A reply from AVweb (Only two paragraphs, but snipped for copyright.):
Our local airport was closed a couple/few years ago. Many letters to the editor of our local rag said that the airport was a place for ‘rich boys’ toys’. (Seeing the aircraft that were parked there, I wouldn’t call the owners ‘rich’.) Such attitudes, and the unfounded belief that GA aircraft are adequate weapons for terrorists, are helping to kill the struggling GA industry.
Eric Byer has the gist of it: The non-flying public are ignorant about General Aviation.
Based on my limited experience with GA planes and pilots, many GA planes at my nearest airport cost the same as or less than many bass boats and other pleasure boats I see on the lakes.
Private aircraft are not toys and not just for the rich. But private pilots are hardly a cross section of society. They’re overwhelmingly male, middle-class, and from either a technical or military background. It’s become a community with its own values - kind of like gun enthusiasts (and I would imagine there’s a good bit of overlap). If you write for - or even read - The Atlantic, chances are you don’t fly, and maybe don’t even know anyone well who does.
Just finished reading that article. Maybe us non-flying public are ignorant, that would be a good time for Mr. Byer to educate us all. I knew one or two people with their own planes and they certainly don’t have to go through the commercial airport kind of security. I mean, isn’t that one of the charms of owning your own plane?
That said, it is very easy to find places that a terrorist could attack that the TSA has not covered. I’m not sure what the point of writing an article about General Aviation (other than to bash the rich, which is fun) and not talking about the similar vulnerablility of trains, factories, roads and a host of other blowupable things.
Most pilots are more than willing to educate people on GA. Were I current, I’d give rides to whoever wants one. But most pilots can only educate people (i.e., demonstrate to them the joy and/or usefulness of flying) one or two at a time. While AOPA and other orgs do try to ‘spread the love’, many non-fliers wither don’t have an interest or else receive their information from non-flying journalists who either do not know much about aviation themselves or else have an agenda.
The article, and Mr Byer’s reply, weren’t about the joys or usefulness of flying. They were about the security of general aviation. Mr Byer calls the claims in the article “outlandish”, etc. but he missd an opportunity to set the record straight, assuming that is possible. Is there reason to believe that there are rules for general aviation that are as strict as commercial aviation? Can a person bring a 5 ounce bottle of liquid onto a private plane for example? I know that seems like a silly comparison but not that much more silly than the actual rules commercial travelers have to follow.
Well, he did say ‘Do you not know that you are vetted through a variety of watch lists to ensure you aren’t a terrorist?’ and ‘I can assure you that… you would not have gotten close to that plane if they had any suspicion that you wanted to do something bad.’
I’m sure that private aviation has a tremendous lack of security relative to commercial aviation. I’m also complete clueless as to why this should matter. What sort of attack could a terrorist accomplish with a Cessna that wouldn’t be easier to accomplish with a cube van?
Terrorists like to focus on passenger jets because they provide high concentrations of victims and high fatality rates. You don’t get either of these things in a GA aircraft. All that’s left is use of the aircraft as a weapons delivery platform, presumably in the form of an explosive payload and a pilot willing to commit suicide. But in this regard GA aircraft suck. They have crappy payloads of a few hundred pounds. A middling-sized delivery van can carry a few thousand pounds. They require specialized skills to operate, while most anyone can drive a van. I suppose there are a few stunts you could pull with the plane, like dive-bombing the Superbowl or hitting something inside a robust security perimeter, but I’m fairly confident that a large ANFO-laden delivery truck detonated next to, say, Wrigley Field during a game would cause more casualties than a C4-laden light aircraft flown into the stands.
Commercial airliners carry hundreds of passengers and thousands of gallons of highly flammable fuel. Crashing one does huge amounts of damage.
Crashing a small private plane will do what? Kill a dozen people at most? Burn down a couple of houses? You could create more mayhem by renting a car and plowing through a farmer’s market.
There’s no point in just whining about GA’s image; it’s up to the GA community to do a better job educating the broader community about what it is and what it does. No, I haven’t drunk the AOPA’s Kool-Aid, they’re just right about that point and what they do to help.
There are plenty of ways to do that, too - airport open houses, Young Eagles flights, newspaper stories. There’s a lot of basic affection for aviation in broader society too, remember, and it’s not at all hard to stir up and make work for you.
BTW: The apartment Lidle hit was unoccupied or there certainly would have been casualties in it. The place burned out.
And there was that guy that crashed into the White House 15 years ago, and there was that guy that crashed into the IRS office. The death tolls from these two terrorist attacks is three.
The writer is profoundly stupid. His story is written as though it is self-evident what a threat small aircraft are, and I’m pretty much at a loss to understand what the hell he’s implying.
It appears that James Fallows, an Atlantic writer who’s actually familiar with general aviation (I think, but I’m not sure, that he’s a pilot) will soon be writing a reply to his colleague’s piece. That seems like the wrong way to go about things: “First, we’ll print the uninformed fear-mongering, then later we’ll add some facts to the argument.”
People will always fear what they do not understand. That is why people allow the TSA to exist. If all the people were educated, none of us would be suffering from all the knee jerk useless stuff now in place.
Heck, we would not be suffering under the politicians as we are now.
We gave up control a long time ago and it is way too late to get it back.
Never again will there be a workable consensus to thwart or control big government.
Where did this quote come from? I didn’t see it in either link on the OP? And who is “they” who would keep you away from the plane if they were suspicious of you? The pilots? The owners? Do aircraft charter companies check all their customer names against the no-fly list? Are people who charter planes not allowed to bring guests along who have not been previously vetted? Do people get their IDs checked when they are boarding private charters?
Seriously, I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I think that’s the point of the article. At most, the article is mis-titled. It’s not really about general aviation, it’s about holes in security. I have read similar stories in the past couched in terms of more corporate executives choosing to fly via private aircraft in order to avoid the hassle and time that commercial airline security takes.
Johnny, other than some general claims about rich people buying their way out of security and comments about rich plane owners, can you point to any facts that the author got wrong?
