Brooksville plane forced down near Everglades by military
A man who allegedly took a plane from a Brooksville airport was forced down by a military aircraft Wednesday afternoon.According to Wendell Stephens, a supervisor at American Aviation in the Hernando County Airport, the owner and pilot of the plane was a French citizen who was licensed to fly the plane.
A Federal Aviation Administration-certified instructor who flew with the man recommended that he not fly the plane because he could not communicate in English with anyone on the ground or in the air.
This was explained to the pilot through an interpreter, and the pilot became indignant and took off in the plane anyway, Stephens said.
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Salac said she wasn’t sure who called authorities at the North American Aerospace Defense Command — the military agency that handles airspace threats — but jets responded quickly to pursue the small plane. Two F-15s forced the plane down at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Collier County.
