by Tina Kelley, New York Times
Police aircraft scrambled yesterday to track a small plane after a report that it was flying low near upstate reservoirs that supply water to New York City, the authorities said last night. A plane matching the description was followed to a small airport in Lincoln Park, N.J., where the pilot was detained last night, questioned and then released.
It was the second report in two days of suspicions being aroused by a small plane flying near a reservoir in the region, but it was unclear last night if either report was founded on anything more than jittery nerves.
The New York State Police received a telephone call yesterday reporting that a plane had flown near the reservoir in Cannonsville, N.Y., said Arlene Salac, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s offices in the New York area.
“They had reports that an individual had dropped something into a reservoir,” Ms. Salac said.
But that differed somewhat from an account by Maj. Alan G. Martin, commander of F Troop of the state police, based in Middletown, N.Y. He said a caller told officers at 3:55 p.m. that a plane flew low over three reservoirs — the Cannonsville, Pepacton and Ashokan reservoirs, which all serve the city — without dropping anything in.
Major Martin said police aircraft from Stewart and Albany airports found a plane matching that description in the Highland, N.Y., area. They followed the plane, as did state and city helicopters, and it landed at Lincoln Park Airport, outside of Lincoln Park, in Morris County, where the plane is based. The pilot may not have known he was being followed. “He may not have done anything wrong,” Major Martin said.
The pilot, a white man in his 50’s whose name was not released, was questioned at the Lincoln Park Police Department last night and then released. He said he did not know why he had been pursued, according to a senior law enforcement official. He had a valid license to operate the plane, the official said. The state police said the man was from Pompton Lakes, N.J.
At about 8:15 p.m., the Cessna was towed by a golf cart to one of four hangars along the runway, away from a parking lot where reporters and camera crews were gathered.
The plane was a white, single-engine Cessna Skyhawk with a red stripe down the fuselage.
The aircraft matched the description of one seen Thursday afternoon, reportedly dropping an object into a reservoir in Connecticut.
Two witnesses in a car reported to Groton, Conn., police that they had seen something fall from a plane flying 150 to 200 feet above Smith Lake, which supplies some drinking water to Groton and Ledyard.
Officials shut off the flow of water immediately from the reservoir into the water system, but no object was recovered from the reservoir. Water from the reservoir was tested, and no sign of contamination was found, a Connecticut state police spokesman told The Associated Press.
The plane investigated yesterday was owned by James E. Forrest Sr., president of Forrest Aviation, who said he leased it to Tim Wagner. Mr. Wagner runs Wagner Airways, a flight school at Lincoln Park Airport. A message left at his house was not returned last night.
Officials from the Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the incident, said Sandra Carroll, special agent and spokeswoman for the New Jersey F.B.I. office.
Other agencies involved in the investigation included state police from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Morris County prosecutors and police from Lincoln Park.