So will the Canadian Navy bring its boat down to patrol the Detroit River?
(Just kidding!)
Posted on 01/26/2006 12:33:30 PM PST by NorthOf45
Canadian jets muster to protect Super Bowl
Part of norad duties
Terrorist attacks simulated for training exercise
National Post
By Melissa Leong
January 26, 2006
While Windsor, Ont., residents slept early this morning, U.S. and Canadian fighter jets were scheduled to be roaring overhead, running exercises simulating a terrorist attack on next month's Super Bowl XL.
The exercise, launched by the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defence Command, involved about a dozen aircraft and was held in the Windsor-Detroit area in preparation for the football game, which will be held on Feb. 5 at Detroit's Ford Field.
A CH-146 Griffon helicopter out of Kingston, Ont., simulated low-altitude scenarios while a C-21 Learjet acted as a "target" -- perhaps a hijacked plane -- violating airspace.
"This is air space that is restricted. People can't fly in there. If they do, then they might find themselves escorted out," Major Darren Steele, a spokesman for NORAD, said yesterday.
"If there is an aircraft or a blip that's not on our file flight plan, they can send the aircraft to intercept and identify it."
Fighter jets out of Bagotville, Que., Cessna aircrafts, H-65 helicopters, air refuelling tankers and an E-3 Airborne Early Warning and Control System aircraft for command and control support were also scheduled to take to the skies today.
"[We] run through some scenarios. A lot of this stuff helps us iron out any communication bugs," the Winnipeg native said from NORAD headquarters in Colorado.
Maj. Steele declined to go into further detail about the exercises for security reasons. "[Potential attackers] could think: 'If they're guarding against this, we'll do something else,' " he said.
"The scenarios are designed to exercise all of our aspects of co-ordination and communication. In the scenarios, you try to make it much harder than what we're probably going to face in real life."
He said yesterday that he hoped the early-morning training missions would not disturb any slumbering residents, explaining that they were scheduled for a time that would be least disruptive to commercial traffic.
Several agencies will be co-ordinating security measures during the Super Bowl including the RCMP, Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the FBI. Aircraft will patrol the airspace the day of the event.
"With all the different agencies working, folks can go watch the game and not worry ... because there's going to be a lot of people working very hard to make sure the event is safe," Maj. Steele said.
He said NORAD runs many security exercises annually.
"NORAD flies a number of missions [for] things like the Super Bowl, the G8 Summit in Canada, and down in the States, when they have the State of the Union address, and when we have dignarities flying around the country."
The exercises started after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Authorities said NORAD fighters have scrambled or diverted from air patrols over the United States and Canada more than 2,000 times to respond to possible air threats since the air attacks on New York and Washington. Both Canada and the United States share the bill for all exercises.
; )
"Yes, Canada does have a military, an air force and jet fighters ... blah, blah, blah"
yea but which one of you gets to carry the bullet?
Ping
Bet you've never seen a biplane with a jet engine before.
I'd go ahead and use the verbiage 'escorted DOWN'.
Does this mean we will have 'enemy' aircraft over Detroit. Oh, wait! The conservative won. "No, it's okay; they're our planes now." (Ron Silver, 1992 Clinton inaugural)
Take off, eh?
Beauty...
...Hmmm, now I'm thirsty for an Elsinore!!!
They're about the only Jets that are going to see a Super Bowl for the foreseeable future.
The fuel tanker full of C-4, naturally, won't file a flight plan.
I sure do think all of this "response to terrorism" is ill-concieved. Looks mostly like the Propaganda Ministry in high gear for the benefit of chickens.
Why are US and Canadian jets going to attack the Super Bowl?
Poorly worded news.
BOTH of them??? talk about pulling out all the stops for the security of the fans...
So will the Canadian Navy bring its boat down to patrol the Detroit River?
(Just kidding!)
ouch! that one hurt (lifelong J-E-T-S fan raises hand and winces)
Ron Silver's since had an epiphany.
"The fuel tanker full of C-4, naturally, won't file a flight plan."
Which means that it's obviously unauthorized. Reading Is Fundamental.
I wonder what this will cost per fan? A lot more than the regular rent-a-cops.
Maybe the sponsors and the NFL would pick up the tab for us. Ha, ha!
Canada Ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.
Taking bets on the liklihood that some pinhead student pilot doesn't get the memo.
"Taking bets on the liklihood that some pinhead student pilot doesn't get the memo."
That will be the claim. The reality is that the pilot will read the memo and decide that it must not apply to him 'cuz he's SPECIAL.
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