Owner of A/C That Crashed Into Tampa Building Was Publically Pro-Arab!!!.

St. Pete Times ^

[MindBender26]

Part of article from St. Pete Times after Sept 11.

"Robert C. Cooper, president of National Aviation Flight School and Aviation Rentals, stressed that the extra security cannot be done at the expense of those of Middle Eastern descent.

"I don't want to get involved in profiling," he said. "I have faith in my government. I have to work on the belief that my government has basis to allow them into the country and show them proper respect." end of article.

Cooper is head of National Aviation Holdings that owned A/C. Many Florida flight schools train Arab students. Wonder if comment was made so as not to p. off students. Wonder if Arab pilot flew A/C into building. THIS IS FR EXCLUSIVE!!!

[freefly]

"you will be if you are an American and...the Islamic terrorists decide to kill again."

Maybe, but as an American, I will not stoop to their level of targeting the innocent for the actions of the guilty.
It's no more right for me than it is for them.
(Although some say it is...thereby supporting both the terrorist's logic and actions.)

[George W. Bush]

HairOfTheDog: As a normally unhysterical woman, it seemed to be a gratuitous usage, given the level of male hysteria on this very thread, I stand by my statement/question...

mindprism.com: Well, when men do it it's called "being adament". ;)

Yeah, but we males have calmed considerably. You'll notice that this thread contains no demands that every country in the Mideast be bombed back into the Stone Age with nuclear weapons.

Cool rational male thinking.

And I bet you two still throw like girls. So there.

[snopercod]

If these kids only offed themselves, I wouldn't care quite so much. But they kill and maim others.

Since you believe it to be a great threat to society requiring immediate action, please tell us then how many pilots under 21 have "killed and maimed others" by crashing aircraft into them.

And while you're trying to find that statistic, let us know how many people on the ground have been killed by falling general aviation aircraft flown by pilots of any age.

Or do you just "feel" that young Americans should not be allowed to fly in the same way that Rosie O'Donnell "feels" that guns are unsafe?

[FITZ]

The most likely scenario was that the youngster had psychological problems. Maybe sucicidal?

That's what it sounds like at this point, a stupid kid who was very impressed with the events of Sept 11. It's not too likely he was following orders from the Jihad planners because he didn't accomplish much but his own death --that's not the way those guys work.

[taildragger]

I Can't disagree with you more G.W. 1st some facts:

You can solo a glider at 14 years of age. You can solo a Powered plane at 16 and get you license at 17. The Student Pilot Ticket is your 1st License to learn, but more than anything it allows your instructor to sign you off once you are proficent to fly SOLO. You need it to solo, It is nothing more than a Flight Physical.

I have no qalms about teenagers learning about aviation with a passion in fact those that do end up as Fighter Pilots and Airline Pilots, it is part of an natural progression. So the next time you want to bitch about raising the age to 21, you are shooting yourself in the foot, because that Pilot in Command in the front office of the 737 you are in when you go on Vacation probably followed the path I just talked about.

I have know a family of boys who use to fly with there uncle on weekends in his plane. He would let them take the stick teach them things. These boys in there teens all soloed after about 6 hrs instead of the normal 14 to 20 and are damn good pilots and still fly to this day.

Flying is one of the most incredible priviliges we have in this great land, I have met more Englishmen that have become Citizens and live and Fly here because it is such a pain in the ass to do so in England. This kid may have had problems. I suggest you take a few flight lessons to feel the freedom, you would probably feel much different about the it and have a new found respect for it as well.

[HairOfTheDog]

I do, in fact, throw like a girl, now that you mention it! ;~D

[freefly]

"Wouldn't want you to "stoop" because you obviously like to stand with your nose in the air pretending you are ever
so much nobler and enlightened than those who have to get down and do the real business of protecting America."

Army, 2.5 years, 2nd 75th Ranger Bn.
What have YOU done to "protect America"?

Clue:
The "patriot act" isn't "protecting America".
Neither is labeling all those of the Islam faith as "enemies".
In spite of the fact that those who run around with their nose in the air claiming to be morally superior
to the Muslim extremists (even though they share EXACTLY the same mindset) seem to think so.

And yes, I DO believe our Constitution, our form of justice, our belief in individual responsibility, and the
American way of doing things is -and should be- morally superior to the morality of the Islamic extremists.

Sneer at that belief all you want to.

[George W. Bush]

I suggest you take a few flight lessons to feel the freedom, you would probably feel much different about the it and have a new found respect for it as well.

I have in fact taken the controls of a private plane over rural land. The illusion of freedom in flight is a peculiar passion held only by aviation hardcores. You can't rationally expect others to share it. Strangely, the missionary impulse among aviators is far stronger than one would expect from otherwise rational and well-educated people. I suppose it indicates the intensity of the illusion. I am personally far more interested not in mode of travel but in having real freedom when I arrive at my destination. It doesn't matter where you an go if you surrender your freedoms by going there. For instance, if I wanted to fly into California or New York carrying my Glock for personal protection. Being able to fly a plane to a restrictive zone doesn't appeal to me because the destinations don't appeal to me. Probably why I'm a redneck. Basically, I've turned my back on the places where 90% of this country lives. Whenever any of their denizens are around my area, I always tell them how terrible it is here. I don't want them to move here.

And our air force and our airlines would not collapse if we raised the age of flight. In particular, the coming generation of unpiloted military aircraft and the increasingly computer-driven airliners are an argument against your position. Airliners are becoming far less dependent on actual pilot skill. Only the shepherding of a landing and extreme emergency demand a truly skilled pilot. And as aircraft density around urban areas increases, it will accelerate this trend. Cockpit computerization will only increase just as it has for decades. I grasp your line of argument and that it could be applied, for instance, to that airliner (in Iowa) a few years back where the pilot brought it in with just flaps but that is such an exceptional circumstance that I doubt it really sways aviation policy longterm. The established trend is away from a reliance on human skill. The government and aircraft industry trust machines more and want to eliminate as much as possible any human factor.

Understand, I don't lay awake at nights over this stuff. I seem to recall a friend of mine telling me years back that the age for solo used to be fourteen. He was certified at sixteen. But his parents didn't let him take other kids up alone at that age even though he was as sober and responsible as any boy of sixteen that I've ever known. They were just prudent. But they let him take me flying in the family plane at eighteen and we did some touch and goes at the local airport. Far more exciting was the takeoff and landing next to barbed wire fences on a canyon embankment that was all somewhat downhill. The embankment had a fairly good corner in the middle of it too. The cliff at the end of the runway meant that a mistake was almost certain to be fatal. I'm not sure I'd do it again. I noticed they've since moved their hangar and runway to a safer place.

I'm not sure that your argument about how wonderful it is to attract foreigners to this country because it's so easy to learn to fly here holds as much water since Atta and crew hit the WTC and the Pentagon. Part of your "it attracts the foreigners" argument isn't readily accepted by most people at FR since 9/11. Prior to that, more would have agreed with you. Even if true, I don't advocate letting just anyone into the United States anyway. I don't like the Luftwaffe flying in the Southwest at all. That said, educated Brits are fine with me for immigration even if they aren't pilots. I've never yet met a British immigrant I wished we hadn't accepted. But in hindsight, I'd prefer that they had turned down Andrew Sullivan because he is a political twit who has gained a following, even at FR.

[George W. Bush]

I do, in fact, throw like a girl, now that you mention it!

Aha! I thought so.

Now we males can rest easy, our niche secured from feminist upstarts.

[HairOfTheDog]

You men can rest easy if you wish... I can probably out-shoot more than half of you! Luckily I am likely to be on your side ;~D

/boast>

[George W. Bush]

You men can rest easy if you wish... I can probably out-shoot more than half of you! Luckily I am likely to be on your side ;~D

I can easily believe it. In my area, law enforcement is very cautious about women with guns. Some are terrific marksmen...er...markspersons. Typically, they send the police packing. For some reason, it's much harder to interest them in handguns.

[HairOfTheDog]

Women aren't into handguns in your area? That surprises me. I don't even own a rifle, but then I carry only a small purse. Have to be practical.

[VaBthang4]

I understand...did he even seek out guidance as to what to do? The size of the aircraft or the amount of passengers is of little consequence to me.

[HairOfTheDog]

Some people, and some kids, flip out. I can't imagine a comfortable life in a world where we changed the rules every time someone flips. I doubt seriously you were interested in more gun control when kids flipped out and shot up schools, but then I don't recall talking with you about it.

GWB, I see in your earlier posts that you agree with trusting minors with more responsibility than the law does, as unsupervised minors cannot possess handguns, and yet, as we have learned, occasionally great harm comes from kids who have gotten their hands on guns. Maybe you trust your judgment on that point because you have experience with it.

The minumum age for solo flight is 16. This kid broke the law. Would the kid have been stopped if the minimum age was 21?

Kids this young are fairly rare around flight schools. Learning to fly is expensive and requires discipline and hard work. Lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Kids graduate from high school at 18 and hopefully go off to college. I was in my second year of flight school at 21, with a Commercial license in single and multi-engine airplanes.

[George W. Bush]

Some people, and some kids, flip out. I can't imagine a comfortable life in a world where we changed the rules every time someone flips. I doubt seriously you were interested in more gun control when kids flipped out and shot up schools, but then I don't recall talking with you about it.

Actually, Columbine and other school shootings just made me even more outspoken about the foolishness of gun-free zones and the need for firearms to protect children in schools. I found it quite educational to hear the actual reactions from some of the local soccer-mom types with the idea that their child's teacher or principal should be armed in case a nutjob started shooting.

My views are not, in this instance, reactionary but are longstanding. I've been a killjoy for decades. ; )

The minumum age for solo flight is 16. This kid broke the law. Would the kid have been stopped if the minimum age was 21?

Of course not. I haven't yet even seen any definite statement the kid was even a student pilot. He might have just been a joyrider who was trying out all that he learned in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 that he got for Christmas. It's actually difficult to believe that a student pilot with any amount of instruction could have flown into a building like this in daylight in normal weather. It would be easier to believe it was just a copycat suicide.

[RogueIsland]

Flying into buildings is only done on purpose. Only a Muslim Jihadist or a homegrown nutcase would do this.

Or somebody who was simply suicidal and wanted to go out in a big way. It may be as simple as that. Really.

[VaBthang4]

"I can't imagine a comfortable life in a world where we changed the rules every time someone flips. I doubt seriously you were interested in more gun control when kids flipped out and shot up schools"

Yawn....and the link is?

You'll understand if I didnt follow your downward diatribe...

Someone [you care about their age] stole and aircraft...flew over an Air Force Base then headed for Tampa and crashed into a building.

I would've shot him down over the Air Force base....if he was a dumb kid...Oh well...he would be a dead and dumb kid.

Where security is concerned I would choose to be cautious. Stolen plane....not responding to hand signals or electronic communication.

He should've been a red mist in the Tampa sky as opposed to smeared all over bank america.

[HairOfTheDog]

OK - so maybe I worried too much that your interest was in increasing the age that kids can learn to fly over this incident?

I told this story already on the other, more reasonabley titled thread "Plane Crashes Into Tampa Building" but maybe it fits here too.

"When I was in flight school we had a guy flip over a love gone bad, and "tried" to kill himself a number of times over months. We reported his suicidal behavior and got his medical pulled. It was a tough call for us to report him, because we did know it would ruin his career in aviation and he had made no actual threats to do something like this. We just thought he may decide his other methods were not working."

I don't know if we prevented anything or not! But we were nervous seeing him around the flight line knowing that the weekend prior he had slit his wrists in a friend's dorm room, or tried to gas himself in his car.

I guess I wish that those around this kid had been thinking. It would be rare for this act to have been the first sign of trouble, but maybe. Those around the school shooters have often had better hindsight than foresight.

Instead of being smart and observant of those around us, we instead often see reactions that try to treat everyone as a potential threat, spawning "zero-tolerance" rules that get girls kicked out of school for having nail files, and confiscation of swiss army knives at airports. the "success" rate of 9/11 had nothing to do with the weapons used.