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CNN Live Today

Fighter Planes Scrambled Too Late to Reach White House

Aired June 20, 2002 - 12:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We still want to take you to the White House, where officials tell CNN that the military planes dispatched last night to the White House would not have arrived in time to intercept a small plane. The plane had flown too close to the building, prompting some very tense moments.

I want to welcome one of our newest CNN family members, my old friend and colleague, Suzanne Malveaux. She's at the White House -- good to see you, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Fred.

We do have some new details from the White House. First of all, we are told this morning that the president was not notified of this incident until this morning, that, according to security protocol, the level of danger really wasn't high enough to actually tell him what was going on. And, of course, if that had happened, they would have shuttled him and the first lady to the underground bunker. But they said he was never in any danger, and that decision, of course, would have also involved the presidential protective detail.

The decision, however, was made by the uniformed division of the Secret Service. They protect the grounds here. They made that call to actually clear out some of the media, the tourists, as well as some of the staffers out here late last night. That was the discrepancy.

We have also learned from my colleague, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, that the point at which the plane was closest to the White House, those two F-16s that were scrambled from Andrew's Air Force Base were not even in the air at that point. Of course, calling into question the whole process, whether or not it is effective in actually protecting the White House, whether or not they should have 24-hour patrol over this area, or whether or not they should extend that buffer zone.

We learned earlier today that the plane actually did not enter what is called the permanent perimeter. That is the closest circle to the White House, but rather the expanded perimeter. That is a wider buffer zone that was set up since September 11. But clearly a lot of questions. We anticipate that will come up in the briefing -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And Suzanne, that pilot then is not looking at any potential charges either, right? MALVEAUX: Well, that's right. We talked to -- federal officials had actually questioned the pilot, as well as the passenger, and they believe this was all just an accident, that there were no weapons aboard the plane, there was no kind of suspicious material that they found.

And amazingly, this type of thing does happen more often than you think. Some of the incidents, they say, most of them really are either slapped with a fine or given a warning, because a lot of times, particularly in dealing with these small planes, they might make a mistake and fly into kind of a no-fly zone area. They give them a warning. Most of the times those pilots respond, however, to the air traffic controllers. And that didn't happen this time.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Suzanne Malveaux, from the White House.

Now for more on this story about the White House scare, we turn to our resident aviation expert, CNN's Miles O'Brien. He's over at the Big Board -- and Miles, I have to interrupt you when that White House briefing begins, because we're expecting that it will begin momentarily.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: All right, Fredricka. I won't take it personally.

I will say this, however, there's probably a very good chance that pilot will lose his pilot's license. The FAA does take these matters very seriously. That remains to be seen -- a little bit of speculation there.

Let's talk about the plane for just a moment. Single-engine Cessna 182. It's not a pressurized aircraft. It cruises at all of 160 miles an hour. It's a four-seater. With fuel, weighs about 3,000 pounds; probably half the Chevy Suburban that sits in your driveway in weight. It's a light aircraft, not a lot of speed and performance. It's sort of the Chevy of the skies, if you will.

Let's talk about the flight path of this particular plane: Gardner, Massachusetts the point of origin; Raleigh, North Carolina the location.

As you can see from this map, Washington D.C. is sort of the mid- way point in all of this. According to the flight planning software I use, a direct flight would have put him at least 40 miles -- nautical miles to the east of Washington. But there was some weather in the area. Let's take a look at last night's radar signature.

And as you can see from here, these are some of the radar returns showing some convective activity, thunderstorms in the D.C. area. As we move in a little bit closer, we will give you a sense of that. And just to give you a sense, the route of flight would have taken him right about like that. Now that obviously is something that a VFR pilot is not going to want to fly through.

Visual Flight Rules is VFR. That means you do not fly in the clouds. So it is very likely he called flight service, which we know he did, requested a deviation, which would have put him right into the path of Washington D.C.

Now, let's take a closer look at D.C. and give you a sense of what he was contending with. This blue disk that kind of looks like Mickey Mouse ears here, all around the D.C. area, is the Class B or Class Bravo airspace, all around the D.C. metro area. Pilots can fly above this at 10,000 feet or higher, but in a 15 nautical mile -- or statute mile disk right around the Washington Monument, that limit or that ceiling is 18,000 feet.

So, if the Cessna went into that particular disk, he would have been in a restricted area. In addition to the restricted area, you see these two little red spots here. That is the Mall area and the U.S. Naval Observatory, home to the Vice President. Those are prohibited zones. No one should be flying through there.

We should point out that about four commercial airliners have violated these very rules in the past months since 9/11, so it is not uncommon for this to occur. A Visual Flight Rules pilot trying to avoid some weather could very easily accidentally at that time of day stray into that prohibited space.

So that's what we know about it so far. It remains to be seen what the FAA will do about it, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Miles O'Brien, thank you very much.

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