the angry message AOPA President Phil Boyer fired off to the
FAA Monday following the Washington (DC) Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) notam issued late Friday.
"This notam is a classic example of how GA is made the scapegoat
for failures within a system that was set up for failure," Boyer
wrote FAA Deputy Administrator Robert Sturgell, the agency's
primary security contact. "It is an affront to the 400,000 members
of AOPA. And the notam doesn't address the obvious disconnect
within the government agencies working ADIZ security and FAA air
traffic control."
The notam requires general aviation aircraft to immediately exit
the ADIZ via the most direct route should their transponder become
inoperative.
It was the FAA's response to the panic created June 9 when a
communication failure between the FAA and air defense officials
tracking a plane carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher to Ronald
Reagan's funeral caused the evacuation of the US Capitol
(below).
And it was a classic communication screw up. The Kentucky State
Police King Air had an intermittent transponder. The flight crew
had properly notified ATC and had received proper clearance for
their flight to Reagan National Airport. Air traffic controllers
knew about the transponder problem but failed to notify the
National Capital Region Coordination Center — a $20 million
command facility built specifically after 9/11 to ensure aerial
security in the airspace around the nation's capital.
The King Air flight crew did everything right. They notified the
FAA's Washington Center that their transponder had stopped working.
FAA controllers then manually entered the flight data in the
computer display tagging the target and cleared the aircraft to
continue toward DCA.
But NCRCC security
officials don't see the tagged tracon radar returns, despite their
new multimillion-dollar facility. They saw an "unidentified"
aircraft without a transponder heading near the Capitol building
and scrambled interception aircraft and ordered the panic
evacuation of the Capitol.
"We spend $20 million on a command center, yet we can't get the
FAA and security agencies to share the same radar data," said
Boyer. "We spend another $5 million to $6 million a year on
additional staffing and equipment to try to make the ADIZ work, and
people won't share information. And somehow this is all general
aviation's fault. What's wrong with this picture?"
As one AOPA member put it, "Not very well thought out, I
believe. 'They' need to fix the communications between ATC and the
'security forces' rather than applying yet another permanent
bandage to burden pilots in the ADIZ."