CAA: GA News, "General-aviation pilots say more regulations won't stop nut cases"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Will all suffer for one's sin?
General-aviation pilots say more regulations won't stop nut cases
By RENI WINTER
The Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald


Coast flight school owners and small-plane pilots are waiting to see if the
Federal Aviation Administration imposes tighter regulations on general
aviation after Saturday's suicide flight of a 15-year old student pilot in
Tampa.

General aviation, which includes all flight except commercial airlines and
military, boasts more than 600,000 FAA-certified pilots. Among those are
nearly 90,000 student pilots and more than 80,000 flight instructors,
according to recent FAA data.

"We've got ample regulations now," said Gene Phillips, 76, owner of Phillips
Aviation at Stennis International Airport south of Kiln. "What that boy did
was a total fluke, something that happens once or twice in a long, long
lifetime."

Phillips has been a pilot for more than 60 years and has taught students
without any problems. But he has rejected students because they weren't
flying for the right reasons, such as a man who wanted to learn to fly in
order to cheat on his wife in a different town.

Phillips uses the old-fashioned method of judging a student's character, one
his father taught him in order to weed out potential problems.

"My daddy taught me to look someone in the eye when I'm talking to them,"
Phillips said. "If they look away or their eyes flinch, they're lying."

Brennan Vincent, co-owner of Harvey Planes at Diamondhead Airport, and
Phillips are among many who believe more regulations cannot ensure flight
safety.

"It offends me to the core when someone uses (flying) as a weapon," Vincent
said. He feels threatened by proposed legislation that would require flight
school operators to do background checks on foreign students, a task he
believes belongs to the federal government's Immigration and Naturalization
Service.

"They're looking to blame someone," Vincent said, "and unfortunately the
person to blame is dead."

Mario Feola, of Diamondhead, an aviation safety counselor for the FAA,
agrees that additional regulations won't stop the isolated criminal use of
small planes.

"If someone is hellbent on committing suicide or destruction, they can do it
with an airplane, a tractor-trailer, or a U-Haul loaded with kerosene,"
Feola said.

Feola voiced the opinion of many when he said that a small plane poses no
significant threat to national security.

"You take an airplane with a maximum gross weight of 1,600 to 3,000 pounds
and a fuel capacity in the range of 50 gallons when full and run it into a
building, and you'll probably do no more than break a few windows and kill
the pilot."

It is common practice for the flight instructor to give the student pilot
the plane keys to do the pre-flight check. It was during that pre-flight
check that Charles Bishop, 15, stole the Cessna 172R and flew it into a
Tampa bank building.

"An instructor should always stay with the student during the pre-flight
check," Feola said. "It's not in the regs, but it is a recommended teaching
practice."

For more information on general aviation, flight instruction and flight
regulations, see:

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association: www.aopa.org.

Experimental Aircraft Association: www.eaa.org

Federal Aviation Administration: www.faa.gov.

National Association of Flight Instructors: www.nafinet.org/

Attached Photo:

Flight instructor Gene Phillips, 76, and new pilot Sky Power, 17, do
pre-flight checks at Stennis International Airport in Hancock County. They
hope no new regulations are imposed on general aviation after a teen in
Tampa, Fla., stole a plane Saturday and crashed it into a skyscraper.

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http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID2

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