General Aviation Under Fire (Again)
Small, single-engine aircraft crashes into a high rise building. Tragedy, but little more destructive than a serious fatality car accident — something that happens hundreds to thousands of times a day in the USA.
Now renewed calls for banning General Aviation aircraft — people who are licensed to fly and have all the requisite skills and knowledge needed to safely pilot a small aircraft (that is more than you can say for most automobile drivers!) — are heating up again. Air traffic has already been clamped down in the area where the crash occurred, increasing FAA air traffic controllers (ATC) workload by forcing all General Aviation pilots overflying the East River to be in contact with ATC. Think that’s safer? Over-worked and under-staffed Air Traffic Control towers have been cited in several recent catastrophic commercial aviation crashes, killing hundreds of people.
Nevermind that my old Toyota Corolla could haul more explosives, fertilizer or other toxins than most General Aviation aircraft. Nevermind that no General Aviation aircraft has ever been used in terrorism, and even if one were, it would be fairly anti-climactic compared to a rental truck loaded with explosives (which we have seen the resulting damage of in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center first attack.) Nevermind that politicians, knee-jerk reactions and an upcoming election year never bode well for rational decisions.
.sigh
More: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/061013enough.html
In case you’re a skimmer instead of a reader, the salient point in the aforementioned link is this –
- Banning all vans within cities. A small panel van was used in the first World Trade Center attack. The bomb, which weighed 1,500 pounds, killed six and injured 1,042.
- Banning all box trucks from cities. Timothy McVeigh’s rented Ryder truck carried a 5,000-pound bomb that killed 168 in Oklahoma City.
- Banning all semi-trailer trucks. They can carry bombs weighing more than 50,000 pounds.
- Banning newspapers on subways. That’s how the terrorists hid packages of sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system. They killed 12.
- Banning backpacks on all buses and subways. That’s how the terrorists got the bombs into the London subway system. They killed 52.
- Banning all cell phones on trains. That’s how they detonated the bombs in backpacks placed on commuter trains in Madrid. They killed 191.
- Banning all small pleasure boats on public waterways. That’s how terrorists attacked the USS Cole, killing 17.
- Banning all heavy or bulky clothing in all public places. That’s how suicide bombers hide their murderous charges. Thousands killed.
– AOPA President Phil Boyer
And the list wouldn’t end there. There will always be new ways humanity invents to hurt itself intentionally. Our own governments have entire departments dedicated to this simple fact/act, for goodness sake, and the weapons and tactics aren’t always used on our “enemies”.
Further, we must choose to understand that accidents can and do happen, no matter how much you try to legislate them away. Ban driving and we’d GUARANTEED save millions of lives… but at what cost? The same holds true if we let fear-mongers ban General Aviation flying, the lifeblood of America’s aviation heritage and how many service men and women and American citizens get into aviation careers… that first flight in a Cessna Skyhawk or Stearman or Aeronca Champ that ignited their passion for flight and helped them realize as a child that the sky really is the limit to their potential.
But, no, instead politicians thump and bluster about something they have no comprehension of and they prey on the fears of the similarly un-/ill-informed public.
RichC said,
October 23, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
Thanks for the comment on my blog in support of general aviation. The idea of making private aviation more restrictive with shutting down corridors for small planes would only be the start. Eventually someone would propose restricting private planes from populated areas all together. Anything from above is dangerous in the wrong hands … but just like firearms, those that seek to do harm will. My biggest fear is losing our general aviation airports, particularly the privately operated grassroots airports with low volume. Where does it stop? We all understand sensitive areas, but just because an airplane is near NYC does not make it a threat.