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My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

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Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#71

Post by treis »

itslennysfault wrote: post #43
godshatter wrote: post #25

Shouldn't the dispatcher have given more precise directions than "follow the river"? If they had said "take a right and follow the river", this wouldn't have been a problem. I suppose they were used to professional pilots knowing what was meant, but they were already working to fit a small plane into a larger system presumably filled with mostly larger jets from commercial airlines that flew in and out of that airpor…

Honestly, I'm surprised by "follow the river" as a flight instruction. That sounds like the directions you'd get from someone that doesn't understand cardinal directions. "Turn right at the gas station, then turn left at the big oak tree" or something. I have no experience with flying, but I assumed it would be a heading / cardinal direction and not "turn right at [landmark]"

It's fairly obvious when you look at the map:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ronald+Reagan+Washington+N...

Left is upstream and away from DC. Right is towards restricted airspace.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#72

Post by cafard »

pivo wrote: post #18

I've just finished reading, "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" by Carol Leonnig [0]. In that book the author describes an incident on September 12, 1994 [1] in which a pilot landed a small plane in front of the white house. Secret Service members she interviewed were dumfounded that they were asked there to run to the white house roof with rifles to protect the building, and that there were no such…

"Landed" is not quite correct for 1994: the guy crashed it. (He had been smoking crack beforehand, as I recall.)

This led the government to close Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 15th and 17th Streets. The reasoning was not apparent, for the pilot had certainly not taken off there--he flew from a field in Maryland.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#73

Post by raldi »

amelius wrote: post #20

Of course the White House didn't want the same embarrassment as the Kremlin felt when some guy landed a sports airplane on the Red Square. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust

What a story! I've submitted it as a post of its own.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#74

Post by snowwrestler »

krisoft wrote: post #54
fh973 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no. The fact that to the left was a restricted airspace (that the pilot must be aware of) disambiguates the instructions already. Obviously the pilot did not do their flight preparation, was it includes being familiar with any airspace restrictions.

Also. I'm looking at a chart of the DC airspace. P-56, the restricted airspace containing the White House, is not on any rivers. If you are following the river (left, right, doesn't matter) then you are not getting into P-56. If you are oscillating around the river then yeah, you are going to have a bad time. Also, I'm looking at all the runways at this airport. They all have one obvious direction which way you shoul…

If you take off northbound, you only have a few seconds to turn left with the river before you’re over DC and into restricted airspace. If you take off and obliviously fly straight, it’s too late. It’s not a wide river.

Once you’re across the river, turning left is way worse (takes you directly over the federal complex), so ATC told them to turn right to exit the restricted airspace. That would take them around over SE DC.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#75

Post by boeingUH60 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #49
phpisthebest wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and the solution is not ever-increasing amount of security, but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual

I wonder how big Musk or Bezos's security teams are?

I'll bet it's large but nothing close to that of the President and other top government officials. For example, the U.S. government is currently paying $2 million per month to protect former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo due to Iran threats[1]. That's the former, now think of what it'll cost to protect the current Secretary plus all the private travel costs on that giant Boeing 757.

1- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-...

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#77

Post by phpisthebest »

aidenn0 wrote: post #66
phpisthebest wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and the solution is not ever-increasing amount of security, but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual

Assassinating the president has little to do with denying him the power of the presidency, and more to do with what he is a symbol of. Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers

Symbols can be powerful...

That is the issue, the foundational principle of the United States was that we were a federalist system with a weak and narrowly defined federal government. The office of Presidency should be inconsequential to the Everyday citizen of either the US or the world.

The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power"

>Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers

Again the theory of Distribution apply here to building as well. World Trade Center was attacked because NYC is seen as the Central Place for world finance.

NYC has become too powerful and that power should be distributed.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#78

Post by phpisthebest »

pixl97 wrote: post #67
phpisthebest wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and the solution is not ever-increasing amount of security, but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual

So how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government and nuclear weapon problem?

>>how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government

Federalism. The Federal Government does far too much and most of its function should be left to State and Local governments.

>>and nuclear weapon problem?

MAD is a terrible strategy, and I dont think our Nuclear weapons serve the function many believe they do.

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#79

Post by francisofascii »

After looking at the map I am a little confused on which river. Sounds like he took off in a NE direction and the ATC's command to "follow the river" meant follow the Anacostia river NE. Maybe the pilot was confused by the Washington Channel and started to follow that when he turned left?

Re: My grandfather was almost shot down at the White House (2018)

#80

Post by wolrah »

throw827474737 wrote: post #52
itslennysfault wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'm surprised by "follow the river" as a flight instruction. That sounds like the directions you'd get from someone that doesn't understand cardinal directions. "Turn right at the gas station, then turn left at the big oak tree" or something. I have no experience with flying, but I assumed it would be a heading / cardinal direction and not "turn right at [landmark]"

Hmm, can someone just paint me that path into Google Maps? Washington National has no 18, but only a 19, and I guess everyone takes off southwards as directly north is the White House? Also the river is like parallel to the runway and then the natural extension of it, so "follow the river" there is super clear, no turn needed? I must be looking at the wrong airport?

> Washington National has no 18, but only a 19

Depending on how long ago this happened that could be the same runway. There was an article that made the front page here in the last month or so about how the movement of the magnetic poles requires runway names to be adjusted periodically. This isn't that same article, I didn't feel like digging through my history, but it explains the same topic.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/airport-runway-names-shift-ma...

Agreed on the rest though, I just can't figure out a path that makes this story make sense.

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