Original Article Posted 5/24/2005 11:14 PM U.S. revisits Washington airspace rules By Mimi Hall and Alan Levin, USA TODAY WASHINGTON Unauthorized planes that fly into restricted airspace over the nation's capital could be met by heavily armed helicopters flashing signs to "Follow Me," according to proposals under discussion by the Homeland Security Department. The signs and other possible changes are designed to prevent some of the confusion that surrounded a May 11 incident with a small plane that violated Washington airspace. The pilot said he feared being shot down after he was unable to communicate with airborne federal agents due to a jammed radio frequency. Thousands were evacuated as the plane flew within 3 miles of the White House. A Homeland Security official said Tuesday that the incident has prompted discussion about putting the "Follow Me" signs on board Black Hawk helicopters as a way to quickly communicate with confused pilots. The official refused to be named because the policy regarding the signs hasn't yet been approved. (Related story: D.C. airspace daunting for those who protect it) A "Follow Me" instruction would be a simple way to tell pilots of stray planes that they need to change course and follow the helicopter away from Washington, the official said. The Homeland Security Department also is debating whether more heavily armed Coast Guard helicopters should patrol restricted airspace, according to a department official. Black Hawks used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which also is part of Homeland Security, are now responsible for patrolling the skies over Washington and escorting planes that enter its restricted airspace. The Defense Department can scramble fighter jets, if needed, but in 75% of the cases, the CBP helicopters get there first. CBP pilots are authorized only to shoot under "law enforcement" rules and don't have weapons powerful enough to take down a plane. That means they can shoot only at the people in the planes. During the May 11 incident, agents on the helicopter had flashed a sign at the pilot, Hayden "Jim" Sheaffer, 69, of Lititz, Pa. The sign bore the numbers "121.5," an effort to get him to tune in to the 121.5 radio frequency that authorities were monitoring. But Sheaffer said his attempts to use the frequency failed because it was jammed because of an emergency beacon on the ground that interfered with the radio. Sheaffer finally turned around after F-16 fighter jets fired warning flares near his plane. He told NBC's Today show on Tuesday that the incident was "very scary" and that he thought he was going to be "shot out of the sky." http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-24-airspace_x.htm Posted 5/24/2005 10:31 PM Updated 5/25/2005 8:31 AM D.C. airspace daunting for those who protect it By Mimi Hall and Alan Levin, USA TODAY WASHINGTON Helicopters unable to shoot down rogue planes. Military jets flying so fast they sometimes can't communicate with small aircraft. Laser-beam warning systems that work only on sunny days. And radios easily knocked out by a bolt of lightning. Three-and-a-half years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, recent incursions into restricted airspace over the White House and Capitol reveal a system struggling to protect against another assault by air. An errant plane was able to fly over Vice President Cheney's house this month and got within 3 miles of the White House. With 2,000 square miles of restricted airspace up to 18,000 feet, "it is inherently difficult to patrol such a large area," says Chris Dancy of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. It's also perilous for small-plane pilots who are dependent on sometimes erratic and malfunctioning radios to communicate with authorities. Hayden "Jim" Sheaffer, the Cessna pilot who flew deep into restricted airspace May 11 and caused mass evacuations and a government review of shoot-down procedures, told NBC on Tuesday that he feared he was about to be shot down. He and a pilot trainee with him, Troy Martin, were initially approached in the sky by a Homeland Security Department Black Hawk helicopter. A pilot on the helicopter signaled the men to call on a radio frequency that turned out to be jammed. Martin said later that he wished the pilot had simply held up a "follow me" sign, according to his lawyer Mark McDermott. The Homeland Security Department is considering just that. Unable to get through by radio after the Black Hawk signaled to call on frequency 121.5, the Cessna pilots "didn't go one way or the other because they didn't know which way the helicopter wanted them to go," McDermott said. Fighter jets, which fly too fast to communicate with signs or hand signals with pilots of slow-moving small planes, eventually fired flares that prompted Sheaffer to turn away from the White House. Had a new system of ground-based lasers been in place when Sheaffer went astray, he might not have ventured so far into the restricted area. But whether the system could have helped would have depended on the weather that day. The new lasers were put in place around Washington on Saturday. Defense officials won't say how much area is covered or where the machines are that send up the beams. The system works this way: When air traffic controllers spot a plane that has flown into the restricted space, a quick sequence of red-red-green beams are shot directly at it to let the pilot know he has entered a restricted zone. First Lt. Lisa Citino of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) says the beams tell pilots, "You should just get out of the airspace, otherwise you will be engaged" by fighter jets. A pilot of a small plane that had to be escorted out of restricted airspace by fighter jets Monday never had an opportunity to see the laser beams after a lightning strike caused him to lose radio contact with air traffic controllers. The beams weren't turned on, Citino said, because it was an overcast day and they don't work through clouds. A NORAD spokesman, Maj. Douglas Martin, said the beams were put in place to try to cut down on the number of times NORAD has to send fighter jets out to escort an airplane out of restricted space, something it has done more than 2,000 times since Sept. 11, 2001. "It's a stop sign," he said. "If a person has hate in their heart and a desire to kill innocent people or they're drunk out of their skull, they're going to go through the stop sign." So far, he added, "thank God it's only people making mistakes." After the Cessna scare on May 11, the Homeland Security Department is considering changing the way it responds to such incidents. Customs and Border Protection helicopters are generally the first to reach errant airplanes. But they have neither the firepower nor the authority to shoot down a plane even if that's what the Defense Department wanted done. Officials are considering having more heavily armed Coast Guard helicopters respond. In an internal May 17 e-mail, confirmed by a department official, Homeland Security Undersecretary Randy Beardsworth wrote that Secretary Michael Chertoff wanted to explore whether the Coast Guard should take over the mission "under the control" of the Defense Department.