Originally Posted by ender83
The embarassment here is the media and their "reporting" of the story, not the response of the USSS (Secret Service). USSS has a job to do, and they do it very, very well. Appropriate protocols were enacted and the principals were all protected. As an unusally insightful talking head commented, this could have easily beee a distraction to a ground assault. I feel the response was appropriate, especially in light of the foiled mid-nineties plot to fly a general aviation craft (packed with explosives) into CIA HQ. In today's incident, I doubt very much anyone had time to analyze the size/cargo capacity of the aircraft. Armchair quarterbacking is easy - and fine - just try to remember what is at stake and that these people have to act in the moment.
Secondly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, any idiot flying into that airspace is so goddamn stupid that shooting him or her down would surely improve the gene pool.
Now speaking as a licensed pilot with hundreds of hours in the air, I will tell you that this guy damn near got shot down, ignored everything he is supposed to know to get his ticket in the first place, and should lose his ticket for good. He ignored multiple attempts to get hold of him, ignored several intercept attempts, and apparently finally started paying attention when they shot flares across his line of sight.
I consider him very, very, very lucky to be alive at this point. When I fly, I maintain a listening watch on 121.5, the emergency feequency at ALL times and check the raido to make sure it is still working every 15 minutes. I have a little laminated card next to me that gives the intercept procedures in case I forget in the momentary panic of an F-16 paying a visit. This person is a wholly irresponsible pilot, has given the rest of the aviation community nursing yet another black eye, and I agree that blowing his out of the damn sky would have indeed improved the GA gene pool.
--Paul