A 22-year old Georgia man was arrested Wednesday, accused of stealing a Cessna Citation and taking it from St. Augustine, FL, to Gwinnett County Airport/Briscoe Field. Police described the incident as a “joy-ride.”
Daniel Andrew Wolcott was jailed on $175,000 bond and faces federal charges in addition to the six state charges filed by police in Georgia on Wednesday.
“Investigators made contact with five individuals who came forward and gave statements of being on the plane when Wolcott flew it,” Gwinnett County Police spokesman Darren Moloney told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They were just enjoying the ride,” he said. None of the passengers were charged along with Wolcott.
Wolcott, a commercial pilot, wasn’t rated to fly the $7 million Citation VII, Moloney said. “But apparently is a talented and gifted pilot.” The young pilot was a frequent visitor to Briscoe Field, he said, occasionally working odd jobs there.
The aircraft apparently landed after the Gwinnett County field closed for the night on Sunday, he said. The six men on board appeared to have walked off the plane and away from the airport without being noticed. The Citation was finally spotted Monday morning by an airport employee.
Lou Dobbs, reporting on his TV show, this afternoon, states the FAA and Homeland Security “never noticed the flight”! This is a jet with a 6-ton capacity. The flight was 350-400 miles.
“I would just encourage increased vigilance at the various airports and the companies that have these aircraft to ensure better security,” FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett told the Atlanta paper. “I don’t think it requires any systems changes or anything.”
The Citation VII has a lock on the door, but Moloney said it wouldn’t have been very difficult to defeat it if someone really wanted to get inside.
Our tax dollars at work. Accomplishing about as much as you’d expect.
I don’t ever count on the government to do much of anything well. So none of this is surprising to me.
At first I thought this was just some humorous little story. That is until the seriousness sunk in.
Forget about illegal immigrants walking across the border, now they could just fly in. Hey why not fill up the unused space with contraband like drugs, or anthrax powder. Hey, how much would a small nuclear device weigh?
Maybe it was somebody’s bowling night and they slipped out early. Or, they could have been intently watching dubya on TV swinging a hammer, pretending to build a house.
Florida’s top two industries, car theft and drugs, depend on this stealth attibute of being able to move large amounts of anything about without detection. Planes and ships arrrive with drugs and illegal imagrants and depart with stolen cars and megabucks of cash.
The underlying problem is lax border control – a much bigger problem than a joyride.
There is no doubt an ongoing investigation of this event as this is an inexcusable breakdown in the system. There is a transponder on board that is constantly sending an ident and altitude. He may have turned it off but then the plane would have shown up on radar as an unidentified plane.
However, the pilot/thief might have made the flight and observed all the rules. If the weather was clear, the flight could have been made legally VFR-(Visual Flight Rules.) This would have made him nearly invisible with little contact with the ATC except there would have been a record of the flight.
We are so vulnerable that it is unnerving.
Cut the baloney and get down to the important stuff. What “ALERT LEVEL COLOR should I be at???
Paul — they DIDN’T identify themselves during the flight.
Martin — I’m the ONLY member of my extended family who’s never been a pilot. We live next to a municipal airport. Rules may have changed; but, asking my wife, this morning — when she used to pilot, small private aircraft weren’t always required to file a flight plan. In any case, these guys DIDN’T file a flight plan.
Saxking20 — they turned off the transponder.
These are from further newsnotes.
It is NOT the job of the federal government to monitor every move made by ever resource in every state. Stop trying to turn this country into a police state. If you hate the DMCA and the patriot act and other infringementsn on our rights as americans write to your local reps. Stop contradicting yourself by opposing such rediculous legislature and then looking to the feds to stop a guy flying a plane. Our founding fathers never wanted our lives to be governed or watched over by the federal government and that is what you are asking for. Maybe this isn’t the country for you.
Paul (if that is your real name)
With the golfer, NORAD had some F-16s flying alongside for much of the flight. They reported that there was no activity inside the cockpit.
The problem with this is that “Homeland Insecurity”is mandated to police the airspace above us. They didn’t notice that an unidentified JET was in the air. Air travel is a Federal responsibility and the FAA, and several military agencies, are responsible for controlling and policing it.
If a smaller airplane, such as a Citation, could be flown undetected for over 350 miles on a joy ride, what could happen if the same jet was filled with anthrax spores, high explosive, or even a home made nuclear device. As another writer pointed out, there were four planes that crashed on September 11, 2001 that were also NOT under their owner’s control. The danger is very real that this could happen again.
For you and the other Bush apologists, THIS WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. True dangers, such as hurricanes and hijacked / stolen aircraft are less important then sealing the lips of librarians.
Wow. Angry liberals that spout nonsense. What a shock.
This argument was won with logic: This is a local airport security issue.
Deal with it.
Whatever position you take on this, federal vs local issue – it is certainly not a partisan or conservative vs liberal issue.
For those who think they know something about airspace rules, research the issue before you assert your ignorance. This flight most certainly was not unobserved. Between St. Augustine and Lawrenceville the flight would have flown through JAX and ATL ATC. While the flight was reportedly not in contact with the controllers (and it would not need to be if it maintained VFR outside CLASS B airspace), it was certainly being watch by ATC as these controllers have the responsibility to keep other aircarft (IFR and VFR with flight following) clear of other traffic – including this unidentified flight.