Pilot, 75, explains encounter with F-16s

Associated Press

CHICAGO

Myrtle Rose was taking a short flight over suburban Chicago when the 75-year-old aviation enthusiast looked out her cockpit window to see two F-16 fighter jets. She assumed the military pilots were just slowing down to get a closer look at her antique plane.

It wasn’t until she landed her 1941 Piper J-3 Cub that friends and the police told her the attention was much more serious — for straying into restricted airspace during a visit by President Barack Obama.

Rose, who tries to fly every day when weather permits, said she had been itching to get back in the air Wednesday after a number of days on the ground. She normally uses her computer to check for airspace restrictions, but it wasn’t working properly.

“I hadn’t flown in over a week,” she said. “It was a beautiful afternoon.” After some guests departed her home, she “just climbed in the airplane and left.”

To make matters worse, she said, “I didn’t have my radio on. I was just flying around.”

On any other day, the brief flight would never have attracted notice. But Obama was in Chicago for a fundraiser marking his 50th birthday.

“There’s really no excuse for not knowing,” said Lt. Col. Mike Humphreys, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which scrambled the two warplanes, a proposition that costs $9,000 an hour for each jet. “Anyone who flies an aircraft should know the restrictions.”

Rose said she was about 30 miles from O’Hare Airport when her plane was intercepted. As the fighters appeared, she wasn’t alarmed.

Another NORAD representative suggested Rose had no business thinking that a military jet racing toward her would be in any way related to the cuteness of her plane.

“The biggest thing to keep in mind is that when F-16s come screaming up to you, they are probably trying to tell you something,” spokeswoman Stacey Knott said.

Rose, who has been flying since the mid-1960s and even performed as a wing walker until five or six years ago, said the jet pilots could not have been more considerate.