15 year old crashes C-172 into Downtown Tampa

DavidMich · 01-06-2002, 01:39 PM

Little Ba$tard did this Sat around 5pm, stole the cessna when instructor was distracted by other student, took off from PIE (FBO is next door to Signature where i work) overflew MacDill AFB, CG intercepted the plane, tried to talk kid down, he just dove into the Bank of America building around te 20th floor, no fire, most of the plane fell into street, tail section still hanging out the window, One mabey tw officies destroyed. i'll post more as i hear about it

DeltaFlot · 01-07-2002, 12:19 AM

Cops: Teen Pilot Supported bin Laden
By VICKIE CHACHERE, Associated Press Writer

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - The 15-year-old who crashed a small plane into a skyscraper wrote a note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and support for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, police said Sunday.

The short, handwritten suicide note found in Charles Bishop's pocket said he acted alone, Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder said. The high school freshman had no apparent terrorist ties, Holder said.

``Bishop can best be described as a young man who had very few friends and was very much a loner,'' Holder said. ``From his actions we can assume he was a very troubled young man.''

Bishop crashed the Cessna 172R into the 42-story Bank of America building after taking off without authorization and ignoring signals to land from a Coast Guard helicopter that pursued the plane. Bishop was the only fatality.

Holder said there is no indication Bishop specifically targeted the building or ``had any intention of harming anyone else.''

Investigators on Sunday interviewed the boy's family and said they would search his personal computer for evidence.

Bishop, of Palm Harbor, was told to check the plane's equipment before the start of a flying lesson Saturday, police said. He took off without waiting for an instructor who was supposed to accompany him.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew motioned for the boy to land but couldn't get a response, and a pair of military jets scrambled to intercept the small plane arrived after the crash.

``There was no doubt he died on impact,'' said Fire Department Capt. Bill Wade.

Fire department officials said damage to the building was limited to the office where the plane hit and small areas of adjoining floors. Most of the building was expected to be open Monday, though there was concern about chunks of the facade falling to the sidewalk below.

Images of the plane blasting a hole in the side of a skyscraper were chilling reminders of the World Trade Center attacks. Until it was pulled in early Sunday, the plane's tail had dangled from the 28th floor of the building.

In Palm Harbor, police unrolled yellow crime scene tape Sunday outside the apartment complex where Bishop lived with his mother, while detectives and FBI (news - web sites) agents interviewed family members.

Julia Bishop, the boy's mother, told a camera crew to ``get out'' when they attempted to film her as she opened her door for investigators.

Bishop's grandmother had taken him to the National Aviation Academy flight school at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport for a 5 p.m. flying lesson on Saturday, authorities said.

A Coast Guard helicopter caught up to Bishop over Tampa after he had traveled about 20 miles, and the crew signaled for him to land. Pilots said he ignored them, then crashed the plane into the building.

As a precaution, two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled from Homestead Air Reserve Base, 200 miles away, but they arrived after the crash, said Capt. Kirstin Reimann at the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Only a few people were in the building at the time of the crash. None were injured.

Sheriff's Sgt. Greg Tita said there was no record of the ninth grader running into problems with the law in the past.

Derek Perryman, a classmate of Bishop's at East Lake High School in Palm Harbor, about 25 miles west of Tampa, said Bishop often talked about planes with a friend in their journalism class.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said, Bishop read a paper to the class. ``It was real expressive about how he felt, how disappointed he was,'' Perryman said.

Another classmate, Ross Stewart, 15, described Bishop as a ``teacher's pet.''

``I knew he was an honor student. He got straight A's,'' Stewart said. ``He seemed to like his classes. He liked school. He was a happy kid. He was never really down about anything. He smiled a lot.''

Neighbors said Bishop, who had moved from the Boston area a year earlier, kept to himself.

``He rode my bus to school. He sat in the front row. He always had sunglasses on for some reason,'' said David Ontiveros, 14. ``He never talked to anybody.''

Bev Pinkham, who lived near the Bishops in Norwell, Mass., said Bishop ``was just an ordinary quiet kid.''

``One day he came over and said my flower gardens were beautiful,'' she said. ``Other than that, he was very quiet.''

Michael Cronin, an attorney for the National Aviation Academy, said Bishop had been taking flying lessons since March 2001 and had logged about six hours of flight time.

He said the boy often cleaned planes in exchange for flight time and was very familiar with operations at the school. Cronin said students do preflight equipment checks on their own, then have their accuracy verified by an instructor. Bishop was a year shy of being able to fly alone and two years too young to earn a pilot's license.

President Bush (news - web sites) was briefed on the incident and the White House officials had been in touch with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Two other small planes had crashed Saturday, one on a Colorado hillside near Boulder, and another in a vacant field near Los Angeles.

Ozz · 01-07-2002, 09:13 AM

It's guys like him that will probably put an end to non corporate general avaiation, a55hole!

DavidMich · 01-07-2002, 05:01 PM

well, as of today the cops said the kid was suicidal, a note was found on the body (or what was left of it) The FBI is looking at the kid's computer for anything else, and said he was inspired by bin Laden, but was also angered by the 9/11 attack. Other kids at his school said he was quiet, and had few friends, but was happy alot, others described him as "teacher's pet", and nerdy.
Security here at PIE is not to blame as the instructor had escorted the kid onto the GA ramp and told hm to preflight the cessna ( a brand new 2000 model 172) when he took the plane. Two F-15Cs were scrambled from Homestead AFB but it took them 12 minutes to arrive on scene about 2 minutes too late (if MacDill still had a fighter wing they could have got the ba$tard immediatly) and of course Coast Guard HH-6s carry no offensive weapons so even though they intercepted the 172, all they could do was watch. (ARM THE COAST GUARD !!!!!)

justin · 01-07-2002, 05:18 PM

Sadly this is where any security system will run into problems, how to account for loony loners? Ultimately it is impossible for any security system to be 100% effective, sadly. Still that does not help victims of these people.

Justin

DavidMich · 01-07-2002, 05:26 PM

thankfully there were no fatalities except for the 15 year old kamikaze, but NAA is now short 1 cessna 172

Scott · 01-08-2002, 02:52 AM

Yes, what a waste of a perfectly nice C-172, lots of plate glass, and tons of media coverage. However, I do sympathise with his parents.

Travelin' Man · 01-08-2002, 02:41 PM

How would you like to be that guy who's office was taken out? The Cesna is not much of a match for a high rise office building.

Sentinel Chicken · 01-08-2002, 03:05 PM

Okay, here's what I don't get- WHERE in the preflight checklist on the Cessna 172 do you need the frickin' keys? If his instructor told him to preflight the plane, you don't need the keys for that, do you? Mind you I fly an older C172 and all you really do is flip on the master switch to lower the flaps and check the gauges on beat-up ol' 71-Echo. Then you flip it off and do your preflight. Nowhere do you need the keys!

All I can think is that if his flight school is like mine, the plane's logbook has the keys and checklists in it and the instructor gave it to him. Time and time again all the precautions in the world won't stop someone determined on destruction, be they a terrorist or a suicidal teenager.

I would think there would have been signs that this kid's messed up and to think that the media is blaming the General Aviation community for essentially what looks like a parenting/school problem in the making to me. NBC News last night even had the gall to refer to the GA community as one "that resists regulation and change". Horsesh*t!

We're just lucky this kid didn't show up at school with a gun instead.

AlphaSigOU · 01-08-2002, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sentinel Chicken
...We're just lucky this kid didn't show up at school with a gun instead.

Nahhh... the media would have had a field day sh*tting on the gun lobby and lax gun control laws. Press definitely needs to be muzzled once in a while before they run fast and loose with their interpretation of facts.

Chansen · 01-08-2002, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU

Nahhh... the media would have had a field day sh*tting on the gun lobby and lax gun control laws. Press definitely needs to be muzzled once in a while before they run fast and loose with their interpretation of facts.

01-10-2002, 11:04 PM

I read on the Airliners.net forum that this kid was a regular there.He was using ten different screen names.Check it out.

Later

Ed

Travelin' Man · 01-12-2002, 02:32 PM

I think his name was Travis Campbell!

DeltaFlot · 01-12-2002, 06:15 PM

Well the latest on this brat is that the PC mongers are sying he was "Depressed" due to his acne medicine and also apparently self worth runs low in teh family, His parents tried to kill themselves in a suicide pact when they couldn't get a marriagel license due to a minor paperwork problem. If you ask me these two shouldn't be allowed to breed again.

DavidMich · 01-12-2002, 06:26 PM

it's twue, it's twue

Scott · 01-12-2002, 08:39 PM

Did he eat Twinkies? Helluva defense..... once.

AlphaSigOU · 01-12-2002, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott
Did he eat Twinkies? Helluva defense..... once.

Yep... don't think it'll ever be used again!

(For those who are too young to remember and too old to recall, this was the defense given by former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White after he whacks Mayor George Moscone and fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk -- he was under a 'diminished capacity' from consuming junk food, especially Twinkies. The prosecution sought Murder One under special circumstances (a death penalty offense) but for reasons only known to the jury, they returned a lesser sentence of voluntary manslaughter. The San Francisco gay community rioted (Milk was the first supervisor to be openly gay), disgusted over the perceived miscarriage of justice. White served his sentence, but later did himself in by sucking in exhaust fumes from a closed garage in 1985.)

Scott · 01-13-2002, 12:34 AM

"Too old to recall...." ROTFLMFAO!! Good one, Chuck!!

01-06-2002, 01:39 PM	#1
DavidMich Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Back in MCO! Posts: 3,626	15 year old crashes C-172 into Downtown Tampa Little Ba$tard did this Sat around 5pm, stole the cessna when instructor was distracted by other student, took off from PIE (FBO is next door to Signature where i work) overflew MacDill AFB, CG intercepted the plane, tried to talk kid down, he just dove into the Bank of America building around te 20th floor, no fire, most of the plane fell into street, tail section still hanging out the window, One mabey tw officies destroyed. i'll post more as i hear about it __________________ "So if man is 5, and the devil is 6, then that must make me 7,,,this honky's gone to heaven!"

01-07-2002, 12:19 AM	#2
DeltaFlot The Patriot Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Laurel, MD Age: 36 Posts: 3,228	Cops: Teen Pilot Supported bin Laden Cops: Teen Pilot Supported bin Laden By VICKIE CHACHERE, Associated Press Writer TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - The 15-year-old who crashed a small plane into a skyscraper wrote a note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and support for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, police said Sunday. The short, handwritten suicide note found in Charles Bishop's pocket said he acted alone, Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder said. The high school freshman had no apparent terrorist ties, Holder said. ``Bishop can best be described as a young man who had very few friends and was very much a loner,'' Holder said. ``From his actions we can assume he was a very troubled young man.'' Bishop crashed the Cessna 172R into the 42-story Bank of America building after taking off without authorization and ignoring signals to land from a Coast Guard helicopter that pursued the plane. Bishop was the only fatality. Holder said there is no indication Bishop specifically targeted the building or ``had any intention of harming anyone else.'' Investigators on Sunday interviewed the boy's family and said they would search his personal computer for evidence. Bishop, of Palm Harbor, was told to check the plane's equipment before the start of a flying lesson Saturday, police said. He took off without waiting for an instructor who was supposed to accompany him. A Coast Guard helicopter crew motioned for the boy to land but couldn't get a response, and a pair of military jets scrambled to intercept the small plane arrived after the crash. ``There was no doubt he died on impact,'' said Fire Department Capt. Bill Wade. Fire department officials said damage to the building was limited to the office where the plane hit and small areas of adjoining floors. Most of the building was expected to be open Monday, though there was concern about chunks of the facade falling to the sidewalk below. Images of the plane blasting a hole in the side of a skyscraper were chilling reminders of the World Trade Center attacks. Until it was pulled in early Sunday, the plane's tail had dangled from the 28th floor of the building. In Palm Harbor, police unrolled yellow crime scene tape Sunday outside the apartment complex where Bishop lived with his mother, while detectives and FBI (news - web sites) agents interviewed family members. Julia Bishop, the boy's mother, told a camera crew to ``get out'' when they attempted to film her as she opened her door for investigators. Bishop's grandmother had taken him to the National Aviation Academy flight school at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport for a 5 p.m. flying lesson on Saturday, authorities said. A Coast Guard helicopter caught up to Bishop over Tampa after he had traveled about 20 miles, and the crew signaled for him to land. Pilots said he ignored them, then crashed the plane into the building. As a precaution, two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled from Homestead Air Reserve Base, 200 miles away, but they arrived after the crash, said Capt. Kirstin Reimann at the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Only a few people were in the building at the time of the crash. None were injured. Sheriff's Sgt. Greg Tita said there was no record of the ninth grader running into problems with the law in the past. Derek Perryman, a classmate of Bishop's at East Lake High School in Palm Harbor, about 25 miles west of Tampa, said Bishop often talked about planes with a friend in their journalism class. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said, Bishop read a paper to the class. ``It was real expressive about how he felt, how disappointed he was,'' Perryman said. Another classmate, Ross Stewart, 15, described Bishop as a ``teacher's pet.'' ``I knew he was an honor student. He got straight A's,'' Stewart said. ``He seemed to like his classes. He liked school. He was a happy kid. He was never really down about anything. He smiled a lot.'' Neighbors said Bishop, who had moved from the Boston area a year earlier, kept to himself. ``He rode my bus to school. He sat in the front row. He always had sunglasses on for some reason,'' said David Ontiveros, 14. ``He never talked to anybody.'' Bev Pinkham, who lived near the Bishops in Norwell, Mass., said Bishop ``was just an ordinary quiet kid.'' ``One day he came over and said my flower gardens were beautiful,'' she said. ``Other than that, he was very quiet.'' Michael Cronin, an attorney for the National Aviation Academy, said Bishop had been taking flying lessons since March 2001 and had logged about six hours of flight time. He said the boy often cleaned planes in exchange for flight time and was very familiar with operations at the school. Cronin said students do preflight equipment checks on their own, then have their accuracy verified by an instructor. Bishop was a year shy of being able to fly alone and two years too young to earn a pilot's license. President Bush (news - web sites) was briefed on the incident and the White House officials had been in touch with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Two other small planes had crashed Saturday, one on a Colorado hillside near Boulder, and another in a vacant field near Los Angeles. __________________ Febuary 15, 1898 December 7, 1941 June 8, 1967 September 11, 2001 Never Forget, Never Forgive If you kick the Tiger in the arse, you better be able to deal with the Tiger's teeth.

01-07-2002, 05:01 PM	#4
DavidMich Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Back in MCO! Posts: 3,626	well, as of today the cops said the kid was suicidal, a note was found on the body (or what was left of it) The FBI is looking at the kid's computer for anything else, and said he was inspired by bin Laden, but was also angered by the 9/11 attack. Other kids at his school said he was quiet, and had few friends, but was happy alot, others described him as "teacher's pet", and nerdy. Security here at PIE is not to blame as the instructor had escorted the kid onto the GA ramp and told hm to preflight the cessna ( a brand new 2000 model 172) when he took the plane. Two F-15Cs were scrambled from Homestead AFB but it took them 12 minutes to arrive on scene about 2 minutes too late (if MacDill still had a fighter wing they could have got the ba$tard immediatly) and of course Coast Guard HH-6s carry no offensive weapons so even though they intercepted the 172, all they could do was watch. (ARM THE COAST GUARD !!!!!) __________________ "So if man is 5, and the devil is 6, then that must make me 7,,,this honky's gone to heaven!"

01-07-2002, 05:26 PM	#6
DavidMich Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Back in MCO! Posts: 3,626	thankfully there were no fatalities except for the 15 year old kamikaze, but NAA is now short 1 cessna 172 __________________ "So if man is 5, and the devil is 6, then that must make me 7,,,this honky's gone to heaven!"

01-08-2002, 02:52 AM	#7
Scott Insane Collector Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Escondido, Ca. USA Age: 50 Posts: 2,763	Yes, what a waste of a perfectly nice C-172, lots of plate glass, and tons of media coverage. However, I do sympathise with his parents. __________________ Fly the Friendly Skies of United uniTED takes wing Feb 12, 2004

01-07-2002, 09:13 AM	#3
Ozz Insane Collector Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada (CYVR) Age: 51 Posts: 2,763	It's guys like him that will probably put an end to non corporate general avaiation, a55hole!

01-07-2002, 05:18 PM	#5
justin Insane Collector Join Date: Feb 2000 Posts: 2,005	Sadly this is where any security system will run into problems, how to account for loony loners? Ultimately it is impossible for any security system to be 100% effective, sadly. Still that does not help victims of these people. Justin

01-08-2002, 02:41 PM	#8
Travelin' Man Insane Collector Join Date: May 2000 Location: Aspen USA!!! Posts: 1,919	How would you like to be that guy who's office was taken out? The Cesna is not much of a match for a high rise office building.

01-08-2002, 03:05 PM	#9
Sentinel Chicken Go-Getters Go Ozark Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: DFW/THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS Posts: 4,167	Okay, here's what I don't get- WHERE in the preflight checklist on the Cessna 172 do you need the frickin' keys? If his instructor told him to preflight the plane, you don't need the keys for that, do you? Mind you I fly an older C172 and all you really do is flip on the master switch to lower the flaps and check the gauges on beat-up ol' 71-Echo. Then you flip it off and do your preflight. Nowhere do you need the keys! All I can think is that if his flight school is like mine, the plane's logbook has the keys and checklists in it and the instructor gave it to him. Time and time again all the precautions in the world won't stop someone determined on destruction, be they a terrorist or a suicidal teenager. I would think there would have been signs that this kid's messed up and to think that the media is blaming the General Aviation community for essentially what looks like a parenting/school problem in the making to me. NBC News last night even had the gall to refer to the GA community as one "that resists regulation and change". Horsesht! We're just lucky this kid didn't show up at school with a gun instead. __________________ Piss on noise abatement!*

01-10-2002, 11:04 PM	#12
Ed Krzyzowski Guest Posts: n/a	I read on the Airliners.net forum that this kid was a regular there.He was using ten different screen names.Check it out. Later Ed

01-12-2002, 02:32 PM	#13
Travelin' Man Insane Collector Join Date: May 2000 Location: Aspen USA!!! Posts: 1,919	I think his name was Travis Campbell!

01-12-2002, 06:15 PM	#14
DeltaFlot The Patriot Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Laurel, MD Age: 36 Posts: 3,228	Well the latest on this brat is that the PC mongers are sying he was "Depressed" due to his acne medicine and also apparently self worth runs low in teh family, His parents tried to kill themselves in a suicide pact when they couldn't get a marriagel license due to a minor paperwork problem. If you ask me these two shouldn't be allowed to breed again. __________________ Febuary 15, 1898 December 7, 1941 June 8, 1967 September 11, 2001 Never Forget, Never Forgive If you kick the Tiger in the arse, you better be able to deal with the Tiger's teeth.

01-12-2002, 06:26 PM	#15
DavidMich Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Back in MCO! Posts: 3,626	it's twue, it's twue __________________ "So if man is 5, and the devil is 6, then that must make me 7,,,this honky's gone to heaven!"

01-12-2002, 08:39 PM	#16
Scott Insane Collector Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Escondido, Ca. USA Age: 50 Posts: 2,763	Did he eat Twinkies? Helluva defense..... once. __________________ Fly the Friendly Skies of United uniTED takes wing Feb 12, 2004

01-13-2002, 12:34 AM	#18
Scott Insane Collector Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Escondido, Ca. USA Age: 50 Posts: 2,763	"Too old to recall...." ROTFLMFAO!! Good one, Chuck!! __________________ Fly the Friendly Skies of United uniTED takes wing Feb 12, 2004

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