You’re all missing the point I tried to make. The flight in question didn’t originate from just any old small-town General Aviation airport. It originated in Calaveras County, in the Sierra foothills.
I’m thinking that may be right in (or near) some of the prime illegal clandestine pot-growing operations areas. I don’t know that for sure, but I’m guessing that Calaveras County would be one area where there’s a lot of that going on.
Why would anyone use an airplane to haul MJ from CA to OK? It would be much, much cheaper to put it in the back of a Honda Civic or Ford F150.
So if someone drives a car (or, Og forbid, a U-haul truck) from someplace where some people grow marijuana, it’s reasonable to detain them for however long the authorities want?
Originating a trip from someplace is not reasonable cause for suspicion.
AFAIK there is no prohibition against GA aircraft landing at a major airport in the U.S. It’s not exactly encouraged though. A commercial jet lands at a speed that is the top speed of many GA airplanes, and greater than the top speed of others. Pattern and approach speeds are higher still. The controllers would have to space and sequence the bugsmashers into the mix. I think most GA pilots would consider it rude to land at a major airport unless they had a specific reason to do so. GA pilots can and do land at major airports, but it’s not all that common at places like LAX.
Many major airports do accommodate GA aircraft. For example, McCarran International in Las Vegas gets a lot of GA traffic. The traffic patterns for the ‘heavies’ and GA aircraft are separate, and different runways are used. LAX isn’t really set up for GA aircraft, and commercial traffic is much, much greater. GA pilots do fly there, but there are easier options (Santa Monica, Zamperini, Hawthorne, or even Van Nuys) nearby. Most commercial airports have a mix of commercial and GA traffic. ‘The Airport’ here is BLI. It has some jet traffic, some turboprop traffic, and some GA traffic. Really big commercial airports like LAX can (and do) accept GA traffic, but there are other, better, options. I understand that some major airports (Boston Logan?) have rather hefty landing fees. Flying is already expensive, and pilots have been known to plan their trips based on which airport has the cheapest fuel. Landing fees discourage GA activity at major airports that have them.
Part of the appeal of General Aviation is that it’s more convenient than flying commercially and you can usually get closer to where you want to be. For example, let’s say I wanted to go to Coos Bay, OR. I’d have to get to BLI early enough to get through the security checkpoint, and then hang around until they decide to let us on the airplane. Then I’d either fly to Portland or Eugene, or fly to Seattle to change planes (more sitting on the ground, waiting). Then I’d have to get to a bus for a two-hour drive to Coos Bay. If I wanted to save $150 or so, I would have to drive two or two and a half hours to Seattle. Or I could jump in my Cessna (assuming I had one!) and just fly to Coos Bay with one fuel stop. It’s a trip of about 600 miles, and it’s possible I’d beat a friend flying commercially and then taking the necessary road trip. Or suppose I lived in Lancaster, CA and wanted to go to Las Vegas. I could drive 75 miles to LAX (in L.A. traffic, of course), do the security checkpoint and all of the waiting around, get on a plane, and be in Las Vegas an hour to an hour and a half later. Or I could jump in the Cessna, take off, and be there in two hours hassle-free. On a trip of 400 miles or less, it’s quite common for a trip to take less time than flying commercially. A GA pilot does not have to pass through a TSA checkpoint, removing his shoes and belt, wait around on someone else’s schedule, and then get set down someplace far from his final destination. And he can have a Swiss Army Knife in his pocket if he wants.
So it’s not so much that GA is ‘increasingly required’ to use smaller airports; it’s that smaller airports are more convenient and closer to the destinations, and sometimes faster than flying commercially. And you’re on your own schedule. You can decide for yourself when and where you want to go, just like driving a car.
It’s the thin end of the wedge. Let them do that, and next year it’ll be you because you might be doing something wrong.
So much for “land of the free”!
While that may be the case, many times when we DO find out what triggered this sort of detention, it turns out to in fact have been something unbelievably stupid, or even an illegal reason to detain someone. I see no reason to assume “they know what they’re doing” after all the things we’ve seen.
Remember, the 4th Amendment places the burden on the state to show why it should conduct the search – it does not get to do whatever it wants with the burden being on individuals to show why they should not be searched.
I thought the Patriot act changed that?
AOPA demands answers on aircraft searches
The article says:
It seems clear that Customs & Border Patrol is exceeding their authority. What next? Being subjected to detainment and search by park rangers when you haven’t driven near a national park?
This is troubling. People who do not have an A&P certificate should not be opening things up like that. I doubt that losing an inspection panel in flight would have serious repercussions. It may be startling, and it may cause some minor damage, but I don’t see it bringing an airplane down. OTOH, I’m not an A&P. What to I know? What do they know? Suppose they improperly secure a fuel cap? A pilot should conduct a preflight inspection, and an improperly-secured cap should be caught; but after the stress of being held captive for no reason by men with guns, a pilot might miss it. More than one airplane has crashed after its fuel has been siphoned off in-flight through an improperly-secured fuel cap. What if the agent inadvertently leaves something inside the plane when he puts the inspection panel back on? What if this thing gets jammed in the control cables? I wouldn’t want an uncertified person doing things only a certified person is allowed to do. Just because someone knows how to shoot a gun, doesn’t mean they know how to ‘work’ on an aircraft.
I’m relatively supportive of law enforcement. But hassling a citizen likely to be innocent needs to be done carefully, with intelligence and without arrogance.
In the examples in this thread, once they had verified a suspect’s driver’s license, the suspect should probably have been released, his presence unnecessary for further checks. Even criminals find it inconvenient to disappear.
I’ve had a few experiences at San Francisco Airport customs. On one occasion they took me into a private room for rectal inspection. They were polite and I had no hard feelings; I felt they were doing their job. But on another occasion, I watched as an inspector opened a bottle of medicine I had, opened an antibiotic capsule and let the powder fall onto the clothing in the suitcase. He then took another capsule and repeated this. I’ve also had customs inspectors engage in silly word games, etc.
These incidents were decades before the Cheney-Rove era. With DHS employment having now exploded to a quarter million people, I’ll guess that stupid and arrogant would-be cops are more plentiful there than before.
Personally I am totally on law enforcements side, and completely agree with most anti terrorist measures, but …
Flying in to Detroit, I had the misfortune to be held up by an unfit, untrained, overweight dickhead from Homeland.
Though he knew I was taking an on going flight within the U.S. and might miss it, he went through every single thing I had and was very frustrated not to find a K of coke or some plastic explosive, was elated when he found a book about Iraq in my bags, bought at Heathrow airport, one of the most security conscious airports in the world.
(He would have shit himself if he’d even seen the M.E. let alone serve there )
And I was only allowed through when he found my Regimental Association card when he went through my wallet.
Little pricks like this do nothing to aid in the war against terrorism, and everything to disenthuse the general public about the measures put in place to stop terrorists, of whatever flavour of the month, getting to score another atrocity on ordinary people.
CBP responds to AOPA inquiry (video)
So what? As long as the cops don’t butt fuck you with their police baton for two hours it’s ok for them to detain you for hours on end?
Were you being Black or Hispanic? You really need to do you best to not be Black or Hispanic if you don’t want the cops to stop and detain you for no reason.
It may be wrong, but it certainly is well-established by now. The checkpoint on I-5 north of San Diego has been there for 40 years.