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Pilot Arrested and Imprisoned for Busting Non-Existent Airspace in the USA

10 Posts

This is an incredible story, documented by AOPA USA, of a pilot who was arrested and jailed for 24 hours for questioning by various federal agencies for busting an airspace which only existed in the minds of the security agencies.

Click Here

The AOPA video which gives the detailed store is about 3/4 of the way down this page. Sorry I can't give a direct link to the video.

dp

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Horrifying story. Shoot first ask questions later. One wonders why he might have given up the right to sue in return for them "dropping the charges." What charges? Don't suppose it will will be long before some little Hitlers try the same thing over this side of the Atlantic.

Egnm, United Kingdom

Horrible indeed. I can't help feeling that whatever authority choose to act so brutally and totally over the top, did so out of fear and ignorance. Till the contrary be shown, I dare trust authorities in Western Europe are better educated.

Me too am surprised the pilot agreed to settle "a l'amiable", I am not so certain I would have decided the same. But one can readily imagine he was still under the impression - to put it mildly - and not fully aware of the consequences of his reply. Not sure how I would react if I were handcuffed after landing. That didn't even happen to my friend who happened to bust the forbidden area of a French nuclear power plant.

Another surprise is that, at first sight, I do not find this "incident" mentioned on avweb.com ; neither is there any mention on avherald or asn, where most accidents and many incidents are reported.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

My limited experience with these kinds of people In the US leads me to believe that the presumption that they were threatening is probably incorrect. Of course, I wasn't there but my experience is that they are usually inept, and mainly fearful of getting in trouble for letting somebody go who was a genuine threat. The presumption that they are intimidating is in my experience wrong - they are just bumbling idiots off the street, part of what amounts to a Federal jobs program. They are also not a little afraid themselves of an armed public, a very positive thing in my view.

That said, a friend of mine did have them 'intercept' him at his hangar with a very expensive helicopter twice. He'd made the 'mistake' of operating out of a public (dirt) runway on the Mexican border and popping up on radar as he did so. The second time it happened he knew what was coming from the questions being asked by ATC on his way home. After arrival he got some cokes out of the fridge to greet them as they arrived :-) One of the guys had been on intercept number 1 and was apparently a little embarrassed.

I have had enough experience with federal and/or paramilitary police forces in Europe to understand that in contrast they can be very serious and intimidating, and that due process and fear of the public is not exactly uppermost on their minds. I have seen the French police literally throw somebody horizontally into the back of a paddy wagon, and on one occasion (just once) I've felt threatened enough in Germany to request that if the two unbadged officers who trapped me from either side on a remote street didn't want to identify themselves that we go to the US consulate about 10 miles away and discuss it there. That happened to me within the last 10 years, I didn't read about it, and it made an indelible impression.

One man's experience.

The police over there are just "bumbling idiots off the street, part of a Federal jobs programme?"

Egnm, United Kingdom

Yes, I think that is a fair description of the TSA.

You're probably aware that the US is a federal system, under which the concept of a national police force is not well developed, thank God. The FBI was the first, forced into existence because of the gangsters of the 30s. The TSA is another newer development legal as a result of being associated with interstate transportation - I think they are inept, regardless. Virtually all police forces in the US are otherwise state and local. They at least have experience.

It probably makes a big difference in policing whether there are 0.1 guns per inhabitant or 1.2 guns per inhabitant. This worries me a lot in the US, police are much more paranoid about citizens there -- for very good reason. In general, don't show too much resistance, let them do their thing and then take the time to clear up the situation. The police has the right to be wrong about you and arrest you based on their wrong understanding.

In a number of visits to the USA in the 1980s and 1990s, I always found their police to be fine and very polite.

But the lot I met when I arrived there (TSA or Immigration I believe) appear to be almost universally stupid, and every bit as aggressive as one might expect a stupid person in a uniform to be, anywhere, UK included.

One interesting situation was at Newark, NY, where on the arrival form I forgot to tick the male/female box. The official refused to lend me a pen to tick the box, so I just ended up standing there, with the remainder of the BA 747 queing up behind me. I asked some people behind me (Brits) if anyone would lend me a pen but nobody would. They just stood there like sheep. My then wife, who had already passed through the check, then passed me a pen, upon which the whole place went berserk as if this was a massive security breach. They were quite happy to just leave a few hundred passengers standing there, due to an empty M/F tick box.

And I already mentioned the 3hr detention at Houston, TX

From what I read, Americans too are well aware of this kind of thing...

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

But the lot I met when I arrived there (TSA or Immigration I believe) appear to be almost universally stupid, and every bit as aggressive as one might expect a stupid person in a uniform to be, anywhere, UK included.

Sharing the same experiance I believe I described it in some other post ...

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

I've always been very happy and impressed with US Immigration, and have no complaints about the Airport Security guys. Some Immigration Officers have a sense of humour. Border Patrol near the Mexican Border are often very different - and fit your descriptions.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom
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