Pilot gets 3 years for Coventry Airport helicopter attack
A pilot who flew a helicopter at an air traffic control tower, a month after the Semptember terrorist attacks in the US, has been jailed for three years.
Air traffic controllers at Coventry Airport watched as Shaun Lees flew the Bell Ranger straight towards them before pulling up just yards away, Warwick Crown Court heard.
Jailing Lees, a 41-year-old engineer from Warwickshire, Judge Marten Coates said on Friday it was "practically an act of terrorism".
The judge said Lees' actions had been particularly frightening because they took place on 12 October last year - a month and a day after the 11 September terror attacks in the US.
"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.
"Anybody seeing those events would have no choice," he said.
Lees, from Chatsworth Drive, Nuneaton, was jailed for endangering the safe operation of the airport, a charge which he had admitted at a previous hearing.
He had also admitted damaging the airport's glide path monitoring aerial, which helps aircraft land.
Adrian Keeling, prosecuting, told the court Lees was using the helicopter to mount a protest against the airport manager, Peter Jackson.
He had been banned from using Coventry Airport the month before, after his medical certificate expired.
As Lees hovered the helicopter at the airport, landings and take offs were aborted.
Staff in the control tower described Lees making an "incoherent" rant as he hovered before them.
Mr Keeling said: "They honestly thought they faced injury or even death."
Lees eventually landed on the glide path monitor damaging it and was arrested as he ran to a nearby air club.
Graham Cliff, defending, said Lees effectively "snapped" when Mr Jackson allegedly refused to talk to him when he first landed on the apron.
"He should not have done it, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"To say the timing of his protest was bad is an understatement. He realises that, more than anybody else"