In a column printed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, talk show host — and pilot — Neal Boortz opines about the anti-GA crowd flying off the handle after the Austin crash. He tries to set things straight:
“Let me start with the idiot talking heads I heard on the cable news channels in the hours after the attack. (It was an attack, not an accident.) Of course we got the usual trip about flight plans. “The pilot didn’t file a flight plan!” one broadcaster wailed. I heard another news reader say that “since it was a single-engine airplane, a flight plan wasn’t required.” Can those of us involved in general aviation ask just a small favor here? If you’re reporting the news, stick to reporting the news. Don’t start guessing about things you know nothing about. The number of engines on an airplane has nothing to do with it. A 747 can fly around the state without a flight plan.
And just where do people get the idea that there’s some sort of magic in a flight plan that would have prevented this disaster in the first place? All this man had to do was file a flight plan and take off! Is there some magic flight plan cloaking device that would have prevented him from flying into that building? Hardly.”
Take a minute to read the entire column. It’s worth it.
