Amanda Carpenter wants answers on FAA banning flights to Israel

[Ptarmigan]

Amanda Carpenter wants answers on FAA banning flights to Israel
http://twitchy.com/2014/07/23/amanda-carpenter-wants-answers-on-faa-banning-flights-to-israel/

Amanda Carpenter
@amandacarpenter
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@jaketapper Flights are still going to all kinds of dangerous places. Makes sense to ask how/why the decision was made.
4:42 PM - 23 Jul 2014

Amanda Carpenter
@amandacarpenter
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@JakeTapper What was the FAA’s analysis that led to prohibiting flights to Israel, while still permitting flights to Ukraine?
4:42 PM - 23 Jul 2014

I do not recall any bans on flights to Israel before until now.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Who's Amanda Carpenter, and why should they pay any particular attention to her?

[thundley4]

Who's Amanda Carpenter, and why should they pay any particular attention to her?

She is another conservative author and pundit.

[Dori]

Ted Cruz said he was going to block any State Dept appointees until he gets an answer.  He wants to know if this was a political decision to put sanctions on Israel and isolate them by not allowing flights there while allowing flights into other hot spots.

The ban also coincided with Kerry flying there yesterday to continue Obama's game of squeeze play. 



 

[DumbAss Tanker]

The ban also coincided with Kerry flying there yesterday to continue Obama's game of squeeze play.

If the ban kept Kerry from ever coming back here, I'd say it was a great idea.  However, I gather it's expiring today anyway.

[Dori]

If the ban kept Kerry from ever coming back here, I'd say it was a great idea.  However, I gather it's expiring today anyway.

Did they lift the ban because people started accusing them of this being a political squeeze play?

Probably didn't want anymore scandals this close to the election.  Especially where their big Jewish donors are concerned.

[obumazombie]

I hope the Jews who almost monolithically support libs take a real hard look at how libs treat them anti semitism and all.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Did they lift the ban because people started accusing them of this being a political squeeze play?

Probably didn't want anymore scandals this close to the election.  Especially where their big Jewish donors are concerned.

I don't think so, they initially announced it as a 24-hour deal, and must've extended it by a day, because when they announced it was ending today, it was spoken of as the end of a 48-hour ban.  I believe it was just intended to stop flights until it was clear whether the one rocket shot nearby was one-in-a-million or blind luck.  I believe when they announced it originally, Fox said two US carriers had suspended flights to Ben Gurion on their own initiative, and there may be some carriers (US or not) that still don't want to take any chances and will continue to suspend flights until the hostilities die back down.

I can't really fault the FAA or the carriers, if anything did happen to a flight, the press and public would be dying to fry them for their irresponsibility and lawyers would be lining up like moochers on Free Money Day.

[SVPete]

The circumstances that have some suspicious is that Kerry flew in to Israel, dropped a cease-fire proposal on the Israelis and Arabs (that would have the effect of limiting the damage Israel is able to inflict on Hamas's tunnels, weapons stashes, and leaders), a rocket hit somewhere on Ben Gurion Int'l, and the FAA imposed what turned out to be a ~36-hour ban. An international airport is, intrinsically, large, with lots of open space. Iron Dome assesses and prioritizes incoming threats, and probably recognized that the particular rocket was not going to strike anywhere with lots of people (the rockets are unguided, with a fairly calculable ballistic path). Easily and quickly correctable, if the US really only wanted Iron Dome to protect Ben Gurion Int'l. This FAA move has a substantial feel of, "Nice country you got there, and I see you earn a lot of $$ from tourists. It's be a shame if somebody made getting to your nice country more difficult and expensive by forbidding many airlines to land there ... you know ... like this!"

[DumbAss Tanker]

Nobody in their right mind would want to be on a civil aviation plane flying through the ballistic descent path of an artillery rocket and the ascent path of the two guided non-ballistic intercept missiles sent up to take it out.  'Easily predictable' is true for the computers running Iron Dome, but it does not translate into 'Easily avoidable' for an airliner when you consider the voice communication chain, human reaction times, and the aircraft's input response handling.

There's a lot of misplaced effort trying to turn this into a political statement instead of a safety decision.  If it was political, you'd see it coming from State as a travel restriction or warning for the entire country, not the FAA.  In my experience, though, State's travel restrictions tend to err on the side of caution only when they involve countries that are so obviously hostile that only an idiot or someone getting a whole lot of money to take the risk would go there.

[obumazombie]

Nobody in their right mind would want to be on a civil aviation plane flying through the ballistic descent path of an artillery rocket and the ascent path of the two guided non-ballistic intercept missiles sent up to take it out.  'Easily predictable' is true for the computers running Iron Dome, but it does not translate into 'Easily avoidable' for an airliner when you consider the voice communication chain, human reaction times, and the aircraft's input response handling.

There's a lot of misplaced effort trying to turn this into a political statement instead of a safety decision.  If it was political, you'd see it coming from State as a travel restriction or warning for the entire country, not the FAA.  In my experience, though, State's travel restrictions tend to err on the side of caution only when they involve countries that are so obviously hostile that only an idiot or someone getting a whole lot of money to take the risk would go there.

The FAA has little to no authority to regulate anything overseas. They can recommend, possibly to ICAO, but they in and of themselves cannot form any no fly zones overseas over non territorial airspace. Certainly not over a sovereign country. Unless I am mistaken, some other authority had to approve such a move.

[DumbAss Tanker]

The FAA has little to no authority to regulate anything overseas. They can recommend, possibly to ICAO, but they in and of themselves cannot form any no fly zones overseas over non territorial airspace. Certainly not over a sovereign country. Unless I am mistaken, some other authority had to approve such a move.

Well, yeah, perhaps you are mistaken, since this was a restriction on US airlines, not all civil aviation worldwide.  The FAA definitely does have jurisdiction over them overseas, since it is their license and permit issuing authority.  It also has some authority regarding foreign flag carriers for flights originating, ending, or stopping in the US, but that's a whole regulatory can of worms.

IMHO, this is just a topic that makes the Administration critics look like a tinfoil-hat crowd with a desire to turn literally everything into a conspiracy to screw Israel, even if the action makes objective sense.  God knows there is plenty of better ammo to use on that quest.  The rest of you are free to wrap as much tinfoil around your heads as you can carry, of course.

[Fourwinds]

I hope the Jews who almost monolithically support libs take a real hard look at how libs treat them anti semitism and all.

It's a damn shame too. It's not like there are a whole lot of us to begin with.

[SVPete]

My point, DA_T was not that what the FAA did was entirely inappropriate.

My point was that the timing and duration of the FAA's TempBan seem odd and excessive. It would take time for the IDF to alter Iron Dome's program to include giving high priority to rockets inbound for Ben Gurion airport. It also takes time for bureaucrats to make decisions. So it seems very likely that by the time the FAA got info on what had happened and made their decision, the IDF pretty far along in coding the program change, if not already incorporating it. So a 12-18 hour ban would have been appropriate, during which time the FAA could learn that Israel had fixed the coverage of Iron Dome and lift the ban. IOW, 18-36 hours (I've seen sources saying that the total duration of the ban was 36 hours, and other sources saying that it was 48 hours) of the ban was likely needless bureaucratic delay. Whether malice or ineptitude (US or Israeli), this decision needs to be scrutinized, since those 18-36 hours translate to millions of dollars for US airlines and Israel.

To be blunt, Obama's and his peeps' hostility and antagonism toward Israel, dating back Obama's days at Trinity UCC is the context of all Obama MALAdministration dealings with Israel. At this point, DA_T, those you call "a tinfoil-hat crowd" have a serious point, one to which there could be a reasonable answer. If reasonably answered, then we'll be able to see whether they are sensibly suspicious or Truther-Grade tinfoil-hat-wearers.

[obumazombie]

I considered DAT's invitation to wear a tinfoil hat, but I declined the invitation.