Another Attack?

[Kilt-wearin_man]

*Originally posted by av8rmike *
**

I’d like to pedantically point out here that “the little idiot in Florida” was in fact flying a Cessna 172R, not a Piper.

If anyone really cares, I’ll scare up a photo or two. **

Thanks, Mike - see what I mean about people using “Piper” as a generic term that may or may not even be accurate? I thought I remembered it being a 172, but just wasn’t sure.

[matt_mcl]

The Canadian Press is reporting that the plane was a Rockwell Commander, fwiw.

[The_Ace_of_Swords]

Thanks for the shout, ** RaCha’ar**, I was wondering where everyone was…

From the AP:

The pilot reported “a little problem with the landing gear,” and the control tower instructed him to move to the west of the airport until it was fixed, a statement from the association said, adding that the pilot didn’t issue a distress signal as officials had previously reported. The control tower contacted the pilot again after seeing he was drifting to the north, in the wrong direction.

The pilot said he was fixing the problem, and the tower instructed him to move back into position to land. But the pilot again didn’t get into the right position, it said. The control tower then lost contact.

One witness, Fabio Sunik, said the plane was on fire before it crashed. The plane did not try to change course, “but just went straight in,” said Sunik, a sports journalist. "Then I saw rubble falling from the building

Remind me how you fix your landing gear by flying into a building? I guess whatever problems he had with his landing gear, affected his yoke, and finally his radio. Tough luck, that.

My money – and I don’t like to lose it – is on suicide, not terrorism, but we’ll see which of the facts we’ve learned holds true in the light of day tomorrow.

Be well,
AoS