F-16 Escorts Plane In Vicinity of South Texas Project Nuclear Plant
October 26, 2008 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Two unrelated incidents caused a scare at South Texas Project Thursday afternoon that had plant security and Matagorda County Sheriff’s officers working quickly to diffuse the situations.
Coincidentally, within a time span of ten minutes, an unidentified aircraft was detected flying in the vicinity of the plant and a man was seen walking in the nuclear support center area carrying a rifle case.
According to Buddy Eller, STP Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, the first incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. when a small aircraft was detected flying in the vicinity of the plant.
The plane was not submitting a proper transponder code, which caused plant security officers to dispatch an F-16 fighter jet from Ellington Field to escort the plane back to Ellington Field, said Eller.
Eller said federal investigators are handling the case and it is still unknown as to what the plane was doing in the area of STP.
Around 1:40 p.m. two separate employees spotted a man walking in the employee parking lot carrying a rifle case, Eller said.
Plant security identified the man, searched the rifle case and the man’s vehicle and never found a weapon.
Eller said the man was a plant employee and it is unknown why he had the empty gun case — possibly because hunting season is nearing.
Was the employee (walking in the parking lot) on his way in or on his way out? Empty rifle case….could the weapon have already been stored somewhere on the property for later use? Walking around on that property with a rifle case (empty or with a weapon) just doesn’t sound right to me. Hunting season may be nearing….but I wouldn’t think that hunting would be allowed on that particular property.
It’s good that he was spotted and reported to security but it seems like there is more to this story than meets the eye.