CAA: GA News, "Close airspace over nuclear reactors, U.S. Senator says"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Close airspace over reactors, Specter says 
FAA says some airports would lose private aviation 
By Dennis B. Roddy
The Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette


Six months after the terrorist attacks on America, U.S. Sen. Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., toured a nuclear power plant in Beaver County and openly
worried that it and plants like it are vulnerable to aerial assaults.

"What I intend to do is take the matter up with the FAA," Specter told
reporters at a news conference at the Beaver Valley Power Station near
Shippingport yesterday morning.

Specter said that the Federal Aviation Administration had lifted a ban
on private airplane overflights of nuclear power plants and that pilots
are now permitted to cross as low as 1,000 feet above such plants.

The FAA, acting on a request from national security agencies, closed off
airspace over 86 nuclear sites around the country between Oct. 30 and
Nov. 6.

Noncommercial airplanes were required to keep outside a 10-mile radius
around power plants and nuclear laboratories, and at an altitude of
18,000 feet or more. Commercial airliners were not affected by the ban.

The ban was later lifted, although the agency has continued to advise
private pilots not to circle such facilities.

Closing the plant to overflights could prove difficult, said William
Shumann, an FAA spokesman.

Shumann said the October-November ban closed several airports, notably
in Albuquerque, N.M., and Lynchburg, Va., to all private aviation.

Beaver County Airport also was affected by the ban, according to county
Commissioner Dan Donatella, who holds a private pilot's license.

Shumann yesterday said the FAA would close airspace over nuclear
facilities if asked to do so by executive branch agencies, including the
Office of Homeland Security or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"We would respectfully suggest that Sen. Specter talk to those agencies
as well," he said.


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