INDIANAPOLIS - The U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command said Thursday that shooting down a small plane that left its flight plan and later crashed near Muncie, killing the pilot, was always an option.
"All along that flight path, that decision is in the back of people's mind," NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek said.
He wouldn't say whether the option was seriously considered Wednesday before the single-engine propeller M20M Mooney crashed about 12 miles northeast of Muncie, Ind., but said leaders in NORAD and other agencies were consulted.
Kucharek didn't know whether President Barack Obama, the ultimate authority for such a decision, was alerted to the situation.
The U.S. military has never shot down an aircraft in the nation's air space, he said.
The plane was returning to Grand Rapids, Mich., from Traverse City, Mich., when it overshot Grand Rapids and lost contact with ground air traffic controllers, officials said. Authorities activated a communications network for airspace emergencies formed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that includes NORAD, the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI. The system, called the Domestic Events Network, is activated whenever there's an "anomaly" - and a wayward, out-of-contact flight raises flags, Kucharek said.
Four F-16s were scrambled about the time the plane reached northeast Indiana, he said. Only two fighters flew with the plane at a time. He would not say where they were based. NORAD closely watched the plane to determine whether it was likely to crash in a populated area, Kucharek said.
The plane's southward trek carried it over Kalamazoo, Mich., Columbia City, Ind., Huntington, Ind., and near Fort Wayne and Muncie. The plane had about four hours of fuel left when it lost contact and might have ended up in the Gulf of Mexico if it hadn't crashed, Kucharek said.
"There's a lot of factors. Do you let the plane crash and let that be the damage or do you actually use force and armament and potentially create a bigger problem than you would have with the plane crash," he said.
The jets flew with the plane for more than an hour over Indiana and it began gradually to lose altitude, he said. The F-16 pilots saw the plane's pilot slumped over in the cockpit, and officials realized the emergency was medical rather than terror-related.
Andrew Todd Fox, the chief National Safety Transportation Board investigator for the crash, said the probe was focusing on the plane's oxygen system, which was largely destroyed in the fire that followed the crash. The M20M Mooney isn't pressurized but is capable of flying at altitudes of 20,000 feet or more where oxygen is required.
Kucharek said shooting the plane down remained an option even after the pilots realized there was a medical situation because the plane could have endangered more people if it had crashed in a populated area.
"It's a tough call," he said. "The pilots that are up there, that's not something they want to do, but if they're called upon to do it, they'll do it."
But pilots don't have the authority to make such a decision, he said. That authority rests with the president, the secretary of defense and "a small depth and breadth of people within NORAD," he said.
While agencies' leaders were consulted Wednesday, Kucharek didn't know whether the president was directly consulted. However, the White House did participate in conference call with agencies' public affairs officers related to the crisis.
Military pilots and officials in NORAD and other agencies practice how to handle such scenarios several times a year, he said.
Kucharek wasn't sure whether Wednesday was the first time fighters had been launched over Indiana in response to such an incident.
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