NATA President James K. Coyne (right) has described Wednesday night's CBS Evening News segment on the lack of security at general aviation airports in the United States as "irresponsible journalism in its most egregious form."

"Even a cursory check with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)-the government agency charged with aviation security-would have revealed to the CBS reporter that NATA and all of the general aviation industry have been working with the TSA over the past year to formulate general aviation airport security guidelines," Coyne stressed.  "Those guidelines were submitted to the TSA last fall and the TSA is now in the process of refining them and distributing them to the industry.  And long before that we worked hand-in-glove with the TSA on implementing additional security measures for all on-demand air charter aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds-the 12-5 rule.  There was not even a mention of that in the report.
 
"The fact is that within weeks of the 9-11 terrorist attacks NATA formed an Aviation Business Task Force composed of industry and government representatives and created a comprehensive list of best security practices for the industry.  Those best practices were widely distributed throughout the industry and have been implemented at many fixed-base operations at general aviation airports throughout the country.

"CBS has done itself and all of general aviation a huge disservice by airing this report and not bothering to check the facts," concluded Coyne.

FMI: www.nata-online.org