Category: default || By jt3y

Some of you know that I'm an airplane buff, especially when it comes to "lightplanes" --- little private planes like Cessna 150s or Beech Bonanzas. I can't fly one and don't own one, but I love to watch 'em. And there aren't too many small aviation fields in Western Pennsylvania that I haven't visited at least once, including Pittsburgh-Monroeville Airport, which is tucked over on the north side of business Route 22.

And that brings us to the case of one John H. Dobbs Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., who was flying to Latrobe for a meeting on Tuesday.

By the way, the media listed his name as "Dubbs," but there's no one named "Dubbs" in the FAA database as being from Tennessee and holding a private pilot's license.

As you will soon see, this is just one of a chain of many, many errors that add up to one big clusterfarg.

Anyway, when the skies got dark Tuesday, Dobbs, who is rated to fly a plane on instruments (but who, like many private pilots, probably doesn't fly on instruments that often), decided to put in for the night. So he called air-traffic control, got permission to land at Pittsburgh-Monroeville Airport, and brought his twin-engine Beechcraft in for a landing.

Dobbs apparently brought the plane down a little hard and blew out two tires on the landing gear. (A report available online and dated July 7 indicates that the asphalt runway at Pittsburgh-Monroeville was in "poor" condition at that time. Maybe Mr. Dobbs hit a pothole?) This, in and of itself, is not unheard of, though I'm sure he wasn't happy.

Then he tied the plane down, and because Pittsburgh-Monroeville isn't staffed, he left a note on the door of the little golf course that abuts the airport, giving his cell phone number, name, and the address of the motel where he'd be staying.

These are all of the sorts of things that neighborly private pilots do. In retrospect, Mr. Dobbs probably should have taped the information to the side door of the plane, as we shall soon see.

A few hours later, the airport manager and another unidentified man (we'll call him Cletus), showed up, saw the plane, and according to the Post-Gazette, got "suspicious." I'm not certain why would get suspicious seeing an airplane at a public, licensed airport, though I suspect that Pittsburgh-Monroeville, like most small fields, doesn't get a lot of out of town visitors. (And it's not likely to get a visit again from one John H. Dobbs Jr. of Memphis, Tenn.)

In any case, Cletus called the FAA in Altoona and asked them to check on the plane's ownership by running a check on the "N-number" --- that's analogous to a car's license plate. But someone (no one is saying if it's Cletus or the Altoona folks) mixed up the number and checked the wrong plane. And then the police arrived.

The cops called air-traffic control in Moon Township and were told that the airplane had flown in from Tennessee and was planning to depart the following morning for Latrobe.

Now, this is where it gets confusing: On Tuesday down in Tennessee, as you may remember, a man escaped from prison after his wife shot a prison guard. Adding 1 and 1 and getting 3, or possibly 5, the authorities concluded that the plane might have been stolen by the fugitives, or perhaps by terrorists, who were presumably looking to crash the plane into Al Monzo's Palace Inn.

Why fugitives would be headed to Latrobe isn't clear. Nor can I say why terrorists on their way to Latrobe would stop in Monroeville first. Perhaps they wanted to buy new burkas and kaffiyehs at Burlington Coat Factory, or maybe they needed a Krispy Kreme fix (are jelly doughnuts halal?).

But now, the FBI joint terrorism task force got involved.

Of course, since everyone had the wrong registration number (and no one apparently thought to walk over to the airplane, write down the correct number, which was painted in big letters on the tail, and recheck it, which could have been done from any computer with an Internet connection), they couldn't figure out who the owner of the plane was.

Comes the next morning, and a worker from the golf course sees the note, and walks over to the airport manager and gives it to him.

A-ha! Handed this crucial bit of evidence, which had been cleverly concealed in broad daylight (OK, in broad moonlight), the forces of law and order leapt into action, arrived en masse at the hotel, and roused poor Mr. Dobbs for questioning.

Alas, he wasn't a terrorist, and sadly, police say he's "unlikely to face local charges," probably as a result of the legal technicality that he didn't actually do anything wrong. (Crafty lawyers win cases all the time by exploiting that loophole.)

Nevertheless, I'm sure he was loaded back into his plane and warned to get the heck out of Monroeville by sundown, or else face the terrible wrath of the zoning hearing board. But from now on, Mr. Dobbs will know better than to properly notify the authorities and make a perfectly legal landing at a public airport!

And now, as Jon Stewart says on "The Daily Show," it's your moment of zen. Says a police lieutenant to the Post-Gazette: "It actually showed the system worked."

If the "system" involves poor communication and garden-variety paranoia, then it worked like a charm!

I don't know about you, but I feel safer from terrorism already.

...

P.S. Is this the right place to point out that Monroeville police are among the highest paid in the state? Erm, probably not.

...

To Do This Weekend: As for myself, I'm going to steer clear of Monroeville for a while, because I've probably just guaranteed myself a ticket. As for you, check out the St. Martin de Porres Parish Festival tonight, tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon at the old St. Peter's Church grounds, 704 Market St. The Larry Placek Combo will perform and a Saturday night "polka Mass" is planned. Call (412) 672-9763. ... Pure Gold plays a free concert at the Renzie Park bandshell at 7 p.m. Sunday.