Crushing of plane with Tampa on January 5th, 2002

The January 5th 2002, a 15 year old teenager, Charles J. Bishop, inspired by the attacks of the September 11th, 2001, steals an apparatus Cessna 172 and is crushed deliberately on the lathe of the Bank off America with the downtown area of Tampa, in Florida, with the the United States. The accident made only one victim: the teenager himself. The building was occupied only by some people, and none of them was wounded.

Circumstances

The teenager had taken courses of piloting for 3 years. His/her mother and her grandmother accompanied it with the international airport St Petersburg-Clearwater, close to St.Petursburg in Florida, when it is assembled on board Cessna then separated without permission.

The plane was stolen at 5 p.m. (local time). The air-traffic controllers informed the coastal guard immediately. Those deployed a helicopter which could not intercept Cessna. The pilot of this helicopter however established a visual contact with the student. Two F-15 of the American air force, posted with Miami, were also sent to the continuation of the small apparatus.

The plane was crushed with the 23è and 24è stages of 101 Boulevard Kennedy Est, with the downtown area of Tampa. The apparatus did not take fire and the building was evacuated quickly. The accident took place one Saturday, which more is after the office hours, whereas the building was not as full as with the practice.

Occurred a few months after the attacks of September 11th, 2001 against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, this incident initially made fear a terrorist act , more especially as according to the eyewitnesses the small apparatus had not apparently made any attempt to avoid the building on which it moved. The president George W. Bush nevertheless was informed of the incident, more especially as two other air crashes took place almost simultaneously, in the Colorado and in California. It was quickly established that the three crash landings were without relation. The international airports of Tampa and St.Petursburg were temporarily paralyzed.

The authorities quickly adopted the assumption of the Suicide. The pilot carried on him a note in which it expressed sympathy to Usama Bin Laden. The computer of the teenager was seized and investigué, but no proof of terrorist activity or bond with one of these groups was found.

In April 2002, the Federal office of the civil aviation (FAA) indicated that Cessna 172 controlled by Charles J. Bishop had passed very near to an apparatus of Southwest Airlines.

The pilot

Bishop, 15 years old, was student of Tarpon Springs, in Florida.

In 2002, the mother of the teenager brought a continuation for 70 million US dollars against the laboratories Hoffmann it Roche, which manufacture a treatment for the Acné called Accutane. According to the continuation, the depression and the suicidal behavior belong to the side effects associated with the treatment, which would have carried out the young man to drive this plane on the building. The mother did not have win in this file.

External bonds

* '' Cessna “real closed” to airliner '' (St.Petersburg Times)
the acne makes suffer Roche
the note from suicide of Charles Bishop

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