Cessna Scare Shows Mixed Post 911 Prep Results

When a small Cessna 150 containing a pilot and student pilot veered into restricted air space, within 3 miles of the White House, sparking evacuations throughout the capital, it inadvertently brought up a key issue:

How well-prepared is Washington after the bitter experience of 911? If Wednesday’s evacuation was looked at as a fire-drill, how did Washington do?

Although it’s still a bit early to give a definitive judgment, some things have already become clear:

Military aircraft were scrambled and caught up with the plane very quickly, a seeming improvement in response time compared to 911:

Two Black Hawk helicopters were dispatched at 11:55 a.m. from Reagan National Airport, according to an FAA official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plane came as close as four miles to the city, the official said.

The plane was approached by a fighter aircraft and escorted to a small airport in Frederick, Md. The pilot was being held by Maryland state police at the airport in Frederick, Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden said.

But, on the ground, it seemed more chaotic. Various reports note that First Lady Laura Bush, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, and Vice President Dick Cheney, all at the White House, got whisked away to safety super-quick.

But in Congress? This writer watched the drama unfold on Direct TV while sitting in his seat on Frontiers Airlines, heading towards Denver, CO to catch a connecting flight. Various cable stations showed video over and over of Congress getting the news– and politicos running for the door almost as quickly as they would if a lobbyist had been standing there waving a campaign contribution check.

Watching lawmakers flee for their lives was not a pretty sight (Nancy Pelosi told a reporter she left so quickly she left without her shoes). This raises the question as to whether the equivalent of high-stakes fire drills and established evacuation plans might be in order ASAP for the nation’s capitol — particularly for Congress. Cable TV news also showed Capitol Police holding guns telling people to run. Is there a better way?

The press fared worse, although it doesn’t seem (at first glance, at least) to have been a Freudian slip-up:

A public address system installed after the Sept. 11 attacks to warn White House reporters about an emergency was not used earlier today when the building was evacuated after a small plane flew into unrestricted air space over Washington, D.C., reporters told E&P.

“They didn’t activate the emergency P.A. system as they were supposed to,” said Alex Keto, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires. “A handful of television crew people were eating lunch in the lunch area and were never told about it and did not leave.”

Reporters said most journalists in the press area were ordered across the street to Lafayette Park, but some who did not immediately leave were directed into the White House basement.

Keto, who was in the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, said he only heard about today’s evacuation after another reporter in the press briefing area noticed security people rushing about. “I heard one reporter say they had guns out and there is an incident,” Keto told E&P by phone from his White House desk. “But that is fairly regular. Then the Secret Service came through and shouted to evacuate, but the P.A. system was not activated. It was supposed to go off.”

Jean Doublet, a White House reporter for Agence France-Presse, confirmed the account. “There was no formal announcement at all, and we just went outside because we saw a commotion,” he told E&P. “There was no announcement in the beginning, and none when I came back in about 20 minutes later.”

Meanwhile, in a blunt editorial, USA Today declares:”Security needs long-distance plan, not race between scares” Read the whole thing. Here are some highlights:

The scare, prompted by an apparently clueless pilot, lasted just 15 minutes, a blip in the annals of homeland security. Now, the federal government needs to ensure that blip doesn’t send anti-terrorism plans scurrying in some new direction.



Too often since Sept. 11, 2001, Washington has overreacted to the latest scare. The administration and Congress have ricocheted from problem to problem, rather than setting priorities and moving to meet those goals. Or they’ve focused on the gloss, rather than the substance.

The paper then points to its article in which former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge reveals that his agency often felt evidence was too flimsy to raise the color code — but Bush administration officials had insisted the levels be raised. (Leading to VALID questions about exactly why the administration would not take the word of its own presumed terrorism experts).

In its editorial, the paper concludes:

Looked at substantively, the incident could offer insights into the capital’s air defense plans. How dangerous is a plane so small? What if it were carrying anthrax or another bioterror weapon? While official buildings were evacuated, should the rest of the city have been warned? Was “Run!” bad advice that endangered evacuees and sent images of a skittish America around the world?

Certainly, a hair-trigger response is preferable to the sluggish response of 9/11. And thankfully, Wednesday’s episode ended with no harm done. There’s a big difference between learning from it and overreacting to it. The former will make homeland security stronger. The latter will steer it off course.

All of this suggests that The Great Cessna Scare showed some improvement since 911 — but also suggests there has to be a better way of responding to a major terrorist alert.



UPDATE: Yet more begging questions are raised by MSNBC, which notes that an unnotified President George Bush peddled his bike in a park and city officials were in the dark about the incident until it was “all clear.” It would seem that letting the President and the city know about a possible terrorist threat before it is “all clear” might be a slightly useful goal in the future..