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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20020106/us/plane_crash_31.html
Sunday January 6 6:37 PM ET
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 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 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 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, 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.
[LC Note: Also one in PR, and the day before, one in the UK, on the way to
Maine.]
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