On Wednesday, [Doug] Hughes, a 61-year-old mailman from a small town on Florida’s Gulf Coast who dearly wants campaign finance reform, flew his fragile little ultralight gyrocopter through some of the most closely protected airspace on the planet and landed it on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. He called it Project Kitty Hawk.
He announced his plans on the Internet and in his hometown newspaper. He said he felt compelled to do what he could to halt corruption in the nation’s capital. He attached a big U.S. Postal Service insignia to the aircraft fuselage, loaded it onto a trailer last Friday, and drove north. He would not go postal, but rather airborne, to deliver 535 letters to members of Congress urging them to tighten the rules on money in political campaigns.
“I have no intention of hurting anyone,” Hughes wrote on his Web site, the Democracy Club, which carries the motto, “Because We the People own Congress.” “There is no way I can prevent overreaction by the authorities, but I have given them as much information and advance warning as my fuel supply allows.”
The warning didn’t help. Air defense systems did not detect the copter as it entered restricted airspace above Washington, according to a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. No one tried to stop the gyrocopter, which sounds like a lawnmower and looks like a flying bridge chair.
I am glad Doug Hughes was uninjured. He had no intent to harm anyone. But the question remains, how did we know that? It seems that there is some real faulty security around federal buildings.
I am surprised that the gyrocopter wasn’t shot out of the sky. Perhaps it should have been. There should be no exceptions and no slip ups that close to the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House.
Why do you consider this vehicle a threat? It was a much a threat as a moped that slips through the vehicle barriers and drives up to the steps of the capital.
The problem is, no one really knew what was on it. Everything breaching the no fly zone should be considered a serious threat.
oops…Capitol.
You need a picture of the vehicle and then you’d see that it would be really difficult to hide something (a bomb) because it is open framed.
Secondly, the small size precludes carrying much more than the pilot which makes it limited at delivering much more than a suicide bomber amount of explosives.
This vehicle could be used to do damage to pedestrians but it couldn’t do structural damage to a building and no people inside are at risk of harm.
When does anyone have time to analyze that?
A drone version of this aircraft (i.e. unpiloted) could be used to deliver around 200# of explosives which is sufficient to cause damage to a building. The top speed is around 65 mph so it wouldn’t be hard to shoot down.
Cruise missiles are a better delivery system for a 200# bomb and a bigger threat, I would think,since they would be more difficult to shoot down and just as difficult to identify on radar.
“When does anyone have time to analyze that”
This was not a new vehicle. It has been around for a long time and anyone expected to guard a building would know about it and instantly recognize it’s distinctive profile. In one of the older Bond movies (You only live twice, 1967) this is the style and size aircraft that was shipped as luggage and then assembled for the escape. Guards should not have dismissed it as a non-threat but nether should they have feared for their lives and they would have had minutes to decide what it was and even longer to take action as it likely had a forward speed of about 30mph and near zero at landing.
So I suppose its ok for anyone to fly anything on the Capitol grounds? Rules are just for show?
Let’s let everyone run across the White House lawn also. After all, we can see that they aren’t carrying an Uzi.
I’m not comfortable with the idea of “no exceptions”. Most people who do things at the Capitol or White House are mentally ill. Some are dangerous and some are not. It’s a judgment call for the police at the scene. I don’t think we should automatically kill anyone who is strange around our politicians just because they are elected politicians.
I don’t think anyone is saying “no exceptions.” However, this was a serious security breach. The goal should be to protect the public servants. Once we get off course, They become endangered. They can stop them without killing. Should that helicopter have made it all the way to the Capitol lawn? I saw no. Someone was asleep at the switch.
The original blog post said “no exceptions”.
So I did. There should be no exceptions to security. Oh well, its ok…excuse…is an invitation for something awful to happen. I have already said I am glad the guy wasn’t killed. But that contraption should not have been allowed to land where it did.
I think the response should be proportional to the threat and the goal is always to preserve life and then secondly preserve property.
The lives of alleged perpetrators are equally important as the lives of police officers and bystanders. That requires good training to decided what is the best course of action. My on-going beef is that the training emphasizes a violent response (usually shooting) rather than perfecting techniques or equipment that stops bad behavior without resulting in anyone’s death.
If someone is shooting at police officers I expect them to shoot back. However, they need more equipment or training if the only response they have to someone disregarding the law is to fire a hail of bullets. The concept of minimum force necessary has been corrupted by police into anything goes because we don’t hold them accountable when they use too much force.
I hope the police held their fire because they correctly recognized the threat level was low rather than that they were clueless.
They under responded. The response should have been much more forceful. This could be seen as a test of the response. Many people have under estimated the potential here.
If you fly the radar screen, it is possible to do this very thing. A slow, low flying drone, packed with C4, crashing into the capitol dome could co a lot of damage. Will it happen” Quite possible now that it has been demonstrated that you can evade the radar.
Excellent point, George.
He was just trying to feed his family.