German air force jets were send out to intercept the plane which landed without causing damage"
That must've been one hell of a slow chase for those jets. Those suckers aren't very fast.
Posted on 01/12/2005 11:55:19 AM PST by knighthawk
BERLIN - A controversial new bill signed into law Wednesday will allow the German air force to shoot down hijacked planes on federal government orders.
German president Horst Koehler signed the legislation but said he had serious reservations. He called for Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court to examine the new law.
Koehler pointed out that the German constitution already permitted the armed forces to defend air space over the country. However, until now the orders for this had to come from one the 16 federal states - not the federal government, he added.
Opposition leaders from the Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) have also expressed concern over the new law and said they would back a legal complaint in the Constitutional Court.
The law was passed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s centre-left government in reaction to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US and after an apparently deranged man buzzed skyscrapers in Frankfurt with an ultralight aircraft in January 2003.
German air force jets were send out to intercept the plane which landed without causing damage. After this incident political leaders had criticised that air force pilots lacked legal protection should they be ordered to bring down an aircraft.
Ping
Ping
What's your beef with how the Germans handle hijacked aircraft?
Sigh. Even Germany has nutty Democrats who want to facilitate the jihadists' mission to destroy civilization.
Umm, the CDU/CSU is the German equivalent of the Republican Party. The SPD is the equivalent of the Democrats.
Seems like they are reacting to 911 in slow motion.
German air force jets were send out to intercept the plane which landed without causing damage"
That must've been one hell of a slow chase for those jets. Those suckers aren't very fast.
I'm glad you can tell a jet from a prop-job. :)
You are thinking pre-911 when you could safely assume that the terrorists would safely land the plane. Now you have to assume that the terrorists will use the plane as a weapon and the best thing to do is destroy the weapon before it kills more people.
Germany had the top aces in both World War One and Two.
Im pretty certain the USAF is authorised to shoot down hijacked planes in the US if neccessary also. Not a nice thing, but perhaps now needed.
Hartmann flew with the Luftwaffe after the war and flew the F-86. He conducted training missions in New Mexico or Arizona in the late 1950s. By all accounts, he was ein guter Kamerad.
The top American ace of WWI was Eddie Rickenbacker. His niece sketched a very nice pencil portrait of my mother when she was around 10 years old.
My great grandfather flew in the First World War for Britain, he was of the opinion that the air war in WWI was the last one fought by gentlemen as gentlemen.
Red Baron bump.
Yes, I would agree with him. Warfare has been increasingly barbaric ever since. Winston Churchill commented in the same vein regarding WWI, something along the line of "War used to be terrible but glorious, but science has made it miserable and bloody."
The WWI air war being a gentlemen's affair reminds me of Hartmann's surrender at the end of WWII. He landed his Bf109 on an American fighter strip, got out and was mobbed for autographs.
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