Seven aircraft violated FAA’s airspace rules in Trump visit
Fighter jets sent out for one plane; pilots regularly breach restrictions.
Pilots continue to violate restricted airspace when President Donald Trump visits his part-time Palm Beach home.
Seven aircraft breached the Federal Aviation Administration’s temporary flflight restrictions that were in effffffffffffect from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon for Trump’s most recent stay at Mar-aLago, the FAA said Monday.
Of those, only one prompted a response from fifighter jets: Two F-15E aircraft and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter were sent to intercept a small Cessna that “was not in radio contact,” said a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.
In flflying to meet the aircraft about 5 p.m. Saturday, the jets did not have to break the sound barrier as they have once in the past, the NORAD spokesman said.
That violation — which happened Feb. 17, soon after Trump had arrived in Palm Beach to spend Presidents Day weekend at what he has called his “Southern White House” — forced NORAD to scramble two F-15 jets at supersonic speeds to head offff a plane whose pilot was not responding to orders to leave the area.
The ensuing sonic boom was heard throughout eastern Palm Beach and Broward counties, rattling windows and cueing calls to law enforcement. It also drew international attention after the fifighter jets’ intercession was widely reported as the cause of the nerve-rattling sonic boom.
Seven is fewer than the 14 planes that violated airspace restrictions on Trump’s Presidents Day weekend trip, Feb. 17-20. But the number still is up from the previous visit, March 3-5, when there were only four airspace violations and no interceptions.
The FAA said it will investigate each of this weekend’s incidents.
A look at airspace violations over Palm Beach for each of Trump’s visits since he took offiffice: ■ Feb. 3-5: 10 violations ■ Feb. 10-12: three violations ■ Feb. 17-20: 14 violations ■ March 3-5: four violations ■ March 17-19: seven violations