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CNN Live Saturday
15-Year-Old Crashes Plane Into Building in Tampa
Aired January 05, 2002 - 20:00 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We've got a story for you we've been tracking this afternoon. Federal investigators are in Tampa, Florida where a small plane crashed into a skyscraper, just a few hours ago.
Coast Guard officials say it happened after the 15-year-old student pilot made an unauthorized takeoff and then ignored signals to land. Sheriff's deputies say they believe the teenager stole the plane while performing a pre-flight inspection. Two other small planes crashed about the same time, one in Orange County, California, the other near Boulder, Colorado.
We want to get more perspective on exactly what's going on today, and talk more about tonight's three small plane crashes with someone close to the aviation industry.
John King joins us from San Diego, California. He owns an aviation training company. Good evening, John.
JOHN KING, FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: Good evening.
LIN: Well, what do you make of what happened today? Let's start with Tampa. Does this sound like an act of terrorism to you?
KING: No it doesn't. It sounds to me like someone was teaching this young person to fly, and there are programs all around the country teaching young people to fly and it inspires them. It gives them a third dimension in their lives. It's a wonderful thing. In this particular case, the student might not have done the right thing with the aircraft, but it's one of the risks of teaching people to fly.
LIN: Well, we don't know exactly what happened or even if there was anybody on board. But initial reports say that he was alone and that he stole this plane. Would a student pilot have the capacity to be able to jump in, get behind the controls, take off and take flight?
KING: Well, of course. That's the whole idea of teaching someone to fly is you ultimately transfer the responsibility from the instructor to the student, and we don't know how far along this student might have been in his training. But of course, that's the whole point of teaching them to fly.
LIN: Well, let's see if this makes sense to you. According to an early wire report, he was pre -- he was at the stage where he was at the pre-certification stage of his training. Given that description, would you say that he had the capacity to fly, the ability to fly a plane?
KING: Well technically and legally he can not solo the airplane until he's 16 years old. So clearly, he shouldn't have been soloing the airplane.
But the whole idea of giving a student flight instruction is that, yes he could be taught to fly, and many students are precocious enough that they could learn at a very young age. Fifteen is not beyond the capability of a student to fly an airplane very successfully at the age of 15.
LIN: If he was aware that Coast Guard helicopters were chasing him, and at one point somebody on board the Coast Guard helicopter had signaled him to turn around and fly back. Would he have understood those signals? Would he have understood the gravity of the situation?
KING: It depends on whether he had received that element of his curriculum. Of course, all pilots who learn to fly do learn that. But we don't know how much training this student had. But if he had completed his training, of course he would have known that.
You know, I would suspect that in this particular case, we have a student who knew he was doing something he shouldn't have been doing.
LIN: And a tragic situation. John King, I don't know if I mentioned it, but we have confirmed that the 15-year-old died in that plane crash. Thank you very much. A quick last question for you, we mentioned two other plane crashed today, so three small plane crashes in a single afternoon around the country. Is this unusual?
KING: Well there are about 800 accidents or fewer than 800 accidents in small airplanes per year. That works out to about two or three a day. So what happens is, and of course we have one accident, then all the other accidents become newsworthy.
No, this isn't an unusual rash of accidents. It's not many when you look at the total of how many airplanes there are and how many pilots there are. To have two or three a day is not extraordinary, but that's the normal average and this would be a normal day.
LIN: Well, John King, these are not average times and I'm sure just the profile of this, hearing that a plane had been stolen and obviously crashing into an office building alarmed many people. All right. Thank you very much. John King in San Diego today.
KING: Thank you.
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