Rifton Aviation Services in the News - January 11

Rifton Aviation Services in the News - January 11

Tampa incident brings tighter rules to Orange County's flight schools.

   By Anuradha Raghunathan
   Times Herald-Record
   
Nice Jewish boys don't fly airplanes.

Mike Freed had grown up hearing this as a teen-ager in the 1970s. Freed 
had told himself that he was a nice boy all right, but he would fly.

"Flying is the most incredible thing I've ever done and will ever do," 
said the 48-year-old entrepreneur, who runs a vending company in Orange 
County. "There is something magical about an airport."

But part of that freedom, and the easy access to aviation, came into 
question last weekend, when a 15-year-old stole a four-seat Cessna from a 
flight school and crashed it into a Bank of America Plaza building in 
downtown Tampa, Fla. The youth's suicide mission was a small-scale replay 
of the World Trade Center attacks, though no one else was injured.

The teenager had expressed sympathy for Osama bin Laden in a suicide 
note.

Aviation buffs like Freed swear that one of the defining freedoms in 
America is the ability to fly your own little Cessna out of and into any 
of the thousands of small general aviation airports that dot the country.

Freed loves walking up and down runways; he enjoys breaking through the 
clouds in his airplane just four minutes after take-off, and he is 
passionate about teaching flying.

"Flying is part of our freedom," said Freed, who has nearly 1,000 hours 
of flight instruction behind him. He offers private flying lessons at the 
Orange County Airport in Montgomery.

That freedom is tightening up. On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation 
Administration issued new guidelines to the 4,500 flight schools across 
the country. The mid-Hudson has several flight schools, including two out 
of Orange County Airport and one out of Randall Airport in the Town of 
Wallkill.

The guidelines seek to prevent what happened at Tampa.

That Saturday, the teen-ager came for his flight lessons 15 minutes 
early. He picked up the emergency manuals and the keys to a plane. He 
entered the restricted area because the airport authorities knew him. He 
then untied the airplane and took off.

The FAA is now asking flight schools and flight instructors to follow 
simple procedures: Use different keys for the airplane ignition and for 
the airplane door; check IDs of students; give the ignition key to the 
student only when the student arrives at the aircraft.

Regulatory authorities say that there are two goals – protect consumers 
from attack and prevent the use of aircraft as weapons.

At Orange County Airport, the management has already sent out the new 
guidelines to the two flight schools there.

Donna Squillante , director of operations at Freedom Air Inc., one of the 
flight schools at the Orange County Airport, says that at her school, two 
of the four planes are kept locked, inside locked hangars. Two other 
planes are locked and tied down.

General aviation practitioners see the Tampa incident as a breach of 
trust and not as a breach of security.

"It was the motivation of one young man," said Dick Knapinski, spokesman 
for the National Association of Flight Instructors. "This was a single 
incident involving a troubled young man."

But aviation experts across the country admit that the general aviation 
system could do with some tightening.

Today, there are no background checks on the students who come to learn 
flying at a local school. The only restrictions are that the student 
cannot fly solo until he or she is 16, and that a student cannot get a 
pilot's license until he or she is 17.

As for the pilot's license itself, it is nothing more than a piece of 
paper – slightly larger than an average business card. It has identifiers 
like name, nationality, sex and hair color, but there is no photo 
identification.

Also, in the case of aircraft rentals, anyone can walk in with a valid ID 
and a pilot's license and rent an airplane out of the Orange County 
Airport – just as a consumer might rent a car.
   
How do you regulate?
When trying to draft security recommendations, regulators are faced with 
the enormity and the unorganized nature of general aviation. The segment 
includes everything from crop dusters to emergency medical aircraft to 
news helicopters.

And there are nearly 200,000 United States registered general aviation 
aircraft that use nearly 18,000 public and private airports in the 
country.

While commercial airports like La Guardia Airport and Stewart 
International Airport have seen steep security restrictions, ranging from 
baggage screening to ID checking, the small general aviation airports 
have not faced such scrutiny since Sept. 11.

By and large, the take-offs and landings of general aviation aircraft are 
not even monitored by any agency. Many of these airplanes fly under what 
are called Visual Flight Rules. So pilots do not have to inform the FAA 
before taking off or landing.

And once they are up in the air, pilots simply follow the rule of the 
sky: see and be seen.

Even today, a single-engine plane can take off from, say, Orange County 
Airport or Dutchess County Airport and fly over Indian Point.

"We have told pilots not to fly low or circle over nuclear power 
plants," said Jim Peters, an FAA spokesman. "If a single-engine Cessna 
172 were circling Indian Point, we would probably be contacted by the 
plant management."

Aviation experts say it is harder to regulate general aviation because it 
is almost like private transportation. Many general aviation aircraft are 
owned by individuals.

Also, experts say that the general aviation aircraft that take off 
unannounced in the many and sundry airports across the country are too 
small to cause any damage even if they were in the path of a commercial 
jet.

The Tampa teen-ager took the four-seat Cessna through restricted air 
space over MacDill Air Force Base, where military officers are 
coordinating the war effort. 

In its brief 9- to 12-minute journey, the plane also ended up flying 
1,000 feet above a Southwest Airlines flight.

Authorities, however, are not worried.

"I cannot imagine a scenario where a terrorist would take a small plane 
and ram it into a flying plane," said Fritz Kass , director of aviation 
at Orange County Airport. "It's just not going to work."

Kass was the assistant chief of operations for the Naval Support Force 
during "Operation Desert Storm" in the Gulf War. 

But questions still remain about whether these small planes could carry 
bombs or biological agents and thereby cause damage.

General aviation is an economic driver in Orange County. On the corporate 
aviation front, executives from Home Depot, Allegiance Healthcare and 
Baxter fly into Orange County Airport, and United Nations representatives 
fly into the Rifton Aviation facility at Stewart International Airport.

Aside from the economic aspect, there are the entertainment and 
educational factors. Dozens of flying buffs have their own airplanes. 
Orange County Airport, for instance, is home to nearly 245 general 
aviation aircraft of all sizes and shapes.

In December, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta suggested several 
steps for better general aviation security, from fencing airports to 
using biometric devices to verify identity.

He also recommended an automated system that will allow qualified general 
aviation airports to have access to "watch lists" for criminals.

But how much security can be built into tiny airports?

"There are thousands of airports in this country with just one 
airplane," observed Jim Christiansen, chairman of the National Air 
Transportation Association, which oversees issues relating to general 
aviation. "There are airports that don't even have fences, let alone 
National Guardsmen and metal detectors."

At the privately run Randall Airport, owner Charles Brodie couldn't agree 
more. He runs a one-man operation and the airport is supervised only when 
he is around. "There is only one person and only so many hours in a 
day," said Brodie.

But even as airport owners and regulators grapple with the balance 
between security and feasibility, enthusiasts like Freed say the 
terrorist attacks assaulted their basic freedoms.

Freed, the son of a truck delivery man, says that he had the ability to 
further his aviation dream only because he was in America. He now owns a 
single-engine Piper.

"The beauty is that we have the ability to do that in this country," said 
Freed. "This (freedom) is a part of America. I just hope everyone acts in 
a reasonable manner."
   
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