Heli-Rage?
Pilot jailed for three years for flying helicopter at a control tower
Fri Apr 12,11:02 AM ET
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - A helicopter pilot who terrified officials by flying directly at an air traffic control tower in a rage was jailed for three years Friday, with the judge condemning such an action so soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America.
The defendant, Shaun Lees, repeatedly buzzed the tower at Coventry Airport in central England following an argument with the airport manager. He flew within two rotor-blade lengths of the tower as he ranted over the radio, forcing controllers to evacuate the building.
Passing sentence at Warwick Crown Court, Judge Marten Coates told Lees, 41, that his actions Oct. 12 were particularly frightening because they took place so soon after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
"An aggravating feature of it was that it all took place just a month after those dreadful events in New York," said Coates.
"There was a feeling in the country at large and in the world at large of what had gone on a month before. I have got to pass a custodial sentence on you. I have a public duty to do so," he added.
Lees admitted endangering the safe operation of the airport and damaging the airport's glide path monitoring aerial, which is used to help aircraft land.
Prosecutor Adrian Keeling told the court that airport manager Peter Jackson and his team thought they were going to die as Lees, a self- employed electrical engineer, circled the tower.
"Mr. Jackson and his staff in the tower thought the helicopter was about to ram them. They honestly thought they faced injury or even death," said Keeling.
He said Jackson had banned Lees from using the airport a month earlier as his medical certificate had expired. Keeling said the pilot chartered a helicopter from a nearby airfield and decided to stage a protest.
Lees landed at the airport and was ordered to leave. Instead, he took off and hovered at the intersection of two runways, forcing two aircraft which were due to land into a holding pattern, a delay that forced the pilot of one plane to issue a low-fuel warning.
Keeling told the court Lees hovered close to the tower and announced over the radio, "You are going to see the very worst of my flying."
When a fellow pilot and friend, Kevin Lynch, was called to try to intervene, Lees told him: "I can see the whites of Mr. Jackson's eyes."
Lees eventually landed on the glide path monitor, causing 15,000 pounds (dlrs 21,450) damage. He was arrested as he ran to a nearby air club.
Defense lawyer Graham Cliff said there was a clash of personalities between Lees and Jackson and that his client was annoyed he had been barred from the airport. "To say the timing of his protest was bad is an understatement," he added.