Part Two, Of Two

While we hate to dwell on the negative, there were some real downers, aviation-wise, in 2005. Sure... "stuff" happens, but a few folks seemed to go out of their way to create problems for the world of aviation. Be it ignorance, arrogance or just plain incompetence, these were the folks that made our lot a whole lot more difficult and immeasurably injured the aviation world in the past year.

Shame on them...

NY Senator Hillary R. Clinton (D) and IL Senator Richard Durbin (D)

While Domenici and Bingaman were fanning the flames of anti-GA hysteria, two more elected officials decided to join in with their own attempts to grab a few cheap headlines at our expense.

Their amendment, nearly as distressing, called for a government study of general aviation security, including the supposed "the vulnerability posed to high-risk areas and facilities from general aviation aircraft that could be stolen or used as a weapon or armed with a weapon."

Their study would also have included GA airport security, technology that could easily track GA aircraft, disabling measures that could prevent aircraft theft, and "an assessment of the threat posed to high population arrears, nuclear facilities, key infrastructure, military bases, and transportation infrastructure that stolen or hijacked general aviation aircraft pose, especially if armed with weapons or explosives."

Gag me with a prop.

Note to Clinton/Durbin: There have been studies --  they all said that GA is not a threat. Period. Read them and then go get a sound byte at some other industry's expense.

The folks who proposed these idiotic rules neither understand the true nature of the threats we face or the realities of the risks that GA may or may not pose to the public at large. This is "feel good" legislation proposed by lawmakers who do NOT care for your rights so long as they can get another thirty seconds of airtime on the evening news. ANN recommends STRONG and AGGRESSIVE response from aviators all over America to correct the foolishly myopic efforts of these legislators, as well as their defeat in the next election. There is NO excuse for this kind of nonsense. This is America, and such legislation will do little more than delight our enemies with the further erosion of one of the uniquely American aspects of our lives.

John Salamone Still Makes (Bad) News

John Salamone also made our list last year, with a laundry list of poor decisions that span over two years. See, Salamone is a textbook example of someone who, once he realizes he's dug himself into a hole... decides to try to dig his way out.

Salamone made headlines throughout most of 2004, too, after having a few drinks (reportedly far from an isolated occurrence for him) and then taking his Piper Cherokee on a four-hour joyride over Philadelphia, including a brief incursion into Philadelphia's Class B airspace. Before finally landing back at the Pottstown Airport, he decided to cap his flight by buzzing the control tower.

As Salamone was taken away by TSA officials who met him after he landed, Montgomery County officials impounded his airplane... and then sold it, as officials are entitled to do with any property seized from the committing of a crime.

You'd think that would have been enough -- but Salamone continued to dig from behind bars, filing a lawsuit with his wife demanding that the county pay them the proceeds of the sale -- over $34,000 -- on the solid judicial basis that they really, really needed the money.

The couple's lawyer stated Salamone's concrete company had lost business following his arrest, resulting in a financial situation so grim Mrs. Salamone had to take a job as -- gasp! -- a waitress, in order to pay the upper-middle-class family's $2,300 per month mortgage.

On January 14, 2005 -- almost one year to the day Salamone made his fateful flight -- a court essentially ruled that stupidity should be painful, and that the Salamones weren't entitled to one thin dime from the Cherokee's sale.

America West Pilots Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes

This year's Splitting Hairs award goes to former America West pilots Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes, who were arrested after their aircraft was stopped by the TSA as it was being towed from the gate. Seems someone has noticed the men smelled of alcohol before they left the gate, a byproduct of having spent the previous night in a Miami sports bar. Both men had blood-alcohol-levels of approximately 0.08.

In yet another stunning display of judicial logic (we're as surprised as you are) a Miami-Dade County jury took about six hours to render their guilty verdict -- seems the six men on the jury weren't swayed by the pilots' assertion that -- while, okay, they were intoxicated -- they weren't technically operating the aircraft at the time they were arrested. It was still being towed, you see -- and there's no crime in being a drunk passenger, no matter how many dials, switches, and control wheels there are in front of you.

The pilots announced December 15 they would appeal the guilty verdict.

PrivatAir's Discrimination Loss Against Pilot Doyle D. Baker

Although he ultimately won his case, ANN is fairly certain pilot Doyle D. Baker would have just as soon not gone through the aggravation in the first place.

A court ruled in December that Baker's advanced age was the sole reason charter company PrivatAir, Inc. fired the corporate pilot in the summer of 2004. Baker was all of 63 at the time, and had crewed on a Gulfstream II owned by actors Bruce Willis and his ex-wife, Demi Moore for nine years -- apparently without a problem, until the Swiss charter company took over the jet's management in 2002.

In retrospect, perhaps the Swiss-based charter company would have preferred not to start this battle, either -- especially as the courts ruled they now owe Baker $53.8 million for the egregious firing.

While PrivatAir may thought Baker was too old to crew a bizjet... he still has plenty of time left to spend all that money.

Citation Thief Daniel Andrew Wolcott

If this year's Bozos list has a dominant theme, it is certainly "those who did stupid things with airplanes." Consider our final Aero-Bozo for 2005, of which the best thing we can say about him is "at least he wasn't drunk when he stole the airplane."

Daniel Andrew Wolcott was jailed on $175,000 bond and faced federal charges -- in addition to the six state charges -- after he stole a $7 million Citation VII from a Florida airport on October 12 and flew the bizjet to Georgia's Gwinnett County Field, where the 22-year-old met five friends (who apparently had no idea Wolcott had commandeered the jet illicitly) and took them on a joyride over the Peach State, before landing back at the closed airfield and then abandoning the aircraft. He then caught a commercial flight back to Florida, and went about his business as a charter pilot before being caught.

Wolcott -- who wasn't rated to fly the Citation but did so expertly -- was described in media reports as "a talented and gifted pilot." Perhaps, but his little stunt ensured his particular talents won't be seen in an airplane cockpit again for a long, long time.

FMI: 2005 Year-in-Review Comments?