[HN Gopher] Someone keeps stealing, flying, fixing and returning...
___________________________________________________________________
Someone keeps stealing, flying, fixing and returning this man's
1958 Cessna
https://archive.ph/ujPYV
Author : MBCook
Score : 73 points
Date : 2025-08-08 17:45 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| pinewurst wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ujPYV
| elSidCampeador wrote:
| Very bizarre. To fly a plane out, won't the pilot of the plane
| have to speak with ATC? I wonder if letting the ATC (of the
| municipal airport) be informed that this plane tends to be flown
| by someone who might not be authorized might help?
| JCBird1012 wrote:
| It depends on the airport! Some smaller airports (like Corona
| Municipal Airport where the story is based) - are untowered,
| meaning that there's no central ATC to chat with when taking
| off/landing - everyone announces what they're doing as they're
| doing it and there's a traffic pattern/flow that everyone
| follows to ensure there's no conflicts - it works surprisingly
| well.
|
| In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to
| chat with ATC.
| geoffeg wrote:
| > everyone announces what they're doing
|
| Well, most people. :)
|
| There's no "requirement" that pilots announce their
| intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports,
| some aircraft may not even have radios.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions
| on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some
| aircraft may not even have radios_
|
| Got to love it when a Citation whose pilot is to arrogant
| to radio and a crop duster that doesn't have any
| instruments to speak of are both in the pattern.
| geoffeg wrote:
| There have been many times I just decided to come back to
| the airport a bit later. Or circle well above the airport
| and watch the chaos below.
| duskwuff wrote:
| That's true of most small airports. There are over 5,000
| public airports in the US (and another ~14k private
| airports), but only about 500 with ATC.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Unless you're inside a place with special flight rules (like
| the Washington DC area), you can just fly your plane whenever
| you want and don't have to file a flight plan or tell anyone.
| Small airports often don't have ATC so all communications are
| on a single frequency that all pilots trying to take off or
| land are tuned into. It's like being at a four way stop sign,
| there's "right of way" protocol to follow so you don't need to
| do much other than just announce your intentions to anyone that
| cares to hear them.
|
| Really the only way to handle this is to put your plane in a
| locked hanger or chain it to the ground with a lock and then
| pay for whatever flight tracker that will alert you whenever a
| specific tail number is in the air. Follow it and then call
| whatever local police when it lands.
| hinkley wrote:
| Can a small tower tell that an airplane doesn't match the id
| sent by the pilot?
| filleduchaos wrote:
| The question doesn't quite make sense. Tail numbers and
| ICAO hex IDs identify the aircraft, not the crew.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Plenty of airports do not have controlled airspace. I've been
| to at least one where the local frequency was played on a
| loudspeaker on the ground so that people on the runway knew
| when a plane was coming in for a landing. The pilot still
| should communicate what they are doing, but they don't need
| approval to land.
| gbacon wrote:
| The article said the airplane is based at KAJO, which is barely
| within the lateral boundary of Ontario International's Class C
| shelf. To legally avoid a requirement to talk to ATC going
| north, he would have to stay below 2,700 MSL and remain outside
| the KONT Class C core. There's a lot of area to the south and
| east that a pilot could buzz around without having to talk to
| anyone. Avoiding terrain to the south would be important.
| panzagl wrote:
| This reminds me of the Douglas Adam's biscuit story. Maybe
| there's a plane that looks like his one hangar over or something.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/l4k9he/douglas_ad...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Can we just not assume drugs or some other crime?
|
| Edit: also this version of the biscuit story is missing the
| final extra flavor text! The version I read ended something
| like, "What I love about this tragedy is that there is another
| bloke who has been telling the exact same story about an insane
| person stealing their biscuits. Except his version does not end
| on the punchline."
| jaysonelliot wrote:
| Every time Douglas Adams' biscuit story is told, I laugh as
| hard as if I were hearing it for the first time.
| tengwar2 wrote:
| I think it goes back to Jerome K Jerome, at least.
| hinkley wrote:
| Look around for an identical plane in apparent disrepair.
| gxs wrote:
| My cars been stolen twice and both times, given the type of car,
| where it was stolen, and where it was abandoned the cops said it
| was most likely stolen to conduct a drug deal and then ditched
|
| Seems plausible that something like that may be going on here
| softbuilder wrote:
| This is actually a plot line in Landman, where the cartel
| occasionally steals the oil company's jet and then returns it.
| avidiax wrote:
| Related article:
| https://www.jalopnik.com/1932213/cessna-172-plane-stolen-twi...
|
| ------
|
| Interestingly, airplanes can also get repossessed. Special pilots
| get all the legal paperwork arranged and just show up and fly a
| plane out.
|
| I suppose the high skill needed means that most pilots wouldn't
| want to steal airplanes, and it would not make sense to steal any
| airplane that needs special support from the manufacturer (the
| new owner can't keep it flying). Cars are much lower skill to
| steal and maintain and have a much broader market.
|
| https://aerocorner.com/blog/what-happened-to-airplane-repo/
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| From what I've been told by fixed wing pilots, flying a plane
| isn't really that hard. At least one baggage handler stole a
| commercial passenger aircraft recently and flew it out,
| including acrobatics.
|
| Flying one in a safe manner and following all the rules can be
| pretty difficult however. For example there is an area near me
| that is from the air as boring as any other part of Texas. It's
| controlled airspace because it is the Bush Family Ranch. The
| secret service will investigate you if you fly over it.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Landing is tough because it's somewhat counterintuitive. You
| need to maintain enough airspeed to avoid a stall but
| obviously you need to slow down to lose altitude and, you
| know, stop.
| crinkly wrote:
| Yeah. I've been in an A320 simulator before for a few hours.
| They are pretty easy to fly and land. What isn't easy is
| getting one in a state ready to fly and to the runway. I can
| fly a Cessna 172 (didn't get enough solo hours for PPL
| though) and it's not difficult. Again prep is the hardest
| bit.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Oh yeah for larger jet aircraft certainly it is. I read
| that apparently the SR-71 preflight was so big it was
| performed by a backup crew and the primary crew had the
| option to simply jump in and fly if the timetable required
| it. But a small single engine aircraft isn't nearly as bad
| xenadu02 wrote:
| Landing the airplane in a way that you don't damage the
| airplane or yourself is another matter entirely.
|
| You can also easily get yourself killed through a stall/spin,
| flying into IMC/bad weather, etc.
|
| A lot of pilot training is how to plan for weather, check
| performance, handle emergencies, and not create chaos for
| everyone else.
| gbacon wrote:
| Flying is easy. Taking off is easy. Landing is tricky.
| philiplu wrote:
| Never got far past my PPL decades ago (less than 100 hours
| total iirc) but landing was always such a fun dance in
| Pipers and Cessnas, slipping the plane into the cross-wind
| to line up the plane at the last moment before touching
| done.
| wavemode wrote:
| The hard things about flying any plane are
|
| 1. Landing.
|
| 2. Knowing what to do when things go wrong. Any time you read
| about jets avoiding near collisions, landing in heavy
| crosswinds, landing safely after engine failure, etc etc, you
| have many checklists and years of rigorous training to thank
| for that.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Flying is easy to those for whom it's become second nature.
| At first it's really very difficult to get the plane to do
| (and keep doing) what you want (or what ATC instructs). At
| some point, you realize that you're holding a heading and
| altitude without really thinking about it, while doing a
| several other things. I think it really depends on who you
| ask and a whole host of other variables just how easy flying
| is.
| ksherlock wrote:
| It's probably just that new startup, Aero. It's like Turo, except
| airplanes instead of cars. Also, they don't tell the airplane
| owners.
|
| But seriously, there are lots of airplanes sitting on ramps for
| months at a time with no security so it's a minor miracle it
| doesn't happen more often.
| MarkusQ wrote:
| She isn't "returning" the plane, she's landing it somewhere and
| he's finding out it's there later. And she isn't "fixing" it,
| she's replacing bits (the battery and headphones) he removed to
| make it harder to steal.
| flippyhead wrote:
| That was my first thought. There's only so many places you can
| take it. Though I guess they could also ... hide it in a hangar
| somewhere?
| mirkules wrote:
| But don't all pilots have to lodge their flight plans? Surely
| hiding a plane in a hangar is not that easy since you would
| know which airport it is located in.
| wingspar wrote:
| No. Many flight types do not require flight plans.
| csours wrote:
| https://www.ecfr.gov/search?search%5Bdate%5D=current&search
| %...
|
| Or browse by Title 14, Chapter 1, Subchapters F & G (Aka
| Title 14, Parts 89 - 139)
|
| I'm not vouching for this link in particular, but you can
| also search for things like Part 91 operator, Part 135
| operator, etc
|
| https://l33jets.com/resources/blog/the-difference-between-
| pa...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _she isn 't "fixing" it_
|
| The idea of a rando doing unknown maintenance on my plane is
| downright horrifying.
| geoffeg wrote:
| I imagine it's someone that doesn't have the monetary means to
| rent or buy a plane combined with a bit of mental health issues.
|
| At the uncontrolled community airport I got my PPL at there were
| a few pilots who were known to have expired medical certificates
| and long expired flight reviews flying planes that they owned
| that hadn't had an annual inspection in years. All older guys who
| had nothing to lose if the FAA found out and grounded them.
|
| I'm not sure why the owner of that aircraft doesn't setup an
| alert for it's tail number on one of the many aviation tracking
| sites. Call the airport management, police or local FBO once he
| sees it on approach to land at some airport.
| MBCook wrote:
| He's 75, he may not know those sites are an option.
|
| That said how is the airport not doing something about this?
| They just keep letting it happen?
| geoffeg wrote:
| Some smaller airports are pretty sleepy. There's no control
| tower at his home airport (Corona Municipal Airport) and it
| doesn't look like there's an FBO there. There's probably
| generally no one at the airport unless someone is there to
| take their plane up. Even if there is someone there running
| out to the ramp every time they hear a plane startup would
| get tedious very quickly.
| bbarnett wrote:
| There are even just 'airfields' here, if that's even the
| proper name. They're just well maintained grass fields with
| a place to tie up a plane and refueling.
|
| Maybe that's too far in a rural area for this conversation
| though.
| arcfour wrote:
| They literally mention FlightAware and him using it in the
| article.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I'm leaning towards it being some extremely cheeky
| DCS/flightsim nerd because of the shortness and randomness of
| the flights.
| geoffeg wrote:
| > I'm leaning towards it being some extremely cheeky
| DCS/flightsim nerd because of the shortness and randomness of
| the flights. It screams "do it because I can and report back
| to the boys" to me.
|
| It's not so easy to land a plane in real life, even if you
| have a lot of flightsim experience. It is definitely possible
| and there are people who have done it, but I don't think it's
| the norm. A lot of flying, especially landing, involves
| sensory inputs. Additionally, replacing the battery in that
| Cessna probably requires taking the cowling off. Not properly
| securing the battery or cowling may result in a bad time if
| something comes loose. Once again, doable, but you can do as
| quickly as you can with a car.
|
| > I know literally nothing about flying. How does this work?
| Wouldn't the air traffic controllers see it on radar and try
| to radio it then call in the military (I've probably watched
| too many movies.)? Always blows my mind when I hear this kind
| of stuff in this day and age.
|
| If you takeoff from an uncontrolled airport and stay clear of
| controlled and restricted airspace you don't have to say a
| single thing on any radio and no one will care about you. The
| controllers would see the blip on their radars but there's no
| requirements to check in with them (although it's generally a
| good idea) so they'll mostly keep other aircraft who they are
| talking to away from you.
|
| Now, if you do fly into controlled airspace near an airport
| with a tower without talking to anyone, things will change. A
| slight excursion into the controlled airspace for a short
| time may go unnoticed, but the more blatant and prolonged the
| deviation, the larger the response will be. Fly into LAX's
| airspace and get in the way of their flights and you'll
| eventually get a visit from some friendly fighter jets.
| (There are some exceptions. For instance, there's a few
| narrow corridors through LAX's airspace that don't require
| talking to ATC. One of those corridors even goes directly
| over LAX's runways at a few thousand feet.)
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Fascinating. Are there instruments that show you in
| realtime 3d airspaces you can enter and not?
| geoffeg wrote:
| Most aircraft have a GPS on the panel that can show you
| the airspace around you and along your flight path, but
| it's not a required instrument. It's more of a 2D
| depiction of the airspaces, but there are three
| dimensional depictions on them. There's also apps like
| ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot that you can run on a tablet
| or phone.
|
| Before those electronic methods became ubiquitous pilots
| used paper charts and references and used ground
| references, pilotage and navigation aids to determine
| their position on that paper map. For instance, here's
| the complex airspace around the aircraft owner's home
| airport. https://skyvector.com/?ll=33.897663018511054,-11
| 7.6024627647...
| gbacon wrote:
| It didn't roll off the factory floor in 1958 with a
| moving map GPS. A common retrofit is a Garmin 430 that
| has a 2D bird's eye view of airspace lateral boundaries.
| ForeFlight runs on iPhones and iPads; other electronic
| flight bag software runs on either iOS or Android
| devices. But you have to know what you're looking at and
| what the rules are for different classes of airspace. In
| Class C or D, you only have to establish two-way contact,
| but Class B requires explicit clearance.
| diggan wrote:
| > It's not so easy to land a plane in real life, even if
| you have a lot of flightsim experience.
|
| I dunno where I'd put it on the difficulty scale of things,
| but with lots of flight sim experience, it seems you're a
| lot better equipped than others. I've landed a Cessna, and
| I'm not a pilot, just eager enthusiast with some flight sim
| experience over many years. The person co-
| piloting/supervising told me I did great, and that he only
| allowed me to land the plane because I demonstrated
| proficiency in the air. I wouldn't say it's "hard",
| probably I'd have more trouble with finding and replacing
| the battery than the actual flying part.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Consider that you did so with an actual pilot beside you
| in what I presume were CAVOK conditions.
|
| Plenty of children (once they get big enough to reach the
| pedals) can take a car for a spin. That doesn't mean that
| driving safely in all conditions you may find yourself
| thrown in is easy, even with e.g. lots of racing game
| experience.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I, too, landed whatever tailwheel my grandpa had back
| when I was eight years old, without even an hour of
| training. Now, my kids can land my plane too. It helps
| that I'm on the controls, but they don't seem to notice.
| I hope my grandpa enjoyed it then as much as I do now.
|
| The suggestion that proficiency "in the air" correlates
| to ability to land, and the referring to the PIC as "co-
| piloting" are both pretty good indicators that there's
| more to the story. Flying is fun, but doing so without
| training is terribly unforgiving.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| > For instance, there's a few narrow corridors through
| LAX's airspace that don't require talking to ATC. One of
| those corridors even goes directly over LAX's runways at a
| few thousand feet.)
|
| Why do these exist?
| gbacon wrote:
| As a flight instructor, flight sim teaches lots of bad habits
| that need to be unlearned at the beginning. Over-fixation on
| instruments is at the top of this list for VFR operations. I
| am not at all convinced that a person with only sim
| experience would be able to successfully land a C172.
| bendbro wrote:
| Flight sim experience causes "over-fixation on
| instruments"? I'm surprised, I would have expected the
| opposite.
| gbacon wrote:
| Yes, VFR pilots need to look outside a huge majority of
| the time. The rule of thumb is look out the window 90% of
| the time and peek at your instruments the remaining 10
| percent. New primary students and especially simmers have
| a tendency to stare at the flight instruments, a bad
| habit that can be tough to break.
|
| For example, ATC might give an altitude restriction for
| safety: "Cessna 123AB, maintain VFR at or below three
| thousand for crossing traffic." Observing this
| restriction is important, but staring at the altimeter
| will likely result in the heading wandering all over the
| place and ironically even a tendency to over-control
| altitude that may cause wandering up and down. The proper
| way to execute it is to learn what the level sight
| picture looks like, put the nose there, trim for
| straight-and-level flight, and occasionally peek at the
| altimeter and VSI to confirm that it's staying there. If
| the pilot gets distracted, say looking down at an iPad
| for a bit, look outside first to get back on heading if
| necessary, check the instruments ("take a picture with
| your mind"), and make small adjustments to get back to
| where it should be.
|
| ATC operates on lots of buffers. For a restriction of
| three thousand, that crossing traffic is likely to be at
| 4,000 or higher.
| bendbro wrote:
| Ah that makes quite a lot of sense and I'd definitely
| find myself with that bad habit if I tried flying. In a
| sim my purpose is to have fun flying the plane by the
| seat of my pants but flying in reality would have me
| anxious to avoid breaking any rules.
| gbacon wrote:
| No need to anxious. Your CFI is there to keep you safe
| and prevent anything wildly dangerous while you're
| teaching yourself to fly.
|
| Look outside, and learn what correct looks like.
| References on the ground are already giving you gobs of
| information. The feel of the yoke and the sounds from the
| engine are also giving you continuous clues about what
| the airplane is doing. No sim I've seen reproduces all of
| those additional channels of information.
|
| Where simulators _are_ really helpful is with procedural
| flying, like practicing instrument approaches. You can't
| log your desktop sim for currency, but advanced training
| devices are good enough in the FAA's eyes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _flying in reality would have me anxious to avoid
| breaking any rules_
|
| You're generally operating well away from a perilous
| state with ample margins of safety. I find flying
| incredibly relaxing.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| How similar would you say it is to simracing? Because
| simracing prepped me extremely well for the track despite
| never having driven a car.
| gbacon wrote:
| I have zero experience with simracing, so I don't know. I
| would guess the urgency of other vehicles being around,
| needing to see the course, and a lack of interesting
| instruments inside would tend to keep a simracer's eyes
| outside and away from the dash.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I wasn't even able to successfully land a 172 after 6 or 8
| hours in a 150 and growing up around aviation, including
| flight sims. Add in the fact that these were night flights
| (and in SoCal airspace) and I become very skeptical of the
| flightsim theory. I only wonder what tail number the time
| builder logged (but if you're going to forge that, or the
| airports, why do the flight at all?)
| fakedang wrote:
| I'd wager it's the ghost of Sky King, may he forever rest in
| peace.
|
| https://people.howstuffworks.com/richard-russell.htm
| dylan604 wrote:
| > All older guys who had nothing to lose if the FAA found out
| and grounded them.
|
| If you're someone that has enough land to make a strip and can
| afford the plane, you'd be amazed at what you can "get away"
| with out the anyone of authority noticing.
| flippyhead wrote:
| I absolutely loved this book: https://www.amazon.com/Barefoot-
| Bandit-Colton-Harris-Moore-A...
|
| Written by a guy who actually lived on the islands where this was
| happening (where I also happen to live).
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Probably drug smuggling... this is kind of like the plot in
| Landman
| tracker1 wrote:
| Pretty much my first thought as well. I'd probably setup some
| kind of lo-jack + dashcam setup to try and get images of the
| "burrowing" person(s) though.
|
| You'd think maybe the DEA, ATF, FBI and/or FAA would find
| enough interest in this to operate some level of sting
| operation or crack down.
| parliament32 wrote:
| > But Montanez said there's no immediate indication as to who the
| culprit is.
|
| My understanding was you cannot fly without filing a flight plan
| (or is this just a Canada-specific thing?), and that flight plan
| has to be submitted by _someone_ , so there has to be a trail
| here. If the plans were not filed, after all, how would he be
| able to tell the plane was flown "multiple times" during one of
| this extended absences?
|
| EDIT: Yes it's Canada-specific, required for any flights over 25
| nautical miles, including VFR https://laws-
| lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-96-433/p...
| symfoniq wrote:
| VFR (visual) flights don't require filing a flight plan.
| kashunstva wrote:
| For VFR (visual flight rules) flights in the U.S., a flight
| plan is not needed and many such flights are made without a
| flight plan. If a VFR flight is conducted without talking to
| anyone, to and from uncontrolled fields, then they would be
| squawking 1200, in which case the flight wouldn't be identified
| on Flight Aware. Unless there's some unique ID being
| transmitted by ADS-B...
| seemaze wrote:
| I have a great story from my friend's father when we were
| kids in the western US. They lived at one of these
| residential airstrip developments, and owned a remote ranch
| about 60 min. away by air. The father was in the habit of
| commuting between his home and ranch at will.
|
| Flying home one day he found himself flanked by two fighter
| jets and escorted to the nearest commercial airport. He was
| hustled into the back of a black SUV and taken to his home
| where is family was gathered in the living room giving
| statements to a bunch of men in suits. Turns out the POTUS
| was is town for a visit, and my friends father had failed to
| read the temporary flight restriction advisory..
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they would be squawking 1200, in which case the flight
| wouldn 't be identified on Flight Aware_
|
| My 1200 flights frequently show up on FlightAware, FYI.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| Flight plans are only required for IFR flights in many
| countries. The VFR rules vary (altitude, area, etc). You can
| file a VFR flight plan if you want to but it is not required.
|
| On the other hand you can't enter Clasa B airspace (the
| airspace around large airports) without permission from ATC.
| You also can't fly above 18,000ft in the US under VFR. That
| keeps small planes mostly away from the big jets.
| gbacon wrote:
| Yes, there has to be a trail, but not from flight plans.
|
| In the U.S., ATC does not receive VFR flight plans (except for
| the weird special case of the D.C. SFRA, but even those are
| filed as IFR flight plans), only Search and Rescue. Flying in
| instrument conditions requires being on an IFR flight plan.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| While until recently I had to, in the name of flight safety,
| carefully pack my bags while consulting the sizes of shampoo
| containers allowed in the carry-on baggage, surrender my
| unapproved nail clippers, and with my shoes in hand and pants
| belt-less - stand in line to be x-rayed and patted down on my way
| to board a plane...
|
| ... someone can without anyone ringing any alarm bells and not
| phasing the local law enforcement one bit - take off multiple
| times unnoticed and unidentified on a private plane, and, if they
| choose to, fly it straight into a freshly refueled jet that I am
| sitting in waiting to take off.
|
| Shhh, hope "terrorists" don't read this comment. Or the article
| in LA Times.
| gbacon wrote:
| *in the name of security theater
|
| General aviation, in the U.S. at least, runs largely on the
| honor system. To fly in controlled airspace these days, ADS-B
| out is required, and there are definitely records of where
| people go
| TylerE wrote:
| This is rather hysterical. "Alarm bells" - both metaphorical
| and physical - would absolutely be going off if a Cessna was
| not responding on radio and headed anywhere near an airport
| operating passenger jets. Corona Muni isn't LAX.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| To be fair, few people know anything about aviation other
| than being miffed at the grand inconvenience of obeying the
| rules of scheduled passenger flight services.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| To be accurate I am "miffed" at the blase response of
| airport admin and local police. No "criminal negligence",
| no "dereliction of duty". Not even administrative
| punishment for utter incompetence at a primary job with
| rather serious potential consequences.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| ...which betrays a lack of knowledge of aviation beyond
| the inconveniences of scheduled passenger flight
| services.
|
| There is an entire world of aviation outside of
| commercial airlines flying airliners out of large,
| towered airports with fancy terminal buildings. An
| aircraft is a vehicle like any other, and operating one
| is regulated in tiers like any other type of vehicle.
| It's about as inane to gripe that an untowered
| recreational airport is not regulated to the same extent
| as the airports _you_ fly commercially out of, as it
| would be to gripe that you driving your car out of your
| home is not regulated to the same extent as driving a
| school bus.
| ncruces wrote:
| Or, to make the point more salient, a rowboat in a lake,
| vs a containership in a deep water port.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Isn't this a bit like being mad at Joe's Unstaffed
| Parking Garage because someone "borrowed" your car that
| you left there for the week?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Well, yeah. Anyone can own a small plane if they have the
| money. There's plenty of uncontrolled airspace and uncontrolled
| airports.
|
| Good God! What would happen if someone rented a box truck and
| bought some fertilizer?
|
| Oh, and civilians can own muzzle-loading black powder cannons.
| Imagine what someone could do with a 32-pound cannonball.
|
| The reality is anyone with the proper skills can crash a plane
| into anything they like. Unless you have someone on the roof
| with a MPAD, no one is going be to stop them in time.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| > Oh, and civilians can own muzzle-loading black powder
| cannons. Imagine what someone could do with a 32-pound
| cannonball.
|
| At many historical locations, said cannons are just sitting
| around entirely unguarded! Anyone[0] could just come and take
| one.
|
| [0]...equipped with heavy equipment and maybe a hefty grinder
| or a stout set of bolt cutters.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| There is a big difference between a Cessna 172 with a gross
| weight of 2,450 including the 56 gallons of fuel and an A380
| with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,268,000 pounds and 65,000
| gallons of fuel.
|
| Did you know the Twin Towers were actually designed to
| withstand a jet?
| https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19930227/1687698/tw...
|
| Except they assumed that it'd be a 707 and also that'd be at
| landing speed of about 180mph ... not a 767 (which could be as
| much as 2x a 707 in take off weight) doing almost 600 mph.
|
| A plane larger than a Cessna, but still no jumbo jet, crashed
| into a mall https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/12/21/the-
| sunvalley-mall-p... - 7 people died. Tragic, but it goes to
| show that SIZE DOES MATTER.
|
| Also also. "no alarm bells" is highly dependent on location. If
| this "stolen" plane were to have flown into highly controlled
| airspace without approvals, you can bet your ass that alarm
| bells would have gone off. But the person flying the plane knew
| what they were doing and where they were going. They went away
| from busy areas and didn't anything out of the ordinary.
|
| Is there still many reasons this could be a problem? Sure. But
| invoking the terrorism word is full FUD, the likes of which the
| media loves to use. And ends us with security theater like
| shampoo size limits.
| kens wrote:
| The article says that he found cigarette butts in the airplane.
| This DNA evidence would make it straightforward for the police to
| find the culprit if they wanted to.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Possessing someone's DNA doesn't automatically, magically tell
| you who they are. If there's nothing to match it to then all
| you have is someone's spit.
| m463 wrote:
| I read somewhere that a surprising number of car thefts are just
| for transportation across town
| f4c39012 wrote:
| hold on, i've got an idea for a startup...
| daft_pink wrote:
| The person probably thinks it's his own plane that's flying it.
|
| Maybe they have a similar plane and simply thinks that plane is
| there own.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Are they barefoot?
| wheaties wrote:
| So a perfectly good plane that someone could enjoy and fly sits
| languishing at an airport because the owner, who now can't fly or
| doesn't want to, won't sell it? I get the attachment and all.
| However, if you know there's a finite number of these things then
| please sell it to someone who would use it.
|
| That's a golden age plane and it should be flown. Too bad many
| people would rather let something rot.
|
| Also, I don't support stealing a plane.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _because the owner, who now can 't fly or doesn't want to,
| won't sell it_
|
| It's an airworthy 1958 Cessna for a reason. Planes like these
| don't depreciate like cars, by time, but like engines: flight
| time is the principal determiner of deterioration. (For
| pressurised planes its pressure cycles.) The only thing being
| "wasted" here might be hangar space.
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