Stolen Cessna
ABC News and CNN as well as other sources reported a stolen Cessna airplane from a flight school in Thunder Bay ONT. The pilot was possibly a student there. He stole the plane and flew into the US. At this point his motives are unclear. What we actually know is that he flew about 1000 nautical miles (about 1150 miles statute) and landed on a dirt road. His border passage was noted by the US military who followed him and tried to communicate with radio and hand signals. He didn’t respond to either.
The military jets and their commanders did well in treating the unarmed Cessna as what it was - not a significant threat. They shadowed it till it landed on a dirt road. They handled the situation well and successfully.
The pilot was a turkish immigrant, but we don’t know anything more than that right now. This doesn’t mean that because he is Turkish (and thus probably muslim) that he is a terrorist. After all, because I’m American doesn’t make me agree hate muslims either. We just don’t know enough to speculate usefully yet. But we can speculate usefully on the aircraft.
I don’t yet know what model of Cessna 172 that plane was, but it was probably a recent model which would mean a 180 hp engine, and clearly had the long-range fuel tanks that hold 56 gallons US (if my memory is correct) or he wouldn’t have made it that far. That plane will use about 8 gallons of gas/hour, or around 6-7 gal/hr at higher altitudes. At one point the pilot was flying at 14,000 feet. To get that high in a C172 you’d have to have a newer, more powerful engine. In any case, he was at the limit of his range when he landed.
His plane wasn’t a threat since it is a small plane. A C172 can weight up to 2400 or 2500 lbs depending on the model. The weight of the plane and fuel is about 1600-1800 lbs US leaving 800-700 lbs for pilot and passengers, etc. The military pilots could see inside his plane to see he was alone. Frankly, he probably couldn’t have gotten that range otherwise. A plane this size can’t carry enough to make it really dangerous.
Crashing it into something relies on the speed and the fuel carried in the plane as the danger. The speed and fuel levels aren’t enough to make a very large threat. These planes go 1/4 of the speed of a commercial jet. And commercial jets can use 800-1000 gallons of fuel just to takeoff and climb out of the airport. Or, more fuel than the total weight of the C172 and pilot together.
Another perspective is that a Cessna like this weighs less and carries less fuel, less passengers, and less luggage that many or most of the cars on the road in your morning commute. Certainly, any SUV outweighs this plane easily. And of course any truck can carry more explosives and also often park innocuously next to a building.
When small aircraft have hit buildings, the result is pretty much total destruction of the plane and pilot and only limited damage to the building. That’s why terrorists world wide don’t use small aircraft. Because if they did, the results wouldn’t be very dramatic for their purposes.