Part Two, Of Two
While we hate to dwell on the negative, there were some real
downers, aviation-wise, in 2005. Sure... "stuff" happens, but a few
folks seemed to go out of their way to create problems for the
world of aviation. Be it ignorance, arrogance or just plain
incompetence, these were the folks that made our lot a whole lot
more difficult and immeasurably injured the aviation world in the
past year.
Shame on them...
NY Senator Hillary R. Clinton (D) and IL Senator Richard Durbin
(D)
While Domenici and Bingaman were fanning the
flames of anti-GA hysteria, two more elected officials
decided to join in with their own attempts to grab a few cheap
headlines at our expense.
Their amendment, nearly as distressing, called for a government
study of general aviation security, including the supposed "the
vulnerability posed to high-risk areas and facilities from general
aviation aircraft that could be stolen or used as a weapon or armed
with a weapon."
Their study would also have included GA airport security,
technology that could easily track GA aircraft, disabling measures
that could prevent aircraft theft, and "an assessment of the threat
posed to high population arrears, nuclear facilities, key
infrastructure, military bases, and transportation infrastructure
that stolen or hijacked general aviation aircraft pose, especially
if armed with weapons or explosives."
Gag me with a prop.
Note to Clinton/Durbin: There have
been studies -- they all said that GA is not a
threat. Period. Read them and then go get a sound byte at some
other industry's expense.
The folks who proposed these idiotic rules neither understand
the true nature of the threats we face or the realities of the
risks that GA may or may not pose to the public at large. This is
"feel good" legislation proposed by lawmakers who do NOT care for
your rights so long as they can get another thirty seconds of
airtime on the evening news. ANN recommends STRONG and AGGRESSIVE
response from aviators all over America to correct the foolishly
myopic efforts of these legislators, as well as their defeat in the
next election. There is NO excuse for this kind of nonsense. This
is America, and such legislation will do little more than delight
our enemies with the further erosion of one of the uniquely
American aspects of our lives.
John Salamone Still Makes (Bad) News
John Salamone also made our list last
year, with a laundry list of poor decisions that span over two
years. See, Salamone is a textbook example of someone
who, once he realizes he's dug himself into a hole... decides to
try to dig his way out.
Salamone made headlines throughout most of 2004, too, after
having a few drinks (reportedly far from an isolated occurrence for
him) and then taking his Piper Cherokee on a four-hour joyride over
Philadelphia, including a brief incursion into Philadelphia's Class
B airspace. Before finally landing back at the Pottstown Airport,
he decided to cap his flight by buzzing the control tower.
As Salamone was taken away by TSA officials who met him after he
landed, Montgomery County officials impounded his airplane... and
then sold it, as officials are entitled to do with any property
seized from the committing of a crime.
You'd think that would have been enough -- but Salamone
continued to dig from behind bars, filing a lawsuit with his wife
demanding that the county pay them the proceeds of the sale -- over
$34,000 -- on the solid judicial basis that they really, really
needed the money.
The couple's lawyer stated Salamone's concrete company had lost
business following his arrest, resulting in a financial situation
so grim Mrs. Salamone had to take a job as -- gasp! -- a waitress,
in order to pay the upper-middle-class family's $2,300 per month
mortgage.
On January 14, 2005 -- almost one year to the day Salamone made
his fateful flight -- a court essentially ruled that stupidity
should be painful, and that the Salamones weren't entitled to one
thin dime from the Cherokee's sale.
America West Pilots Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes
This year's Splitting Hairs award goes to former America West pilots Thomas Cloyd and
Christopher Hughes, who were arrested after their
aircraft was stopped by the TSA as it was being towed from the
gate. Seems someone has noticed the men smelled of alcohol before
they left the gate, a byproduct of having spent the previous night
in a Miami sports bar. Both men had blood-alcohol-levels of
approximately 0.08.
In yet another stunning display of judicial logic (we're as
surprised as you are) a Miami-Dade County jury took about six hours
to render their guilty verdict -- seems the six men on the jury
weren't swayed by the pilots' assertion that -- while, okay, they
were intoxicated -- they weren't technically operating the aircraft
at the time they were arrested. It was still being towed, you see
-- and there's no crime in being a drunk passenger, no matter how
many dials, switches, and control wheels there are in front of
you.
The pilots announced December 15 they would appeal the guilty
verdict.
PrivatAir's Discrimination Loss Against Pilot Doyle D.
Baker
Although he ultimately
won his case, ANN is fairly certain pilot Doyle D. Baker would have
just as soon not gone through the aggravation in the first
place.
A court ruled in December that Baker's
advanced age was the sole reason charter company PrivatAir,
Inc. fired the corporate pilot in the summer of 2004.
Baker was all of 63 at the time, and had crewed on a Gulfstream II
owned by actors Bruce Willis and his ex-wife, Demi Moore for nine
years -- apparently without a problem, until the Swiss charter
company took over the jet's management in 2002.
In retrospect, perhaps the Swiss-based charter company would
have preferred not to start this battle, either -- especially as
the courts ruled they now owe Baker $53.8 million for the egregious
firing.
While PrivatAir may thought Baker was too old to crew a
bizjet... he still has plenty of time left to spend all that
money.
Citation Thief Daniel Andrew Wolcott
If this year's Bozos list has a dominant theme, it is certainly
"those who did stupid things with airplanes." Consider our final Aero-Bozo for
2005, of which the best thing we can say about him is
"at least he wasn't drunk when he stole the airplane."
Daniel Andrew Wolcott was jailed on $175,000 bond and faced
federal charges -- in addition to the six state charges -- after he
stole a $7 million Citation VII from a Florida airport on October
12 and flew the bizjet to Georgia's Gwinnett County Field, where
the 22-year-old met five friends (who apparently had no idea
Wolcott had commandeered the jet illicitly) and took them on a
joyride over the Peach State, before landing back at the closed
airfield and then abandoning the aircraft. He then caught a
commercial flight back to Florida, and went about his business as a
charter pilot before being caught.
Wolcott -- who wasn't rated to fly the Citation but did so
expertly -- was described in media reports as "a talented and
gifted pilot." Perhaps, but his little stunt ensured his particular
talents won't be seen in an airplane cockpit again for a long, long
time.