Wild flight reveals gaps within FAA --Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on Sun, Mar. 28, 2004

Wild flight reveals gaps within FAA --Philadelphia Inquirer

The agency has little control over erratic pilots, even when they
threaten commercial aircraft, experts say.

By Chris Gray, Marc Schogol and Keith Herbert

Inquirer Staff Writers

Ninety minutes into John V. Salamone's bizarre, four-hour flight
above the Philadelphia region on Jan. 15, air traffic supervisor
David Urban let his frustration show.

"I'm sorry if my temper is short," Urban, who works at
Philadelphia International Airport, told a colleague in New York,
explaining that he had been put on hold for "10 minutes" while
seeking help from the New Jersey State Police in identifying
Salamone's plane.

"Heaven forbid, this should be an emergency," he said. "We have
to come up with some better ways of... getting assistance to us
with things like this."

Salamone, whose blood-alcohol level according to police was 0.15
when he landed, was not a terrorist. But taped conversations from
that night and interviews with federal and local officials show
that, for nearly four hours, nobody within the Federal Aviation
Administration knew who he was or what he was doing there - only
that he seemed to be "literally turning" into commercial
airplanes, as Urban said that night.

And, as Salamone took his Cherokee aircraft on a dangerous
round-trip joyride from Pottstown to Monroe Township in
Gloucester County, those responsible for protecting
Philadelphia's airspace couldn't get him down, either.

That's because the FAA has little control and limited enforcement
powers over erratic pilots, even if they jeopardize commercial
aircraft. Although Salamone flew directly into the airport's
flight path, forcing six aircraft to get out of his way, tower
officials did not have a complete list of emergency contacts to
call for assistance.

Although the federal government has pumped billions into airline
security after 9/11, nothing prevents the scenario from happening
again - a gap that worries aviation security experts.

"It just shows you how things haven't changed," said Andrew R.
Thomas, an aviation security analyst and author of Aviation
Insecurity: The New Challenge of Air Travel.

"If this is what homeland security is after hundreds of billions
of dollars have been spent, what does this say?" he said.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) called it a "troubling
incident" in a Feb. 2 letter to FAA Administrator Marion C.
Blakey, and demanded specifics on how the agency responded. The
agency has yet to answer.

Federal authorities insisted that proper procedures were followed
but provided few details beyond tapes of conversations recorded
that night.

FAA supervisors in New York contacted North American Aerospace
Defense Command, or NORAD. The military agency consulted the FBI
and other members of the Domestic Events Network, formed after
9/11, and they decided Salamone's journey was "a non-event,"
NORAD spokesman Lt. Col. Roberto Garza said.

"We didn't need to send the F-15s," Garza said.

If Salamone had flown directly at planes, or if the event had
occurred over Washington, the response would have been different,
Garza said.

"You've got the seat of government; you've got our leader," Garza
said. "It certainly is a different situation which calls for
different responses."

•

Before taking flight that night, Salamone had been drinking at
the Airport Restaurant and Hotel, a tavern across the street from
the Pottstown-Limerick Airport, according to those familiar with
the events of that night.

Salamone - who has a court hearing Tuesday to determine whether
he will stand trial on charges of risking a catastrophe and
reckless endangerment - has a history of public drunkenness.

He pleaded guilty to two DUIs in 1989 and 1990, and paid a $217
fine after being arrested in November for public drunkenness
after berating servers at a Limerick restaurant who refused to
serve him.

Salamone, 44, a concrete contractor from North Coventry, declined
to comment. His lawyer would not discuss the case.

His father said he didn't know whether Salamone had a drinking
problem - talking instead about the volunteer work his son did
with AirLifeLine, which flies patients to Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh for organ transplants and cancer treatments.

"I'm proud of everything he's done, except for this," said John
Salamone Sr. of West Norriton.

John V. Salamone's plane appeared on the radar screen at
Philadelphia International Airport shortly before 6:30 p.m.,
coming south from Pottstown airport.

As Salamone weaved in and out of the approach path, switching
altitudes on whim, the two controllers assigned to the landing
runways redirected traffic.

"Looks like he's doing aerobatics," said the pilot of a Delta
Connection flight carrying 24 passengers, after receiving
instructions to avoid Salamone's small plane four miles ahead.

"Great place to do 'em, isn't it?" the controller answered.

Because Salamone meandered along the flight path, seemingly
without a specific target, Urban determined that he was a "class
B violator." Such pilots skirt the edges of the airspace daily;
few create havoc.

As soon as Salamone left the approach path, Urban called his
supervisors to start the arduous process of getting him down.

"The last hour has been a hazard to aviation," Urban told his
bosses at the FAA Eastern District office in New York during a
conference call. "He came right at a couple guys."

Urban also started contacting the local law enforcement to help
stop Salamone. But the list was short.

The Philadelphia Police Department has two choppers that patrol
every day from 4 p.m. to midnight. But the pilots had gone back
to their hangar to refuel.

After disrupting Philadelphia's flights, Salamone had swung into
New Jersey, dropping down toward the Cross Keys airport. Urban
asked Monroe Township police to meet Salamone on the landing
strip, but Salamone zoomed up in the air.

Urban called the New Jersey State Police, but he didn't have the
right number for their aviation department and received a
recording. When he tried another line, he was placed on hold.

"I got no one to answer," he complained on tape. "Someone in the
air to identify or do something to this guy would have been much
better."

State police spokesman Sgt. Frank Emanuele said Urban should have
said it was an emergency. "If we're not notified, we can't
respond," he said.

Urban did not try the Pennsylvania State Police, which has
helicopters at every barracks, even as Salamone turned his plane
around and headed toward Philadelphia. The FAA did not make Urban
or other employees working in the tower that night available for
comment.

According to Capt. Kenny O'Brien of the Philadelphia Police
Aviation unit, other cities have much greater airspace-protection
capabilities. Baltimore, for example, has four helicopters that
patrol five days and seven nights a week, an official of that
city's aviation unit said.

Since Salamone's flight, the controllers at the Philadelphia
airport have put together an updated list of emergency contacts
and direct numbers.

Yet O'Brien acknowledged that airborne law enforcement can do
only so much. "It's not like we shoot out of our planes," he
said. "The only possible deterrent is that we're up there."

•

About 9:25 p.m., Salamone returned to Philadelphia airspace. He
hovered near the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, dropping as low as
100 feet.

Urban directed workers to turn on the runway lights, hoping that
Salamone would take the hint and land. Instead, he continued to
brush near aircraft, coming within a half-mile of a 37-passenger
US Airways plane.

After he failed to communicate with the tower for three hours,
Salamone's garbled voice was heard five minutes later.

"Realized I was off course... realized I was in your airspace,"
Salamone radioed. "How about if I just land and you tell me what
I am supposed to do?"

One other question: "Am I going to lose my license?"

"I don't know anything about that," controller Tom Young said.
"How about we just get you on the ground as soon as we can?"

A Philadelphia police helicopter was then alerted. It followed
Salamone to the Pottstown airport as he headed straight for the
Limerick nuclear power plant, coming within a quarter-mile of the
cooling towers.

Plant personnel had tracked Salamone, and were ready to take
emergency measures, including shutting down the reactors,
spokesman Craig Nesbit said. But "a plane that small is not
likely to do much damage - even if it was loaded with
explosives," he said.

Salamone continued to have difficulties as he landed. He nearly
collided with the police helicopter twice and missed the landing
field on his first try.

Yet his bravado remained. With one tank empty and only 17 minutes
worth of fuel left in the other, Salamone radioed his last words:
"Have I smelled like a cheap cigar or what?"

•

Getting airspace violators out of the air is only part of the
problem, FAA officials say. Prosecuting them is another.

The FAA revoked the medical certificate that allowed Salamone to
have a pilot's license, but breaching airspace carries only civil
penalties, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The FAA has no
prosecutorial powers, so pursuing federal criminal charges would
be up to the U.S. Attorney General's Office, he said.

But spokesman Rich Manieri said that the office could not press
charges against Salamone. Federal law permits criminal
prosecution only of pilots of "common carriers" - airplanes that
take paying passengers - on charges of drug or alcohol abuse.

In addition to filing criminal charges of risking a catastrophe
and reckless endangerment, Montgomery County District Attorney
Bruce L. Castor Jr. also charged Salamone with drunken driving. A
court threw out that charge because Pennsylvania does not have a
law against drunken flying.

If convicted, Salamone faces up to nine years in prison.

Other officials remain concerned not so much with Salamone's
possible punishment, but with the flaws that he exposed in the
region's aviation system.

In his letter to FAA's Blakey, Specter writes that Salamone's
flight and the FAA's response "brings into question your agency's
ability to adequately respond to a potential aviation threat of
this magnitude."

Bill Reynolds, a spokesman for Specter, said the FAA promised a
response by April.

"Until there's an investigation into what happened," Reynolds
said, "it's hard to know what happened."

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