&*#% security TFR

steingar said:
If we were really that serious, DCA would indeed be shut down.
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It's that 'trusted agent' thing, the assumption is that anyone who has made it into the front of an airliner is uncrazy enough to be trusted with a commercial jet in the exclusion area (it's not like those guys just go nuts and run down the aisle of a plane screaming incoherently or kill someone and steal a plane.....)

I argue that the very slim possibility of a successful GA-based attack should be treated similarly. Compare Austin and Oklahoma City. It really is just that simple.
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The guy in Austin was an amateur who committed suicide with 2 days lead-time. With planning and resources, a GA aircraft could well be used to do damage equivalent to the Oklahoma City attack.
 
weilke said:
It's that 'trusted agent' thing, the assumption is that anyone who has made it into the front of an airliner is uncrazy enough to be trusted with a commercial jet in the exclusion area (it's not like those guys just go nuts and run down the aisle of a plane screaming incoherently or kill someone and steal a plane.....)



The guy in Austin was an amateur who committed suicide with 2 days lead-time. With planning and resources, a GA aircraft could well be used to do damage equivalent to the Oklahoma City attack.
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Cheaper and easier to rent a Ryder truck...:yesnod::idea:
 
You guys are approaching this strickly from a VIP security threat point of view. Yes a TFR for POTUS is designed for his safety but think about situations where if there were no TFR. TFRs are around to protect non-participants from what is going on in there. What would happen if people we allowed to fly through the middle of an air show while the Blues are performing? What if I wanted to get a good view of the Super Bowl...so would 100 other guys in light GA aircraft. It would be a hornets nest. I flew FEMA around in support of Hurricane Irene and we had to keep our heads on a swivel just to keep from hitting other support aircraft (CG, law enforcement, EMS, etc). If GA pilots were in the mix trying to get a good lock at the damage it would be a mess. Now take the President vacationing in Hawaii with no TFR. Not many GA aircraft over there but enough to pose a problem. TFRs are established for everyones safety, not just the participants in that area. I will agree though the dimensions are a bit extreme especially since they were never that big during Clinton's tenure.

Also to say the President doesn't rate security is simply silly. How many individual citizens in America are specifically targeted by groups that want them dead? It's already been proven in the past that someone with enough planning get to "the man" and take him out. Why not take prudent steps to ensure his safety? Even in combat we provide security for Generals but not for some PFC. It would be completely unrealistic to treat everyone as a VIP. Plus General Petraeuss don't grow on trees.:wink2:
 
weilke said:
It's that 'trusted agent' thing, the assumption is that anyone who has made it into the front of an airliner is uncrazy enough to be trusted with a commercial jet in the exclusion area (it's not like those guys just go nuts and run down the aisle of a plane screaming incoherently or kill someone and steal a plane.....)
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It's a good thing the guy in St. George ran in to the side of the terminal and never got airborne. Of course in thinking about it I remembered another incident where someone already in flight broke formation and eventually crashed his airplane. I remember them searching for it and there was a TFR over the crash site for quite a while while they were looking for the bombs which they never found.

Captain Button was in his single-seat A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft when it took off on a training mission with two other A-10s from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. His jet was armed with four Mk-82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, 120 metal chaff canisters and 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition.[15] This training mission would have been the first time Captain Button dropped live ordnance.[16]

Near Gila Bend, Arizona, Captain Button unexpectedly broke formation after receiving in-flight refueling. He flew in a northeasterly direction towards the Four Corners area of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. His jet was spotted numerous times by observers on the ground. One observer, an off-duty pilot, said the jet appeared to maneuver around bad weather. This observation suggested to the Air Force that the aircraft was being flown manually and purposefully.[17] The flight was tracked by radar in Phoenix, Albuquerque and Denver. But because Captain Button's transponder was turned off, the aircraft was only tracked, not identified. It was only after analyzing radar data later that investigators were able to track Button's flight.

The jet zig-zagged near the end of its flight. It was last spotted in the air about 100 miles (160 km) west of Denver.[18] The jet impacted terrain about 15 miles (24 km) SW of Vail, Colorado, on Gold Dust Peak (39°28′44″N 106°35′40″WCoordinates: 39°28′44″N 106°35′40″W) in a remote part of Eagle County. The Air Force concluded the jet probably had two to five minutes of fuel remaining when it crashed.[19] The impact occurred at about 13,200 feet (4,000 m) of elevation, just 100 feet (30 m) below the summit. The debris field was over a quarter-mile-square area (0.64 km2). Pieces of the canopy and cockpit went over a ridge.[20]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_D._Button
 
weilke said:
With planning and resources, a GA aircraft could well be used to do damage equivalent to the Oklahoma City attack.
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How do you carry a Ryder cargo truck weight equivalent of explosives into a garden variety GA plane? And if you do, how are you going to get it off the ground to go do whatever?

It's way way too much trouble to do anything really effective with a light plane. It would be far easier and way less hassle to drive the rental truck up to the loading dock and be done with it.
 
Velocity173 said:
You guys are approaching this strickly from a VIP security threat point of view. Yes a TFR for POTUS is designed for his safety but think about situations where if there were no TFR. TFRs are around to protect non-participants from what is going on in there. What would happen if people we allowed to fly through the middle of an air show while the Blues are performing? What if I wanted to get a good view of the Super Bowl...so would 100 other guys in light GA aircraft. It would be a hornets nest. I flew FEMA around in support of Hurricane Irene and we had to keep our heads on a swivel just to keep from hitting other support aircraft (CG, law enforcement, EMS, etc). If GA pilots were in the mix trying to get a good lock at the damage it would be a mess. Now take the President vacationing in Hawaii with no TFR. Not many GA aircraft over there but enough to pose a problem. TFRs are established for everyones safety, not just the participants in that area. I will agree though the dimensions are a bit extreme especially since they were never that big during Clinton's tenure.

Also to say the President doesn't rate security is simply silly. How many individual citizens in America are specifically targeted by groups that want them dead? It's already been proven in the past that someone with enough planning get to "the man" and take him out. Why not take prudent steps to ensure his safety? Even in combat we provide security for Generals but not for some PFC. It would be completely unrealistic to treat everyone as a VIP. Plus General Petraeuss don't grow on trees.:wink2:
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No one advocates the complete elimination of reasonable TFRs especially for disaster response. Restricting airspace around an airshow or sporting event is a no brainer. No one suggests the POTUS doesn't rate reasonable security measures. Shutting down most GA operations in a 60+ nm diameter circle from surface to 18000' wherever the POTUS happens to visit is ridiculous overkill even if it did eliminate any possible threat from GA (which it doesn't).
 
Witmo said:
...... Shutting down most GA operations in a 60+ nm diameter circle from surface to 18000' wherever the POTUS happens to visit is ridiculous ).
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If the POTUS is on official business trying to make this great country better then I say give him some security.... When he is out campaigning on the taxpayers dime, then I say treat him like any other American citizen... Remember the wording in our countries writings... "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL"............. Jus sayin.
 
fgcason said:
How do you carry a Ryder cargo truck weight equivalent of explosives into a garden variety GA plane? And if you do, how are you going to get it off the ground to go do whatever?
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Mc Veighs bomb was 4800lbs of a hand-mixed commercial (quarry/mining) explosive. The useful load of a long-body Mu2 is 3800lbs, fly it a bit over gross and light on fuel it could deliver a 3500lbs device with maybe 3100lbs of explosive.
US customs can't keep containers packed with weed and cocaine from crossing the border every day, do you think they would pick up a shipment of 3000lbs of Semtex shipped from an innocuous country ?

It's way way too much trouble to do anything really effective with a light plane. It would be far easier and way less hassle to drive the rental truck up to the loading dock and be done with it.
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Again, is it your argument that solely because there are other ways to go about it, attack by GA aircraft is not a possibility that has to be considered ?

It takes time to target an attack. If the prez decided to travel with less royal pomp and kept a less predictable schedule, there would be no need for all of this circus.
 
For Odin's sake, there was always the possibility of an aircraft crashing into a stadium or whatnot. Indeed, the possibility was a lot stronger in years gone by, when GA was stronger and the pilot population larger. However, it never happened. No one ever used a GA aircraft to stage an attack until the guy in Austin, who succeeded in killing couple people and setting a fire. He did make the news though, just like that bastard in Colordao last night.

Keeping high explosives out of the hands of suspected terrorists seems like a laudable goal. Keeping every last airplane 30 nautical miles away from the President doesn't.
 
weilke said:
Mc Veighs bomb was 4800lbs of a hand-mixed commercial (quarry/mining) explosive. The useful load of a long-body Mu2 is 3800lbs, fly it a bit over gross and light on fuel it could deliver a 3500lbs device with maybe 3100lbs of explosive.
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How many Mu2's are sitting around on your average GA ramp? The type of planes everyone is crapping themselves over is in the 172 useful load range. If you pack 4800lbs of anything in one of those, the landing gear is likely to collapse and the terror attack is finished before it starts.

Again, is it your argument that solely because there are other ways to go about it, attack by GA aircraft is not a possibility that has to be considered ?
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And while everyone is pooping themselves over GA planes of any size, the bazillion Ryder and Uhaul trucks of the country are going about their business completely unrestricted like nothing ever happened. (Seriously, I've seen those trucks in downtown Denver) But GA has to be restricted?
Ryder truck knocks down a building. No big deal, Ryder trucks are business as usual. Airliner knocks buildings down. GA takes the blame. Airliners are business as usual. Why not take that to the next step in the logical sequence: Terrorists attack US citizens and buildings on US soil. Let terrorists do what they want where they want. Place restrictions on US citizens.

It's total B.S. If you're going to restrict something, start with the equipment that did the damage in the first place. Then start thinking about restricting the scapegoats.
 
steingar said:
No one ever used a GA aircraft to stage an attack until the guy in Austin, who succeeded in killing couple people and setting a fire.
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Not quite true.

There was the attack on the White House with a Cessna 150 that damaged a tree planted by some early president.

There was the January 5 2002 attack on a high rise in Florida.

And a couple others.

The guy in Austin was just the first who actually managed to kill someone not in the airplane.

But in general, I agree with what you said. Light, single engine, aircraft are ineffective when used as a weapon.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Not quite true.

There was the attack on the White House with a Cessna 150 that damaged a tree planted by some early president.
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Mass destruction! DC isn't safe for trees!

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
There was the January 5 2002 attack on a high rise in Florida.
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Otherwise know as a troubled teenager who committed suicide by Cessna. Oh, and killed no one but himself and broke a window. What dangerous weapons, these GA airplanes!

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
And a couple others.
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Better go find them, sorry I don't believe you. Unless you're going to say that everyone who ever committed suicide in an airplane is a terrorist.

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
The guy in Austin was just the first who actually managed to kill someone not in the airplane.
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Which is why I singled him out as the first successful terrorist to use a GA aircraft. He killed three and started a nice fire. Pails in comparison to McVeigh, who had a truck.

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
But in general, I agree with what you said. Light, single engine, aircraft are ineffective when used as a weapon.
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Sorry to nit pick your post to pieces, but the historical record shows this pretty emphatically. Seems like you and I are the only ones who realize it.
 
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I would have thought that crashing an airplane into a stadium would be effective. But when you compare the results of a P-51 crashing into the grandstand at Reno with the guy with a gun in a movie theater last night, the gun wins again.

But, in any case, any aircraft flying through a Stadium TFR will be under control by ATC so it would be impossible to crash into the crowd.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
Everyone is concentrating on a useful load of explosives. How about 100 lbs. of ricin distributed at 2500 feet?
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How about smallpox or Ebola at 0 AGL? How about raging Rhinoceros? Ho about Lions, and Tigers, and Bears,oh my!

Just because some security officer somewhere can envision a scenario doesn't make it at all likely. At the end of the day, the record shows that GA aircraft make horrible weapons of mass destruction. The 911 hijackers could have stolen a couple dozen Cessnas and hit targets all over the place. There's a good reason they didn't do that.
 
Let's not forget how many lives are saved each time the only plane over a football game is an "authorized" banner tow.
 
steingar said:
How about smallpox or Ebola at 0 AGL? How about raging Rhinoceros? Ho about Lions, and Tigers, and Bears,oh my!

Just because some security officer somewhere can envision a scenario doesn't make it at all likely. At the end of the day, the record shows that GA aircraft make horrible weapons of mass destruction. The 911 hijackers could have stolen a couple dozen Cessnas and hit targets all over the place. There's a good reason they didn't do that.
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Don't you need a license to carry a concealed Rhino??? :dunno:

The only 100% sure way to protect our leaders would be to lock them away in a deep........Oh, just came up with a new Spin Zone topic.....
 
Threefingeredjack said:
Don't you need a license to carry a concealed Rhino??? :dunno:

The only 100% sure way to protect our leaders would be to lock them away in a deep........Oh, just came up with a new Spin Zone topic.....
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No, you're ok with the rhino without a permit. But you need one should you decide that naked mole rats are your weapon of choice. :yesnod:
 
steingar said:
For Odin's sake, there was always the possibility of an aircraft crashing into a stadium or whatnot. Indeed, the possibility was a lot stronger in years gone by, when GA was stronger and the pilot population larger. However, it never happened. No one ever used a GA aircraft to stage an attack until the guy in Austin, who succeeded in killing couple people and setting a fire.
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Nobody had used airliners as missiles prior to 9/11/2001 either.


Keeping every last airplane 30 nautical miles away from the President doesn't.
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The no-fly zone extends only 10nm, 30nm requires a flight plan (which as we know keeps terrorists away like garlic keeps away vampires).
 
fgcason said:
How many Mu2's are sitting around on your average GA ramp?
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They are for sale, with high-time engines, for remarkably little money. So are King Airs Commanders etc.

And while everyone is pooping themselves over GA planes of any size, the bazillion Ryder and Uhaul trucks of the country are going about their business completely unrestricted like nothing ever happened.
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Every time I have driven a U-haul accross NYC, I got pulled over by the MBTA police to inspect the cargo area. I doubt you would get within a mile of a presidential event in a rental truck these days. The secret service uniformed division stops trucks on 17th and Constitution every day.
 
Witmo said:
No one advocates the complete elimination of reasonable TFRs especially for disaster response. Restricting airspace around an airshow or sporting event is a no brainer. No one suggests the POTUS doesn't rate reasonable security measures. Shutting down most GA operations in a 60+ nm diameter circle from surface to 18000' wherever the POTUS happens to visit is ridiculous overkill even if it did eliminate any possible threat from GA (which it doesn't).
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My point is people wanting to see an event from the air (POTUS on vacation) can be a hazard to themselves, such as 2 news choppers colliding to get a story. Yes, two people on the thread already suggested that he is not a "high value" target or the threat "is a not worthy to take precautions against." POTUS may get 60 NM. Every travelling TFR I've seen allows him 30 NM. Also I never said the current dimensions are acceptable. Having worked approach control when Clinton was in office, his 3 NM 1,500 ft TFR was much more reasonable.

You said a TFR doesn't eliminate any possible threat from GA. Of course not. It's not a force field. It's just an early warning measure for detection of a possible threat. Sure some dude could turn off his transponder and try and duck under radar coverage. As others in the know have pointed out this would PROBABLY be caught by other means. The TFR is the first line of defense.

When it comes down to it the TFR isn't a perfect system but it's all we got. I'd like to hear a better way of keeping people out of an area they shouldn't be in but I haven't heard it on this thread.
 
steingar said:
Folks had tried to use very light and flimsy GA aircraft prior, with no success. That should tell you something.
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fixed it.

As there is no way to reliably discern light from heavier GA aircraft, the only method to keep the exclusion area threat free is to limit access for all non-trusted aircraft, regardless of takeoff weight.
 
So, let's suppose that one was a nut job and wanted to take out the POTUS with a 172. How would it be done?

Doing touch and gos at an airport 25 miles away? Ummm... No.

Ram A.F. 1? Not a chance in the air. On the ground while taxiing? OK, that might work if you hit the right spot, but you have a good chance of hitting the wrong end of the aircraft and missing the so called target. Fail

Attack the motorcade? First of all, which vehicle? What about wires, signs, overpasses, etc.? Even if you did get "lucky" and hit the right vehicle a 172 is no match for an armored limo. Fail.

Attack while he/she is walking into a building? How would you time it from the air? Fail

Ram the building? With something smaller than a 767? Fail.

Hit the podium if there is an open air speech? This might work. A 10 mile no-fly while an open air speech is in progress might make sense.
 
weilke said:
fixed it.

As there is no way to reliably discern light from heavier GA aircraft, the only method to keep the exclusion area threat free is to limit access for all non-trusted aircraft, regardless of takeoff weight.
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What's a "trusted aircraft"? And what makes it trustworthy? A squawk code?
 
weilke said:
fixed it.

As there is no way to reliably discern light from heavier GA aircraft, the only method to keep the exclusion area threat free is to limit access for all non-trusted aircraft, regardless of takeoff weight.
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GA aircraft are all light and flimsy!
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
What's a "trusted aircraft"? And what makes it trustworthy? A squawk code?
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For the security TFRs this is pretty much limited to law enforcement, coast guard and military. I believe there is an exception for medevac and part 121 if the inner ring includes a airport.
 
Every time I have driven a U-haul accross NYC, I got pulled over by the MBTA police to inspect the cargo area. I doubt you would get within a mile of a presidential event in a rental truck these days. The secret service uniformed division stops trucks on 17th and Constitution every day.
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So take two trucks. One stops for the police and goes boom. The other ignores the confusion and proceeds downtown to go boom and drop a building OKC style.


weilke said:
For the security TFRs this is pretty much limited to law enforcement, coast guard and military. I believe there is an exception for medevac and part 121 if the inner ring includes a airport.
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I wonder if the security paranoid types have considered this scenario:

Several years ago some nutjob in an A-10 diverted from a MOA in the SW somewhere and wandered around for a while and flew a few hundred miles to Colorado before killing himself by running it into a mountain. I don't know if it was armed or not. I forget the details however that is the gist of the story.
He could have gone to downtown denver or another city within range. Just a wild guess however I'm thinking the presidential motorcade, or NYC or DC, or surburbia grade school can't handle an armed F16 or A10 or fighter-bomber-whatever flown by a proficient pilot that's spraying bullets and rockets and bombs all over the place.

So who do you trust now when someone with all the clearances and is given a flying weapon by the military can't be trusted to not go bonkers? True, it's not likely to happen however something similar has happened before and it can happen again therefore it's a threat if applied to a civil target.


In the meantime GA who is still being restricted is still having difficulty doing damage beyond a broken window and a smashed office desk. I can do that much damage with a fist sized rock and a 20lb sledge hammer without breaking a sweat.
 
fgcason said:
I wonder if the security paranoid types have considered this scenario:

Several years ago some nutjob in an A-10 diverted from a MOA in the SW somewhere and wandered around for a while and flew a few hundred miles to Colorado before killing himself by running it into a mountain. I don't know if it was armed or not. I forget the details however that is the gist of the story.
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You must have missed my post earlier in this thread.

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showpost.php?p=948479&postcount=125

He did have bombs on board which were never found.
 
weilke said:
So your argument is that because there are other potential methods of inflicting greater damage, a general aviation aircraft is not a threat ?
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For me, the issue is this: In a country that thinks of itself as the leader of the free world, if you're going to restrict freedom in order to prevent terrorist attacks, there ought to at least be a possibility that the restrictions will actually prevent the attacks. That test is not satisfied if it's not economically or politically feasible to protect against other means of attack that are cheaper, easier, far more readily available, and far more likely to succeed.
 
Palmpilot said:
For me, the issue is this: In a country that thinks of itself as the leader of the free world, if you're going to restrict freedom in order to prevent terrorist attacks, there ought to at least be a possibility that the restrictions will actually prevent the attacks. That test is not satisfied if it's not economically or politically feasible to protect against other means of attack that are cheaper, easier, far more readily available, and far more likely to succeed.
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^^^^^^This.

Well said my friend.
 
Palmpilot said:
For me, the issue is this: In a country that thinks of itself as the leader of the free world, if you're going to restrict freedom in order to prevent terrorist attacks, there ought to at least be a possibility that the restrictions will actually prevent the attacks. That test is not satisfied if it's not economically or politically feasible to protect against other means of attack that are cheaper, easier, far more readily available, and far more likely to succeed.
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You are mixing two things there:

- you think its not justified because you think a TFR is ineffective to protect against a GA based attack ?

- you think its not justified because someone could use a different method ?

I have difficulty seing how the two relate to each other.
 
fgcason said:
So who do you trust now when someone with all the clearances and is given a flying weapon by the military can't be trusted to not go bonkers? True, it's not likely to happen however something similar has happened before and it can happen again therefore it's a threat if applied to a civil target.
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And you think there are no contingency plans in place for the possibility of disloyalty/sabotage ?
 
weilke said:
And you think there are no contingency plans in place for the possibility of disloyalty/sabotage ?
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It took them about three weeks to find where Captain Button crashed his A-10.
 
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