Clouds disabled airspace warning system

WASHINGTON – A new system of lasers designed to warn pilots that they’ve entered restricted airspace wasn’t active during the latest airspace violation for the same reason the radio of the wandering plane didn’t work: the weather.

The plane, flying to Gaithersburg, Md., from Knoxville, Tenn., on Monday had permission to fly in the airspace because he had filed a flight plan and had maintained radio contact with air traffic control, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Greg Martin said.

But lightning struck the small Canadian aircraft and he lost his radio, Martin said Tuesday. The pilot never got more than 10 miles from the White House, he said.

According to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the pilot’s one mistake was that he didn’t switch his transponder code to indicate he had no radio. Once the plane’s communications went out, fighters took off from Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland and escorted it to the Gaithersburg airport.

To avoid the expense of scrambling fighter jets to escort errant planes away from the restricted area in and around the capital city, the Pentagon on Saturday had inaugurated a system of red-and-green warning lasers deployed around Washington.

First Lt. Lisa Citino, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said lasers weren’t turned on Monday because the pilot couldn’t have seen them through the clouds.

“The lasers didn’t sparkle for the same reason his radio and transponder went out – the weather,” she said.

Hundreds of planes have entered the restricted area – about 2,000 square miles radiating from the three commercial airports around Washington – since it was established in February 2003 just before the Iraq war.

Most planes that transgress are skirting the edge of the zone by mistake, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association said.