Apparently it's any plane, any city, any time

Stupidity just never ceases to amaze me. Consider if you will the sad, untimely death of New York Yankee Corey Lidle and his flight instructor. They died yesterday when the small aircraft they were flying speared a highrise apartment complex in New York City. The stupidity I speak of was not theirs. No one knows as yet what happened to cause their plane to careen into the building. It is the very fact that they could fly into a building in of all places New York City that has me all riled up. Honestly what are the powers-that-be thinking that there is still an acceptable flight corridor that goes through densly populated areas of Manhattan island after 9-11? The fact is that no private aircraft - not Lidle's nor anyone else's should be allowed to fly through New York.

This crash is reportedly an accident. A tragic, probably avoidable accident. But what if that hadn't been the case? Seems like just about anybody with a private aircraft could fly through New York or probably any other major city unchecked. I mean for Pete's sake - the Lidle plane did a fly-by past the Statue of Liberty, apparently to take in the sight before the plane experienced trouble.

The Statue of Liberty? How could a private plane get anywhere near the Statue of Liberty?

If you think for one second that this doesn't effect you, you're mistaken, because no matter where you live we all have a stake in protecting the airspace surrounding our major cities. Of all places New York should be taking higher security measures.

What if someone with a private plane decides to purposely target a building in a major city with their aircraft? Wouldn't you think that it would be just a tiny bit more difficult for them to accomplish that mission if their flying into protected airspace was detected. Don't you imagine that if such a violation were noticed that a potential attack could be averted?

Wouldn't you think that our leaders would have thought of that?

Unreal.

The Lidle crash was breaking news yesterday. At around 3:00 PM I had to leave the television coverage to go to a class. The drive to my University is about forty minutes. Coverage continued on the radio. What surprised me though is when I got to class. My Linguistics class was transformed. Due to the cable-access television mounted on the wall, our classroom turned into a gathering place where students
gathered to watch the news coverage.

At that time the press was reporting that there was a potential that the aircraft hit the building on purpose. The fear of terrorist attacks was thankfully short lived. But it was present. It was scary. It was six-years and a month to-the-day that terrorists had flown two jets into the World Trade Center.

I'm grateful that 10-11 didn't become a date of infamy. But what about the next time? What about securing the airspace surrounding our major cities? What about our leaders doing NOTHING to address that.

Tonight I'll think about Lidle, his flight instructor and how their deaths will impact their families. I'll also think about how our leaders could justify that such an accident could ever happen - especially in New York.