Employees and visitors fled the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after a small airplane from Carroll County Regional Airport flew into restricted airspace, officials said.
It was the second time in a week that a plane traveled too close to federal buildings in Washington, alarming authorities enough to raise the threat level and causing a small number of people inside the Capitol to rush out, said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, spokeswoman for the Capitol Police.
“Our only interest as Capitol Police is if it poses a threat, so obviously if it?s headed toward the Capitol, we have an interest in it,” Schneider said.
The pilot was not identified, but officials said he was traveling to Rockwall, Texas, via Chattanooga, Tenn.
The Cessna 177 single-engine plane was 10 miles north of the Capitol at about 12:15 p.m. when the North American Aerospace Defense Command detected it, said Tammy Jones, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The pilot was issued a ticket, Jones said, after two F-16 jets and a Coast Guard helicopter escorted the plane to land in Leesburg, Va.
“It was probably nothing malicious, but if you violate the airspace you get fined for it,” Jones said.
The threat level for several minutes was raised to orange, the second-highest level of five, before being reduced to the normal yellow, Schneider said.
Although the small-scale evacuation was not ordered, he said it could have occurred more orderly.
“We didn?t order an evacuation but people got notice that we were raising the level,” Schneider said. “There?s always room for improvement with any evacuation or anything that happens around here.”
Last October, President Bush was speaking at a National Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg and about a dozen planes flew into the restricted airspace, and at least one wasforced to land at the Carroll airport.
