…GA Emphasis “Misleading”…

Boyer said the Times story’s emphasis on GA was far out of proportion to its significance in the report. In 24 pages of text, Boyer said, only two paragraphs were devoted to GA, yet that formed the basis for the story. AOPA’s Web site calls the premise for the story “highly overstated and misleading.” It also noted that the report was intended as a briefing document for law-enforcement personnel and was never intended for general release. AOPA says the report contains no new information and is based on data gathered during a three-year period after the 9/11 attacks. “This is old news,” Boyer said. “We’ve been hearing this since November of 2001.” Other groups chimed in as well. EAA spokesman Doug Macnair said the Times story ignored all the security improvements that have been made within GA since 9/11 and put undue emphasis on the risks posed by GA. “The story seems to overstate the actual threat of general aviation, which has on many occasions been determined not to be a significant security risk by the same federal agencies quoted in the report,” Macnair said. NBAA President Ed Bolen said the report, which only reiterated well-established and well-discussed material, was sensationalized by the Times and other outlets that based their stories on it. “It is unfortunate that news organizations have left the public ill-informed about the security of our industry by choosing to focus instead on a report that merely re-hashes well-documented security concerns,” Bolen said.