Pilot: Campaign reform more critical than security breach

Marisol Bello | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Gyrocopter pilot arrives home in Florida A mail carrier is back home in Florida where he'll await his next hearing for flying his gyrocopter onto the U.S. Capitol lawn. Doug Hughes spoke to reporters early Sunday morning about his experience and why he pulled off the stunt. (April 19)

Doug Hughes is frustrated.

The 61-year-old Florida mailman who exposed security gaps at federal buildings when he entered restricted airspace and landed a one-man aircraft at the U.S. Capitol thinks everyone is getting too hung up on how he did it and not why, he told the Associated Press on Sunday.

He says he flew his gyrocopter through D.C.'s no-fly zone in an act of civil disobedience so he could present two-page letters to all 535 members of Congress about the need for campaign finance reform.

Instead, he told the news agency, everyone is focused only on security breaches around the Capitol.

"We've got bigger problems in this country than worrying about whether the security around D.C. is ironclad," Hughes told AP. "We need to be worried about the piles of money that are going into Congress."

Hughes did not return calls Sunday to his home in Ruskin, a suburban community 20 miles south of Tampa. He is free on his own recognizance after he was charged with violating restricted airspace and operating an unregistered aircraft. Federal rules require detailed flight plans and extensive authorization for any aircraft that flies through the restricted airspace over Washington. Usually only military aircraft are allowed.

Hughes is on house arrest and must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle until a May 8 court hearing in Washington. If he is convicted, the maximum punishment is three years in prison for operating an unregistered aircraft and one year for the airspace violation.

He's back home, but police seized his gyrocopter and the bin carrying the protest letters.

Asked Sunday if he is a patriot or simply crazy, Hughes told AP that "everyone gets to make up their own mind about me, that's what I'd say."

"But do you consider yourself a patriot?" a reporter asked.

"No, I'm a mailman," he said.

His Russian-born wife, Alena, told the news service, "I am very proud of my husband. He is a countryman."

In an extensive interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Hughes described his more than hour-long flight from an airport in Gettysburg, Pa., to Washington, flying at 45 mph at an altitude of 300 feet.

He told the newspaper he wore a heavy U.S. Postal Service jacket, but it was so cold at that altitude that his face and hands were going numb.

Hughes advertised his plan in advance. He gave an extensive interview to his hometown newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. He sent a blast email of his intentions to the Secret Service and news organizations. He live-streamed his illegal flight on a website called The Democracy Club.

So as he rounded the Washington Monument and flew along the National Mall to the U.S. Capitol, he was prepared for a line of police cars with flashing lights or a Black Hawk helicopter hovering over the field in front of him, guns pointed his way. Instead, he told the newspaper, there was nothing. Nary a police car in sight. Instead, he saw pedestrians and tourists waving up at him. He waved back.

"I kept looking around, thinking, 'Where are you guys?' " he said in the interview on Saturday. "In all the imagining, I had never expected nothing. When I made the turn, I thought, 'These guys don't know I'm here!' "

He told the Times that the Capitol police treated him with respect and let him explain, in detail, why he made the flight.

On that score, he told the paper, his flight was a success. The need for campaign finance reform had become an obsession for him and the flight had become the ideal way to spread his message.

The flight was a success in another way, too, he told the paper. He was still alive.

"It's nice being alive," he told the paper on Saturday as he prepared to leave his hotel in Virginia. "I told you that this thing was an obsession. My dread was that it wouldn't happen. It did happen and it seems like it's well-received. I'm starting to think this thing has more than two days of legs on it."

The downside? He told the newspaper he called his employers at the Riverview Post Office to tell them he couldn't come in Monday because he had to get fitted for his monitoring device but would be at work Tuesday. They told him he was on administrative leave pending investigation.