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American Morning

White House Evacuated After Small Plane Wanders into Air Space

Aired June 20, 2002 - 07:28   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Secret Service last night evacuated the White House. That as a small plane violated Washington air space. The evacuation is the first since September 11 and it happened just after the president have first lady returned from a fund raiser.

Our Suzanne Malveaux is at the White House and she joins us now on the details of what looks like it was a rather tense evening at the White House -- Suzanne, good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

It certainly was an uneasy evening here at the White House when the Secret Service calmly but sternly began the evacuation. It happened just after the president was returning from a fund raiser. He and the first lady were in the residence at the time. That is the time when a single engine Cessna entered restricted air space, flying about four miles northeast of the White House.

Now, the problem was is that the pilot was not communicating with local air controllers. This really alarmed the Secret Service as well as the FAA. That is when we are told that two F-16s were scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base to escort this plane, this suspicious plane. That is when the Secret Service began the evacuation.

Now, all of this was over within a matter of 10 or 15 minutes. They were able to get that plane down to Richmond base, Richmond, Virginia. And we are told that the president was never in any danger, that the Secret Service were certainly prepared to put them in underground bunker if necessary, but they said that never really was an issue at the time.

Now, they did actually question the pilot as well as the passengers, federal authorities. They say they believe it was simply an accident. There were no weapons and no suspicious material aboard this plane. But as you can imagine, it was really quite a tense moment.

KAGAN: And Suzanne, is that it, then? Are there any consequences for this guy just decided saying well, oops, I really didn't mean to fly in your air space there?

MALVEAUX: Well, you know, it's amazing, Daryn, because this thing is more common than you really think or you would suspect, rather, and the FAA at times saying that some of these, some of the violations here and the consequences are no more than what you would get like a kind of a traffic ticket or a parking ticket, because a lot of these pilots really, they're very common mistakes and what they're saying is that since September 11, surprisingly there have been 270 times since September 11 that pilots have gone into restricted air space. But that also includes Camp David as well as the Crawford ranch.

They say most of these are small planes. Interestingly enough, there were at least four commercial airliners that have violated this space since September 11 as well.

KAGAN: Fascinating. I bet this is one pilot who has learned his lesson and will not be doing that again.

Hey, Suzanne, let me just take this opportunity to welcome you on board our CNN team and family. It's great to have you with us.

MALVEAUX: Thank you. It's great to be here.

KAGAN: Thank you. Very good.

Suzanne Malveaux reporting to us from the White House.

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