The White House now says that a small airplane entered restricted airspace and came within three miles of the White House and Capitol, prompting an evacuation and the highest security alert level since September 11, 2001. Fighter jets forced the small plane to land a short time later and Maryland State Police have taken two men into custody.
The aircraft's tail number is N5826G -- this is the registration for that plane. The plane was registered to the Vintage Aero Club in the Lancaster County city of Smoketown, Pennsylvania.
An AP story said:
The plane belongs to Vintage Aero Club, a group of about 10 people who fly it out of Smoketown Airport in Lancaster County, said club member Merv King, a salesman from Gordonville.
A friend said the plane was scheduled to be flown by Jim Sheaffer, of Lititz, and a student pilot to an air show in Lumberton, N.C.
Former club member John E. Henderson, of Lancaster, said he helped Sheaffer clean the 1970 Cessna on Tuesday and prepare it to be flown Wednesday. Henderson said Sheaffer was expected to be accompanied by a student pilot, Troy Martin, of Akron, Pa.
"I am embarrassed and dismayed. It's awful easy for this to happen to anyone," Henderson said. "It's just a shame that it happened to this guy, because he is one swell guy."
Martin's wife, Jill, said the two men left late Wednesday morning for Lumberton. She saw her husband on television and believes the incident was a simple mistake.
"Troy was discussing with me last night after they made their flight plans all about the no-fly zones and how they were going to avoid them. He said they were going to fly between two different restricted areas," Jill Martin said.
These little Cessna 150 aircraft are widely used as training planes. This was not the first time that that airplane has been involved in an incident. In 1979, a 22-year-old pilot who only had minimal experience hit some trees on a windy day.
After September 11, 2001, the government established an Air Defense Identification Zone –- which is a 30-mile circle around Reagan Washington National Airport and 22-mile circles around Dulles and Baltimore-Washington international airports. You can see those circles on this map that describes the D.C. airspace rules.
Pilots who enter the airspace must communicate with air traffic controllers, transmit a four-digit identifier with their transponders and take other measures to let controllers know their identity and intentions.
There are even more restrictions inside the 15.75-mile inner circle called the Flight Restricted Zone.
On April, 27, the President was taken to a secure bunker after a mysterious object was thought to be flying in D.C. airspace. Then, it was not a plane but clouds that set off the concern.
CNN recently reported:
Incursions into the restricted space are common. NORAD officials said there are typically two or three incursions a day, usually by pilots not familiar with the restrictions or who stray from their intended flight paths.
The most notable incident occurred during President Reagan's funeral activities last summer when a jet carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher entered the airspace with a broken transponder, prompting the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol.
..."There are so many high-value targets in this area. It is the center of government. We need to do everything we can to protect it," Daniel said.
AVWeb.com looked at why pilots stray:
A review of 500 of the most recent "airspace incursion" reports to the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database shows a variety of causes, but many of them fall into 10 rather clearly defined categories. This analysis, which comes from data posted to the ASRS database before the deluge of flight restrictions after 9/11, shows that unfamiliarity, complexity, confusion and high-tech avionics were often to blame. Airspace incursions run the gamut. They can be mere technical violations of some obscure rule, but they can also have real safety consequences.
Statistics on near-midair collisions show that many of them happen in Class B, C and D airspace, which is perhaps intuitive given that those places are where airplanes tend to cluster.
But the statistics also drive home one point: An airspace intrusion is an indirect measure of increased risk for midair collisions. As you get closer to busy airports and into busy airspace, the need to communicate and abide by airspace rules increases exponentially. In addition, keep your head on a swivel even if you're on an IFR flight plan.
The stray aircraft comes just as the federal government is about to start using lasers as a way of warning aircraft when they stray into restricted airspace.
CNN reported:
Beginning in mid-May, pilots who intrude into restricted airspace over the nation's capital will be warned by pulsating red and green laser beams, part of a government effort to prevent a terrorist attack.
The U.S. military will activate the ground-based lasers whenever unauthorized or unresponsive aircraft enter the restricted zone, a huge swath of airspace surrounding the region's three major airports.
The bright laser beams, which flash red-red-green, are easily seen, even during daylight or in a sea of city lights. But because the beams are directional, they rarely will be seen by other aircraft or by the public, except in hazy conditions. The laser beams can be seen 15 to 20 miles away, authorities said, except in cloudy conditions.
Unreported Missing Children
The Scripps Howard News Service reported:
A first-of-its-kind study of computer files at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conducted by Scripps Howard News Service has found that dozens of police departments across the nation failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990.
Seventeen of these unreported children are dead, 131 are still missing.
The story says that there is no record that many police departments notified state and federal authorities as required by law. That failure to notify makes it much more difficult for other departments to know that a child is even missing.
The story continues:
The National Child Search Assistance Act requires police to immediately accept any report of a missing child and file that report with federal authorities and the state's missing-child clearinghouse. Failure to report often makes it impossible for police anywhere to determine if a child is missing. While most missing children are returned home safely, police have no way of knowing which children are in real danger.
Police officials around the country offered several excuses for their reporting failures, including ignorance of the law, a backlog of missing-child reports and confusion over the best way to handle such cases.
The story continued:
The study, based on 37,665 missing children reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2004, found that 12 percent of those children were not reported to the FBI.
The center receives only a fraction of the known number of reports on missing children, although often they are the most serious cases. The center tracked about 1 percent of the 3.4 million missing-child cases over that five-year period. Trends found in this study suggest hundreds of thousands of missing children were improperly reported during that time.
The Scripps Howard folks sent along to Al's Morning Meeting readers these links to help you think locally about this story. If you use the data, Scripps just asks that you credit them.
Here is a state-by-state chart:
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=MISSING-CHART1-05-10-05
And a chart of the findings in the 50 larger cities they examined:
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=MISSING-CHART2-05-10-05
Worldwide Large Tire Shortage
This is a story about a shortage of big tires. I am talking about huge tires that giant construction trucks, like those used in mining, might use. These tires can be 12-feet tall and cost $30,000 each. Tire makers say that every tire that will be produced through the end of next year is already spoken for and the problem might last until 2007.
ConstructionEquipmentGuide.com reports:
The shortage is walloping contractors in the mining industry, sources told CEG, and is becoming more painful for other contractors as well.
"Contractors are having some trouble getting tires, but the mining industry is 100 percent worse because it uses bigger tires," said Al Chicago, president of Purcell's Western States Tire Co. in Phoenix, Ariz.
"Contractors do use some small and medium size earthmovers and can utilize different types of tires, both radials and bias. The mining industry, however, uses mainly radials [where the greatest shortage exists] because no bias tires are being built for this equipment."
The Business Journal of Milwaukee looked into whether the shortage might delay road construction projects:
Contractors insist critical construction projects are in no danger of being delayed. However, they are paying 60 percent more in 2005 than a year ago for large tires, and many contractors are receiving new equipment without company-supplied spare tires.
An AP story said:
In the coalfields of Central Appalachia and across the country, that means that coal operators, equipment sellers and tire dealers are constantly searching for replacements.
"There are eight people trying to get the same tire," said [Steve] Walker, president of Walker Machinery Co. in Belle.
And when they get one, it doesn't last long. At a surface mine, the life expectancy for heavy machinery tires is about six months.
The shortage comes at a time when coal and mineral mining companies are trying to take advantage of high prices.
West Virginia is the nation's second-largest coal producer, and Central Appalachian coal is selling on the spot market for about $65 a ton, according to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.
"A lot of this has to do with the growth of developing nations, China being one of them," said Chris Karbowiak with Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. "What you're also seeing in the world is raw material prices are going very, very high."
Who Exports What to Where (State by State)
An old friend of mine, Joel Moses, sent me this phenomenal Web site called TradeStats that allows you to see what each state exports and to whom they ship the stuff. Pick your state, pick a product and click the start button.
This could be useful in identifying what products are producing big bucks through overseas sales. It would be an interesting way to see what neighboring states are doing that you are not. It would be a way to localize international stories like tariffs, embargoes, value of the dollar and so on. The site is presented by the Office of Trade and Industry Information (OTII), Manufacturing and Services, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
You can also see what people in your state sell to people in a specific country, for example how much trade there is between Texas and Iceland.
Or you can find out which states are doing the most trade with Iraq (Texas, Georgia, and Florida lead the pack). This is a wonderful tool, play with it and send me a note about stories that it generates for you.
Car Maintenance Left Undone
I was
reading a Web site that monitors how much we spend maintaining our cars. The site says that in times of high gas prices, people buy tons of new air filters and tune-ups, anything to improve gas mileage. But we do not maintain air conditioners, brakes and other "under car" items as much.
The Benefits of Small Elementary Classes
The American Psychological Association Web site says:
A new study involving a large sample of students followed for 13 years shows that four or more years in small classes in elementary school significantly increases the likelihood of graduating from high school, especially for students from low-income homes. The study is reported on in the May issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology. Here is the full text of the article.
Wounded Warrior Bill
Military.com reports:
House and Senate negotiators have agreed to legislation that will benefit traumatically injured military personnel. The "wounded warrior" amendment, sponsored by Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), is part of an $82.04 billion package now on its way to the president. Military members traumatically injured would receive from $25,000 to $100,000 for injuries. In addition to the "Wounded Warrior" benefits, the new legislation on its way to the president authorizes the Department of Defense to increase to $500,000 the amount that can be paid to surviving families of deceased servicemen.
The Knight Ridder newswire added:
The precise number of troops who would qualify for the retroactive benefit is unknown. According to Pentagon figures, about 6,400 GIs have been so seriously injured that they didn't return to duty in Iraq or Afghanistan since conflict started there on Oct. 7, 2001.
Craig's original bill detailed how much compensation each injury would merit. A soldier who lost both hands or feet, for example, or who was blinded, or lost a hand and one eye would have received $100,000, the maximum amount. Loss of speech would have warranted $50,000 and loss of a thumb and index finger on the same hand merited $25,000.
Under the final bill, the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments determine the amounts.
Currently, GIs are eligible for disability payments only after leaving the military. While injured troops receive free medical care, they are ineligible for injury insurance.
The new benefit would be part of the federally subsidized Service members Group Life Insurance plan, the only form of casualty insurance available for military personnel. Premiums for the new coverage would cost soldiers about $1 per month, which would raise about $30 million to help pay future costs. To pay for retroactive coverage for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the government expects to spend about $100 million.
The benefit wouldn't reduce any other government assistance that a wounded soldier might receive.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
From Stats.org on problematic and often-reported statistics often wrongly reported...
