Someone Just Had a Very Bad Day in D.C.

bflynn said:
Even with the SFRA and FRZ, there's still commercial traffic flying the Potomac River route. The distance from the Potomac to the White House is 1.5 miles. At a Boeing approach speed of 155 kts, that's just 30 seconds from the time the aircraft departs it's expected route for someone to catch, raise the alarm and people to react. If they accelerate, it is less. The only thing keeping terrorists from crashing an airplane into the White House is because they don't want to. It most certainly isn't because we are keeping aircraft from flying over DC.
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There are special procedures for flights in and out of National.

Still, it's been shown that you can get downtown faster than a response if you were determined and it doesn't take 155 knots.
 
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If it was a large slow moving why did they think it was a manned aircraft?
 
flyingron said:
There are special procedures for flights in and out of National.

Still, it's been shown that you can get downtown faster than a response if you were determined and it doesn't take 155 knots.
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155 kts is the approach speed for ... a 777? They're all similar, I think the 777 is the fastest.
 
No aircraft was found. Maybe birds, according to NORAD.

excerpt from https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/white-house-locked-down-after-reported-airspace-violation/

According to a statement form NORAD, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was sent to investigate and “the event was resolved without incident.” No aircraft was found and it has been reported that the pilot of the helicopter investigating the incident told air traffic control that they had spotted a flock of birds in the vicinity.
​
Considering the value of Washington DC as a military target, I'm surprised that radar can't distinguish Bonanzas and birds. They have to send up a Coast Guard helicopter to take an in-person look.
 
Flyhound said:
Don't forget the gyrocopter guy that landed on the Smithsonian Mall in front of the Capital building. He was making a statement. He was focused on some abstract policy issue, but the real statement was that the defenses around the capital are inadequate to deal with a determined adversary. You could hit any target you want before the fighters were scrambled and arrived on scene. The veil isn't that large.
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I've said this for years. If someone is willing to die for what they believe in, there ain't no stopping them. They will find a way to accomplish whatever f'ed up message or statement they are trying to make.
 
bflynn said:
Actually, it does. The program has not caught a single terrorist. If it had, DHS would be telling everyone about how the program works because that would absolutely justify it's existence.

Even with the SFRA and FRZ, there's still commercial traffic flying the Potomac River route. The distance from the Potomac to the White House is 1.5 miles. At a Boeing approach speed of 155 kts, that's just 30 seconds from the time the aircraft departs it's expected route for someone to catch, raise the alarm and people to react. If they accelerate, it is less. The only thing keeping terrorists from crashing an airplane into the White House is because they don't want to. It most certainly isn't because we are keeping aircraft from flying over DC.
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The purpose is not to stop them, the purpose is to provide a few minutes warning for key people when they do.
 
Yes. But if they’re starting on the Potomac approach, say around Roosevelt island, the warning is probably less than 20 seconds if they accelerate above approach speed. Arresting pilots isn’t what has stopped attacks.
 
So here's what happened... wasn't birds. Pretty cool write up actually: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ed-with-that-washington-d-c-air-defense-scare

From the link above:
"
Our sources tell us that although it is not uncommon for birds to be the cause of false alerts multiple times a month around this time a year, the issue that occurred on the 26th was a radar anomaly that was compounded by human error. One of the radars that feeds data into the integrated air defense system created what is called a "mirror track" of an innocuous and in-contact airplane whose transponder was squawking that it was under visual flight rules (VFR). Because it was a mirror track of just the transponder, there is no primary radar return where the mirror track was, the system pointed it out immediately and started automatically pointing electro-optical camera systems at it to validate the return and to identify what it actually was.

Apparently, the D.C. area's integrated air surveillance system is good enough that transponder tracks alone, where the radar doesn't also have a corresponding hard radar return, nearly never occur. But in this case, it was an anomaly happening within the radar system, not the result of lack of radar coverage or fidelity.

When the cameras pointed at the mirror track's location, they saw a real plane that was located roughly along the same azimuth as the mirror track. The issue is that since cameras cannot quantify range, it validated that something was there, but in reality, that plane was not at the range the radar showed the mirror track to be, it was much farther away. In other words, if a plane was actually where the mirror track should have been, the cameras would have seen two airplanes, not just one. As a result of this confusion, more cameras started being pointed at the target automatically.

At this time, the mirror track faded away, so the cameras had no automated radar data left to point to. Human operators took over and they started manually scanning the area for something that wasn't there anymore. There have been reports of ‘blobs’ being seen by the air defense system operators during this instance. Our sources made it clear that this is anything but uncommon as looking into the sky with long focal length cameras results in blobs, especially when scattered clouds are present. There is simply nothing substantial or defining to look at.
"
 
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