AirSpace Wars

As part of International rules and regulations, whenever a foreign aircraft from a different country enters into the airspace of a different country, they must make contact with the country before doing so. The foreign aircraft must readily identify themselves and provide the necessary information in order for there to be an understanding reached and the flight can be continued. A country can't fly into the airspace of another country without permission, and this is for safety and security reasons. A country owns the land below the physical country, the skies above the physical country and everything in between those two areas. If the foreign aircraft does not obey this rule, then the hosting country chases the foreign aircraft out of their skies, but if the foreigner doesn't comply, then a more assertive action can be taken.

In the article from the New York Times entitled, "Iran says foreign planes violated airspace", this provided the information on the event that took place just yesterday, November 17th, 2010. Iranian officials claimed, "that unidentified foreign planes violated its airspace six times as the country began its biggest air-defense drill ever, but that the intruders were intercepted and forced back by Iranian jets." (The New York Times) For fear of the country's safety, their strongest and biggest air-defense drill was put into action in order to drive out the intruders. Gen. Hamid Arjangi, a spokesman for the military during its exercises, said "Iran’s radar stations and observation posts picked up on the planes as they entered Iranian airspace during the five-day drill, which started Tuesday." (The New York Times) As soon as the suspected aircrafts where in violation of trespassing into unwelcomed airspace, the Iranian jets picked up on the plans as soon as the entered into Iran. I think this was a good test for the Iranian airspace defense team and it was a success in that in drove out the intruders in a timely and effective fashion. It is not released yet as to who was in those unidentified aircrafts and for what reason.

After the events of September 11th, 2001, not only has the United States, but other countries as well have made sure to strengthen their security systems when it comes to airplanes and airspace. Another attempted terrorist attack can be on the rise, so all countries need to be aware of this potential threat occurring. I think that this is good Public Relations on the part of the United States as well as Iran that they are taking all of the necessary actions to protect their communities and their citizens by taking precautionary steps to security.

In our book by Babbie, it discussed frequency distribution which is, "a description of the number of times the various attributes of a variable are observed in sample." (Babbie 454) I think Iran, the United States, or any country would be wise to do a frequency distribution on how many times they receive threats or tips of a terrorist attack, and this could help predict when another potential attack is eminent. Better to be prepared than unprepared in a situation like this.