CNN/AP: FAA restricts Manhattan flight path over East River

[Patsy Stone]

POSTED: 6:49 p.m. EDT, October 13, 2006

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/10/13/faa.plane.crash.ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Fixed-wing planes have been banned from the East River corridor in New York unless the pilot is in contact with air traffic control, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.

The announcement comes two days after after a plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle above the East River slammed into a skyscraper.

The general aviation corridors around Manhattan have been "the Wild West," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York. He and Sen. Charles Schumer had recommended that anyone flying near the island should be under the supervision of air traffic controllers, especially in the post-September 11 era.

"A smart terrorist could load up a small, little plane with biological, chemical or even nuclear material and fly up the Hudson or East rivers, no questions asked," said Schumer, D-New York. "I hope this will be a wake-up call to the FAA to re-examine flight patterns, which, amazingly enough, they haven't done since 9/11."

[DUyellow]

1. Schumer, thanks for being on top of that, where have you been

Schumer could have said something for the past 5 years.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

2. what about Hillary? eom

[Solo_in_MD]

3. Speaking as a high time pilot, more BS from pols who know nothing

about flying

[karlrschneider]

6. Or about rented trucks either.

sheesh...

[KDLarsen]

4. Dear mr. Schumer..

.. just exactly WHAT would happen if a would-be terroist loaded up a small airplane and flew up the East River Corridor anyway? The FAA KNEW on 9/11 that the 4 airplanes were hijacked, but they couldn't do jack because the transponders (which relays an aircrafts position to the controllers) had been turned off - the very same thing could be done in a small airplane.

As someone said earlier - another knee-jerk reaction by people who have no idea what they're legislating about.

[karlrschneider]

5. And a slightly smarter terrorist could call ATC and get clearance.

Jesusfuckingchrist, these armchair screwballs...
:eyes: :grr:

[Patsy Stone]

7. Roger Cressey was talking about this the other day

About permanently restricting NYC airspace and what a nightmare for the airlines. Roger's point, and an excellent one, was that if some terrorist wanted to violate restricted airspace they would find a way -- because they're terrorists. The real issue, of course, is to stop them from getting in the planes and the cockpits to begin with.

[karlrschneider]

8. Maybe, but it's a hell of a lot easier to rent a Ryder truck than to

rent a plane, or steal one...and the truck can carry several tons of explosives.

[Patsy Stone]

9. True dat

But telling someone they can't do it is not going to make someone not do it if they really want to -- whatever it is. There are so many gigantic holes in security around the transportation industry it's ridiculous.

[OneBlueSky]

10. um . . . doesn't the Hudson River also flow past Manhattan? . . .

if a terrorist could load a small plane with explosives and enter NYC from the east, couldn't he or she just as easily do it from the west? . . .

so why don't the restrictions also apply to the Hudson corridor? . . .

[Princess Turandot]

11. The issue with the East River corridor..

is that planes cannot fly north of Roosevelt Island w/o permission from LaGuardia air traffic control, because they would enter the airport's airspace once they pass the island. I don't think they are allowed to fly across NYC land itself, so they need to make a 180 degree turn to go back down the river.
On the Hudson side, they could just turn left to New Jersey. It's sounds like they changed the regulation for air traffic safety (whatever the impact may even be) not because of terrorist attack potential.

[Coventina]

12. Well, I'm going to court unpopularity and call this a good thing

I agree that terrorists are going to find a way to attack if they want to, that's a separate problem.

But obviously, there does seem to be a problem, I mean, the accident happened. Don't we want to prevent future accidents? I don't see any good reason to have small planes flying willy-nilly around skyscrapers.

I think there needs to be more regulation on planes flying around cities. I have personal experience of a small plane crashing into a neighbor's backyard and decapitating a young girl that was in the pool (they were having a pool party)some other people there were also killed, as well as the pilot. I wasn't there, I was at work at the time, it was my younger sister's classmate.

[allisonthegreat]

13. Is this still under investigation? n/t