...Until The Very Last Moment

Contradicting earlier indications that a shoot-down had been ruled out fairly early on, a senior Pentagon official Tuesday said the option was left on the table because no one knew what the pilots of a Cessna 150K were really up to.

As ANN reported in real time last week, the Cessna flew within three miles of the White House last Wednesday, forcing an evacuation of the executive mansion, the Capitol and the Supreme Court.

"We thought, in light of everything known to us at the time that it was unlikely this was a concerted, pre-planned terrorist attack," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary in charge of Homeland Security, told reporters. He also said, "we thought early on it was unlikely we would have to shoot down the aircraft," but the option was not ruled out. McHale was quoted by New York Newsday.

McHale said what pilots have been saying since the incursion -- that the two-place Cessna was little if any threat because of its size and speed. Those factors, along with the way the pilot was flying, gave Pentagon officials "a reasonable degree of confidence" that the pilot was lost or confused, rather than bent on an act of terrorism, McHale said. 

FMI: www.defenselink.mil