Some people are just IDIOTS!

[Mental Ammo]

More Pranksters screwing around. I hope they get the maximum sentence!

FBI Not Pleased With Plane Prank
Pilot, Co-Pilot Held On $30,000 Bond
Posted: 5:41 p.m. CST October 30, 2001

FRIENDSWOOD, Texas -- Friendswood police were called to Friendswood Stadium shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday after they received calls about suspicious packages being dropped from a plane.


Hear What Residents Have To Say About Prank


Two 17-year-olds were allegedly flying the plane over the stadium and dropped rolls of paper towels onto the field, according to a News2Houston report.

A junior varsity football game was in progress, and several witnesses called police in a panic in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"I don't think it's funny at all right now," neighbor Dee Dee Race said. "It probably was just an innocent prank but people are nervous."

"Some of the girls thought it was a war thing," student Katie McCormack said.

McCormack told KPRC TV that she figured it was a prank. However, investigators from the FBI didn't find the joke funny.

"It surely appears to be a prank," said Capt. Luke Loeser of the Friendswood Police Department. "In light of what has happened over the last few months, you don't take this lightly."

The pilot, Christopher Patrick Cummings, and co-pilot, Kevin Matthew Coker, landed the Cessna 150 airplane at Clover Field and were promptly surrounded by police and taken into custody.

Cummings is from Houston, and Coker is from Friendswood.

The FBI went to the Friendswood Police Station to question Cummings and Coker.

The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating the case.

Cummings and Coker will be charged with deadly conduct, a Class A misdemeanor. They remain in police custody and are each being held on $30,000 bond.

Cummings had just received his pilot's license five days ago.

[Mitzi]

He's obviously not mature enough to hold a license at any rate. I remember I pilot that decided to fly his restored B52 over an NFL game, pretty low, to show it off. People were NOT amused and he was arrested. There were not terrorist attacks at the time but if something had gone wrong and he had crashed, so many helpless people would have died because of his immaturity.
That's what these 2 pilots did too....showed immaturity and stupidity. I hope an example is made of them. The next plane could be shot down by a frightened citizen. He also didn't have his license long enough to be flying the plane near people like that.
That would have scared me to death.

[klar]

Somehow I think that teens deal with things differently than most adults so we will probally see and hear more and more about this type of prank. I remember when I was a teen and how I would do things that would have landed me in jail a few times. Most teens do not think about the consquences they just do it on a spur of the moment. I know it is not always the right thing to do but sometimes people just have to relax some and let things slide. If they are punished to the full extent of this that they can be we will not be helping them in their duress. I think taking the pilots liscense away for a period and some cummunity service will help them understand what they did was wrong. They also need to talk to someone about how all this has affected them. Just my jist of this.

Klar

[Mitzi]

When my son turned 16, it was like I didn't know him. He just didn't THINK and did things on the spur of the moment like that. But, he also didn't LEARN his lesson unless he got into a lot of trouble over things. He would actually laugh about things like starting a fire in a field next to all these houses with firecrackers. He wasn't laughing later. I asked a police officer to put the fear of God in him and he did.
You really had to get his attention over things and letting him off easy never helped him. This went on until he was 19 then his pilot light came back on! lol

[klar]

Mitzi what scares me is when kids get their drivers liscense because they have very little training to have a drivers liscense. Last I checked you have to go through many hours of training and practice before getting a pilots liscense. I think you are safer from a plane being flown by a teen that you are from a car/trucj being driven by a teen. That is one of the reasons planes are safer than cars/trucks because of the number of hours required to fly them and the number that are in the air. I think a lot of people are plainly over reacting to the terrorist attack and have lost their sense of humor in a lot of things. People are now walking on eggshells everywhere for fear that they are going to say or do something wrong and their coworkers will take offense and they might loose thier jobs. I think america needs to get back to being america.

Klar

[Zamboni]

Immature and stupid yes but I'm not seeing a crime here except maybe littering. Maybe a roll of paper towels could hurt someone if it landed on them but I would have to see it to believe it. I agree that something needs to be done to the kids but at the same time I can't see how they can be found guilty of what they were charged with.

[Mike Tx]

Yes it appears to be a knee jerk reaction to me. Take away the license and spank them.

[TexasGlockCop]

This happened right up the road from me. The punishment fit the crime. What was not said in the article was that the boys cuased a mass hysteria in the crowd. Peolpe were fleeing the stands in large numbers. There were a few injuries (all minor), but this could have been much worse. Their "reckless" (culpabable mental state) action fit the elements of the offense. Just because their "intention" was just a prank, it does not override the outcome and the fact they broke a law. The "state" of our Nation, didn't even seem to cross their minds. You do the crime, you do the time.

[kd5hqd]

Well, this is certaintly stupid on the pilot's part. I plan on getting my flying license next summer, and I sure as hell would never do anything like that, and especially not in the wake of September 11th.


Kyle
KD5HQD

[Zamboni]

I still don't see the deadly offense. If I stand up in a crowded movie theatre, open a bag of flour, and throw it around I'm going to cause a mass stampede from people afraid its antrhax. I could defintitely see me being charged with disturbing the peace or some other minor crime but thats it. Without actually doing something "deadly" I don't see the deadly offense no matter how immature, juvenile, reckless , or anything else it is.

[Don]

I think what you are missing here Zamboni is that the actions they DID do could have very easily caused a number of innocent victims to be injured or even killed. A person is responsible for the results of their actions, as well as for the actions themselves.

Klar, I understand where you are coming from, but with the world as it is today I just have no sympathy for these two kids. There is a big difference between a couple of kids letting of steam and a couple of kids doing something so stupid it could cause folks to get hurt or killed.

[klar]

I see where the two of you are coming from. I think that the public going way overboard with all of this "terrorist" stuff that a person can not even fart without people running away saying they are being chemically attacked. I think it is a harmless prank that got blown way out of porportion and the law charging them a felony is plain wrong. We need to all relax and let what happened pass us by and get on with our lives. To sit around in total fear over everything is just what the terrorists wanted look at all the halloween things that were cancelled now a teen can not even blow off steam or they will be charged with a felony!! Are we ready to throw the book at everyone that does something stupid just because of what happened sept 11th? I think we need to calm down just a tad bit but that is just my opinion.

Klar

[Pigskin]

In Texas, Deadly Conduct is whenever you recklessly engage in conduct putting another in fear of serious bodily injury. It primarily deals with pointing a gun at someone &, in fact, used to be called Reckless Conduct. Sounds like lots of people were in fear of being seriously injured even though no injury has to occur.

Besides, FAA rules ban flying under 1000 ft. in densely populated areas as well as forbidding aircraft from within 3 nautical miles & less than 3500 ft. altitude around open air stadiums (with some exceptions for air-traffic control directed). These rules applied even before the recent terrorist attacks. The pilot can definitely kiss his license bye-bye.