[VincentEvans]

While until recently I had to, in the name of flight safety, carefully pack my bags while consulting the sizes of shampoo containers allowed in the carry-on baggage, surrender my unapproved nail clippers, and with my shoes in hand and pants belt-less - stand in line to be x-rayed and patted down on my way to board a plane…

… someone can without anyone ringing any alarm bells and not phasing the local law enforcement one bit - take off multiple times unnoticed and unidentified on a private plane, and, if they choose to, fly it straight into a freshly refueled jet that I am sitting in waiting to take off.

Shhh, hope “terrorists” don’t read this comment. Or the article in LA Times.

[kayodelycaon]

Well, yeah. Anyone can own a small plane if they have the money. There’s plenty of uncontrolled airspace and uncontrolled airports.

Good God! What would happen if someone rented a box truck and bought some fertilizer?

Oh, and civilians can own muzzle-loading black powder cannons. Imagine what someone could do with a 32-pound cannonball.

The reality is anyone with the proper skills can crash a plane into anything they like. Unless you have someone on the roof with a MPAD, no one is going be to stop them in time.

[mauvehaus]

> Oh, and civilians can own muzzle-loading black powder cannons. Imagine what someone could do with a 32-pound cannonball.

At many historical locations, said cannons are just sitting around entirely unguarded! Anyone[0] could just come and take one.

[0]...equipped with heavy equipment and maybe a hefty grinder or a stout set of bolt cutters.

[U2EF1]

They could steal a smaller cannon first and use that on any chains or locks.

[tomcam]

They're all plugged with concrete

[esseph]

Concrete plug, steel barrel.

Easily remedied!

[TylerE]

This is rather hysterical. "Alarm bells" - both metaphorical and physical - would absolutely be going off if a Cessna was not responding on radio and headed anywhere near an airport operating passenger jets. Corona Muni isn't LAX.

[filleduchaos]

To be fair, few people know anything about aviation other than being miffed at the grand inconvenience of obeying the rules of scheduled passenger flight services.

[VincentEvans]

To be accurate I am “miffed” at the blasé response of airport admin and local police. No “criminal negligence”, no “dereliction of duty”. Not even administrative punishment for utter incompetence at a primary job with rather serious potential consequences.

[tbrownaw]

Isn't this a bit like being mad at Joe's Unstaffed Parking Garage because someone "borrowed" your car that you left there for the week?

[TylerE]

Probably closer to a rent-a-car lot. Most GA pilots rent, they don't own. Owning only (kinda) makes sense if you fly A TON. Otherwise all the timed maintenance eats you alive. On a plane you have lots of "every N months" work items, even if you don't use it.

[throwaway173738]

That’s basically the right analogy.

[filleduchaos]

...which betrays a lack of knowledge of aviation beyond the inconveniences of scheduled passenger flight services.

There is an entire world of aviation outside of commercial airlines flying airliners out of large, towered airports with fancy terminal buildings. An aircraft is a vehicle like any other, and operating one is regulated in tiers like any other type of vehicle. It's about as inane to gripe that an untowered recreational airport is not regulated to the same extent as the airports you fly commercially out of, as it would be to gripe that you driving your car out of your home is not regulated to the same extent as driving a school bus.

[ncruces]

Or, to make the point more salient, a rowboat in a lake, vs a containership in a deep water port.

[gbacon]

*in the name of security theater

General aviation, in the U.S. at least, runs largely on the honor system. To fly in controlled airspace these days, ADS-B out is required, and there are definitely records of where people go

[ShakataGaNai]

There is a big difference between a Cessna 172 with a gross weight of 2,450 including the 56 gallons of fuel and an A380 with a maximum takeoff weight of 1,268,000 pounds and 65,000 gallons of fuel.

Did you know the Twin Towers were actually designed to withstand a jet? https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19930227/1687698/tw...

Except they assumed that it'd be a 707 and also that'd be at landing speed of about 180mph ... not a 767 (which could be as much as 2x a 707 in take off weight) doing almost 600 mph.

A plane larger than a Cessna, but still no jumbo jet, crashed into a mall https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/12/21/the-sunvalley-mall-p... - 7 people died. Tragic, but it goes to show that SIZE DOES MATTER.

Also also. "no alarm bells" is highly dependent on location. If this "stolen" plane were to have flown into highly controlled airspace without approvals, you can bet your ass that alarm bells would have gone off. But the person flying the plane knew what they were doing and where they were going. They went away from busy areas and didn't anything out of the ordinary.

Is there still many reasons this could be a problem? Sure. But invoking the terrorism word is full FUD, the likes of which the media loves to use. And ends us with security theater like shampoo size limits.

[magicalhippo]

Some years ago I was flying home, and it turned out someone had called in a bomb threat. So, naturally, they had ramped up the security scan to the max, causing a massive queue.

The landside area was packed to the brim with travelers waiting in line, mixed with the people on their way to check-in pushing their trollies loaded with suitcases.

I've never been so scared, waiting in line for security, as I imagined how easily anyone could pack 6-7 huge suitcases filled with explosives onto a trolley in the parking lot right outside, move into the packed crowd without suspicion and set it off.

No need to get on a plane.

[TylerE]

Don't need an airport for that. Any busy city sidewalk would do just fine.