How long before some off-course plane is shot down in the Washington area?

It seems it’s only a matter of time before some type of aircraft is shot down while invading the sacrosanct airspace of the Washington capital area, including the houses of Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and the Supreme Court.

Unauthorized planes continue to wander into that region triggering all sorts of alarms and flights of fighter planes and helicopters. So far, such “invasions” have entailed only incompetent pilots with poor navigation instincts and bad radio equipment. But one of these days, there is the prospect of an “unfriendly” interloper, such as those of 9-11. If the incidence of fly-ins for the delicate region continue, it won’t be long before somebody gets knocked out of the sky, no matter how innocent the intentions. Security staffs cannot take any chance of being dead wrong.

Even worse news is that people in charge of the security for the “capital” locale are struggling to determine the best ways to deal with intruders. One pilot who recently was chased to a neutral spot said he was afraid he would be downed because he could not communicate with airborne federal agents due to a jammed radio frequency. An “unfriendly” with suicidal intent would harbor no fears of interception as long as he could hit something of note. Where is the fail-safe for any “kamikaze”?

Thousands were evacuated when that plane flew within three miles of the White House recently. Confusion has reigned on a number of occasions and nobody seems to have a clear idea right now of just what is best. Suppose a plane must be downed. Where does it crash, can it be guided into, say, the White House even if disabled, and if none of the key centers are hit, how many innocents in the area will be harmed?

As federal security people continue to try to solve such puzzles, it behooves pilots of airplanes of all types to sharpen their geographic identification skills to know precisely where they are. It should not take much navigational training for someone in a plane to be able to identify the White House, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial. The Mall is fairly easy to spy from the sky. Anyone careless or silly enough to get into such corridors is asking for disaster. If fliers cannot identify such distinctive sites, why are they allowed licenses to begin with?

But again, think of the nonstrategic regions around the White House that would be devastated by a crash, be the inhabitants of the plane friendly or hostile. As long as poorly prepared pilots keep penetrating the White House region, the chances rise that one of the planes involved will be attacked. Too bad if that happens, but even worse is that innocents could be forced to pay for aerial dolts who don’t do their homework as pilots.