F-16 fighter jet intercepted airplane in restricted airspace over OC during Biden speech

[quaint]

OCRegister

A single-engine Cessna airplane was intercepted by an F-16 fighter jet with the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s continental U.S. region after entering restricted airspace over Orange County while President Joe Biden gave a speech at Irvine Valley College last week, authorities said.

NORAD pilots became aware of the airplane as it flew above the Santa Ana area about 3:10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, NORAD officials said in a news release. Biden was speaking about 12 miles away.

The pilots attempted to contact the pilot by radio and when there was no response, they “dispensed flares to gain the attention of the general aviation aircraft, which is standard procedure used to communicate with pilots,” NORAD officials said.

Flight mapping on FlightAware showed the Cessna pilot took off from Kingman, Ariz. The pilot was in the restricted airspace about four minutes before turning around and landing in Chino at shortly before 3:30 p.m.

[lapfog_1]

1. he should lose his pilots license for ignoring the radio

and it's not like the F-16 is something you sort of ignore when flying.

[getagrip_already]

2. I'll settle for fining him for the f-16's mission time......

That will leave a bigger mark.

Those flares alone are probably hundreds of dollars each, if not thousands.

[lapfog_1]

3. not a bad idea

The F-16C Viper costs $22,514 to operate per hour.

this might have been a 2 hour mission.

No idea about the flares...

so, yeah, I'd be good with that as a fine.

[quaint]

4. A very fine idea.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

5. This guy knew exactly what he was doing.

He ignored the radio comms. There are two frequencies (emergency channels) that are supposed to be on during THE ENTIRE FLIGHT. He obviously ignored them. Then they did a side-by-side fly by. The sheer power of those jets would have literally shaken the Cessna. Then they lobbed flares. Still nothing. Finally, the heatbutted him. That means that they dropped down in FRONT of him. You cannpt ignore that. Not in a single engine Cessna.

This guy was up to no good. Perhaps testing response time ?

[quaint]

6. TY for the information