Inhofe's Wild Flying

Ever wonder why Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is so intractable in his insistence that global warming is a hoax?

Thanks to a revealing incident that took place in Texas last fall and whose details were made public this week, the answer could be that Inhofe is either incapable of perceiving the obvious or chooses to ignore it.

Inhofe is a licensed pilot who owns a twin-engine Cessna. Seems that the Oklahoma Republican was flying his plane into the Port Isabel-Cameron County Airport, a small, general aviation facility near the southernmost tip of Texas, last October 21. Inhofe approached a runway that had a big yellow X painted on it. Every licensed pilot knows that a big yellow X painted on a runway means "THIS RUNWAY IS CLOSED. DO NOT LAND HERE."

Inhofe landed anyway, forcing workers doing a construction job on the runway to run for their lives and nearly barreling into a work truck whose driver apparently soiled his trousers in fright. "He just went right over a huge yellow X," construction supervisor Sidney Boyd told the Federal Aviation Administration, according to audio of Boyd’s call to the FAA that was released by TheSmokingGun.com web site on April 13. "He was determined to land on that runway, come hell or high water, evidently."

The airport manager, Marshall Reece, told the FAA, according to the released audio, that in his long years of flying experience, "I have never seen such a reckless disregard for human life in my life."

According to Boyd’s call, Inhofe stormed around after his landing, insisting he should have had "unlimited airspace" – as if he were President Inhofe.

Check out audio samples here.

Oh, and according to the FAA incident report, Inhofe hadn't bothered to check relevant Notices to Airmen indicating that the runway was off limits.

In lieu of getting a fat FAA ticket, Inhofe agreed to the aviation equivalent of traffic school - four hours of remedial classroom training, which covered basics like preflight planning, operating at uncontrolled airports, and runway signs, and three hours of flight instruction, including cockpit management.

Too bad that Inhofe hasn’t been required to get remedial training from the National Academy of Sciences after taking off on his scientifically illiterate flights of fancy about the supposed global warming hoax.

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