Plane flew close to nuclear plant in Vt.

By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 10/2/2001

An unidentified plane swooped close to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power
Station on Sept. 13, but fighter jets sent to intercept the aircraft never
found it, Governor Howard Dean disclosed yesterday.

Dean reported the incident as he joined a growing number of lawmakers from
across the nation who have called on the federal government to create no-fly
zones around all 103 nuclear plants in the United States, warning they are
now easy targets for airborne terrorist attacks.

''We need to cordon off these facilities,'' Dean said in an interview.

The small mystery plane - one of the few that took to the skies in the hours
after an unprecedented, nationwide grounding of all commercial flights -
flew so low that several residents near the Vernon, Vt., reactor called 911,
Dean said.

Fearful that the plane's pilot was tied to the terrorist attacks on New York
City and Washington, D.C., two days earlier, officials with the Federal
Aviation Administration and NORAD sent at least two fighter jets to find the
aircraft, but the jets never sighted it, Dean said. FAA officials in Boston
confirmed its existence on radar, he added.

State Police have since interviewed several airfield operators in the area,
said Ed von Turkovich, who heads up Vermont's Emergency Management Agency.
But so far, they have been unable to determine who was flying the plane, and
why, at 10:30 p.m. on a night when the nation feared a second terrorist
attack, the pilot chose such an ill-advised flight path.

Dean added that he was in full support of all the measures President Bush
has taken so far to ensure the safety of Americans, but said they had not
gone far enough.

''Other things must be done,'' Dean said.

Yesterday, Dean sent a letter to FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, Tom Ridge,
the newly appointed director of homeland defense, and several other
officials, requesting that no-fly zones be established. Absent that, he
said, the FAA should require all small aircraft to file flight plans with
air traffic control centers so their movements can be better tracked.

Currently, the FAA does not require pilots of small aircraft to file flight
plans.

William Shumann, an FAA spokesman, said the agency was still discussing what
measures to take, if any, to keep pilots from flying near and around nuclear
plants.

Last week, the FAA issued an advisory asking pilots to steer well clear of
nuclear reactors, as well as conventional power plants, refineries, dams,
and other sensitive facilities. But Shumann acknowledged that the advisory
carried no powers of enforcement, or penalties.

''It's guidance, basically,'' he said.

On Sept. 22, residents of Plymouth were unnerved when the pilot of a small
plane circled the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station several times. Authorities
later interviewed the pilot and determined he was simply curious, said state
Senator Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat who has also urged the federal
government to establish no-fly zones around nuclear plants.

Murray said she has yet to get a response from the FAA.

As for requiring pilots of small aircraft in Vermont to file flight plans,
Shumann said such a move was highly unlikely.

''We would have to do that everywhere in the country, or at least in the
lower 48 [states],'' he said. ''And that would probably get many in the
general aviation community extremely upset ... We encourage pilots to file
flight plans, but it is not a requirement of the FAA that they do that.''

Last week, the FAA grounded the nation's crop-dusters as investigators tried
to determine whether terrorists contemplated using such planes to spread
chemical or biological weapons.

The FAA continues to bar small aircraft lacking two-way radios and
altitude-reporting transponders from flying within 20 nautical miles of the
nation's busiest airports, including Logan International in Boston.

Shumann said the creation of no-fly zones around nuclear plants, which would
be similar to zones the FAA created for stadiums hosting sports events,
could have a potential downside.

''By doing that, you pinpoint the exact location of every nuclear plant in
the country,'' he said. ''Maybe the terrorist could figure that out on his
own, but maybe he couldn't.''

Officials with NORAD, which stands for the North American Aerospace Defense
Command, declined to comment on specifics of the Sept. 13 incident in
Vermont, including where the fighter jets left from. However, they did
acknowledge that such attempts to intercept unknown aircraft have happened
''on numerous occasions'' since Sept. 11.

''We have worked very closely with the FAA to scramble on any unknown
aircraft, I can say that,'' said NORAD spokesman Captain Ed Thomas.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 10/2/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
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