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Incident in Tampa? Opinions on kid pilot

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After years of being a government (o.k; military) employee, all I can say is:

Stand by for the over reaction of the FAA.
 
Suicide issue

This is not so much an aviation issue (although everyone will make it one) as a suicide issue.

The point here is that we cannot see in the minds of people. We could not see Atta's intent nor this kids. All we can do is be dilligent.
 
Avbug,
As an instructor, supporter of General Aviation, and a career pilot, I have to disagree with you on a few points:

First, suggesting that the instructor in this case was negligent for allowing the student to preflight alone seems like a clear case of 20/20 hindsight. Obviously, in this case, the instructor should have been there. However, in most normal cases, allowing students to preflight alone is an important part of increasing the student's responsibility for the safety of a flight. Is the preflight a safety-critical item? Clearly, yes. Are we required to trust our students with safety critical items? Most definitely. Are we now expected to follow our students on their solo flights? To me, this seems no less ridiculous than monitoring every preflight.

Additionally, your suggestions for discreet squawk codes and flight plans, while well-meaning, seem rather simplistic for someone of your obvious experience and knowledge. What would have happened differently had this student filed a flight plan and been required to squawk a given code? No individual can know for sure, however, I can't imagine that anyone would have had time to respond in a constructive manner. Aside from possibly having more witnesses to the incident, how would this have prevented it? Do you suggest closing all uncontrolled airports? And requiring all aircraft to be transponder equipped? What about ultralights? Where does it end?

I agree with you that age was not a factor. I further agree with you that we need to police ourselves and know our students. Currently, I teach flight instructors. I firmly believe there is nothing more important in flight training than understanding a student's desires, and motivations. It is possibe to implement all your suggestions. I believe that doing so would probably increase safety and situational awareness, to a certain extent and at tremendous cost. However, we must be extremely careful. We can allow aviation to become so rigidly controlled and expensive that fewer can afford to make a hobby out of it, much less a career. What happens then? What do we do when we have made aviation 100% terrorist-proof? What do we do when that happens and some 15 year old straps explosives, or a rifle to his body and walks into a crowded shopping mall? How much freedom are you willing to sacrifice? It starts with a flight plan and squawk code, where does it end?
 
I'm a CFI right now and my suggestion will be this to the Chief: Usually (before 2 days ago) we send out people to preflight with a fuel sample cup and the keys and the aircraft documents. How about removing the keys and just send the out with a fuel sample cup? Then, when the CFI is ready to go out, the CFI takes the keys to the aircrart. Then the student can still prefligh alone gaining confidence knowing that they just can't take off like this kid did. Opinions?
 
Not handin over the keys isn't a solution as with most GA I have flown from an FBO you could use a screwdriver to start. The keys just make it easy.

I think if someone truely wants to steal a GA plane it can be done. There are precautions one could take to secure planes, but with the total number of GA in the U.S. - good luck.

Just like all the security devices one can add to a car, alarms, kill switches, steering bars etc, they can all be bypassed by someone who knows what they are doing or wants it bad enough.

The faa will/should install features that make it tougher to get access to a plane. But again, with the number of GA out there I don't see one solution to security and who has access or gives access.
 
I instruct at this school, knew the kid, know his instructor, and have spent many hours in that plane. Like all of us, I am really wondering what kind of changes will take place. I never would think that this kid was the type that would do something like this. Nobody did.

I don't think that anti-theft devices installed on the planes will be the answer any time soon.

Keys seem like a quick fix, but like aero99 said, they just make it easy to start. I know of truck toolbox keys that open airplanes.

I did not know the mother, and I don't want to speculate too much, but could she have prevented this? Nobody seems to know what motivation this kid had to do this...yet. But if you had clues that your child might be psycholigically unstable, would you let him fly? Again, I am not placing blame! I don't know the facts about the relatives. Just putting out an idea.

Happy Flying.
 
Feel-good rulemaking

Come on people. Taking the keys? Are we planning to allow solo flights? While we're at it, what about suicidal instructors? Who is going to take the keys from them? Jealously guarding the keys to our airplanes won't solve a thing. This is exactly the kind of thoughtless rule that we will likely see proposed by our law-makers. While this may help their constituents feel better: "Whew! I'm sure glad no other pre-solo students will be able to steal the airplane quite as easily... Problem solved!" it will solve nothing. The only way to prevent occurences like this is to be aware of a student's motivations, as Avbug stated, and to remember that there is no way to protect against every eventuality. Aviation is a high-risk endeavor.
 
The Government?

I would like to believe as much as the rest of you that the government is here to help!

Its like the old saying goes about the FAA when they show up on the ramp, " I am here to help" well if you are going to lie then I'll say "I am glad to see you".

If you add more government, you can forget about climbing in your J-3 and flying down the beach on a nice warm sunny afternoon. I don't think I am jumping the gun either. If the gov. starts implementing new rules, it will never end.

Look at whats happening to the banner tows for instence around the country, this is not going to help the situation, people are losing their a$$ because of the entire situation since Sept. 11th.

All I am trying to say is, the gov. has good intentions from the begining, but in no time it turns into a sensationalized boxing match of rhetoric and stupid ideas from people who don't know what they are talking about, "suit and tie folks".

One good example, Airport security issue. Give me a break!

Here's a good one, I bet some people are already discussing puting armed National Guard at your local FBO in case of another suicidal youth.

LR25
 
Self-Policing

I second Bluto and others that we should police ourselves. One thing we are taught to do as instructors is to try to identify students who may have unsafe tendencies. I believe we do a good job of that 99.996% of the time. Once in a while, someone slips through the cracks. We don't know yet the experience level of this kid's instructor, both in aviation and in knowing people.

My experience as a flight instructor for seven years and having met all kinds of students is that most are at least responsible. Of course, some students are more mature than others. The training process includes the gradual transfer of responsibility from instructor to student, beginning with conducting the preflight. I realize the instructor will retain ultimate responsibility until the student passes his/her Private, but exercising that responsibility doesn't mean micromanaging each student.

Sometimes, parents don't always know their kids. Take the two punks in Columbine as a classic example.

The system has worked pretty well for nearly 100 years. Give it a chance to work this time.
 
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i've got mixed feelings on the subject of holding the keys. on one hand, it seems like a great idea to prevent this from happening again. however, if you really want to steal something, there's not much to stop you. why do we deadbolt our doors at home? can one small lock deter a theif? why not break down the door? why not break a window? a deadbolt isn't fool-proof. neither is an airplane. the key does make it easier...but how many car theives use the victim's keys? there is no stopping the inevitable. we can only make it more difficult for them to complete their task. i can see the damage done by this 15 year-old from the parking garage behind my house. seems strange that these things can happen so close to home.

someone said earlier how easy we forget. the 15 year-old flew through macdill afb airspace. i read a news article saying atc told macdill about the cessna before it arrived. macdill is the command center for the operations in afghanistan. yet the only aircraft in trail of the 172 was an unarmed coast guard helicopter. (blackhawk i assume?) why was this not treated as it should have been? how can we let down our guard so soon after the recent attacks on our freedom? has our government forgotten 9-11?

people are thankful that no one else was hurt in the "accident." but all pilots know it will happen again. what will it take to make the government more aggressive on possible attacks?

just my opinion.
 

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