It appears as a potentially deadly situation was resolved without incident in Roanoke, Virginia. A region-wide airplane chase was led by a man who wanted to crash a stolen Cessna 172 plane (pictured above) into Smith Mountain Lake. The plane was stolen this morning before 11AM from the Roanoke Regional Airport. Evacuations had occurred at Bridgewater Plaza and it sounds like the region was in quite a stir. The man landed the plane and was chased down by the FBI. I thought they shot down planes that were out of control?
The suicidal, runaway pilot did not get approval from air traffic control. The chase occurred all over South West Virginia. We put together a map of the points of sighting and interpolated a flight area of the plane. Thank goodness no one got hurt.
Map is after the break..
[via Roanoke Times]
Popularity: 29% [?]
Tagged as: cessna, crash, jet, pilot, plane, Roanoke, scare, south, steal, stolen, suicide, Virginia, west
A shot-down plane is no better than an out-of-control plane: that flaming wreckage has to land somewhere! Shooting down a plane isn’t a free pass to safety.
Heck, if what this guy really wanted to do was crash into a lake, well, that’s about as safe a place (for everyone else) as he could wind up!
(FWIW, a suicidal person at the controls of a small plane is, to me, no more worrisome than a suicidal person at the controls of a speeding car.)
“The chase occurred all over South West Virginia.”
You mean, “the chase occurred all over southwest Virginia.”
/geography nazi
the worry was that there is a large dam at smith mountain lake and since 9/11 homeland security gets bent out of shape when someone hijacks a plane… doubt he wanted to crash into the ‘water’
A 172’s maximum take off weight is 2450 lbs - it could not damage a dam.
We’re gonna need to see a virtual model of the crash impact of potential of a Cessna 172.