Raleigh TV Station Notes GA Airports Lack TSA Oversight

The story of a plane stolen from the campus of the University of North Carolina is being portrayed by local media as an example of how general aviation lacks the TSA security mandates that keep airlines safe.

WRAL-TV in Raleigh reports a man was able to steal a Piper Saratoga (file photo of type shown) Monday night or Tuesday morning from Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill in part because the airport is not staffed between 2000 and 0600. Officials first knew something was wrong when the ELT went off. The plane was found crashed in a wooded area off Wildlife Club Road near State Highway 87, just after noon. Sheriff Terry Johnson says K-9 teams tracked the suspect's scent out of the woods, but then lost it. There was blood in the plane, suggesting the thief was injured in the crash.

Businessman Larry Warren, the owner of the plane, told WRAL he parked it about 2100 Monday, after last flying it. He checked the wreckage after it was found, and figured out a few things about the perpetrator. "I record the hours when I get in it and when I get out of it, and it looked like he had flown for 1.9 hours somewhere. I don't know if he was flying around or if he went somewhere and was coming back."

Warren adds that he suspects the thief simply didn't know enough about the plane to operate the fuel tank selector, because only one of the tanks had been run dry.

WRAL talked with aviation attorney James Crouse, who said the lightweight doors and windows and lack of heavy locks on planes make them easy targets. "The aircraft itself is ripe for being broken into. Aircraft are not made to be secure; they are meant to fly in the air." He called security at Horace Williams the norm for small GA airports. UNC officials say the airport is included in their security patrols, and that this is the first time a plane has been stolen there, but add that pedestrians have access to the apron at any time.

The news story did make mention of AOPA's Airport Watch program. As of Wednesday, officials had issued a warrant for the arrest of 46-year-old Curtis Rene Mellott of Chapel Hill, although he had yet to be found.

FMI: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10005694/