Homeland Security Chair: Gyrocopter Pilot ‘Literally Going Postal’

Homeland Security Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) talked to This Week’s Martha Raddatz about last week’s gyrocopter incident at the Capitol, in which a Post Office employee evaded all manner of Capitol defense apparatuses via 1920s technology, for which he was very arrested. McCaul said that though the pilot, 61-year-old Doug Hughes, was just an eccentric, next time he could be a terrorist.

“These small, ultralight aircraft are difficult to detect,” McCaul explained. “They can fly under the radar like this one…It exposed a vulnerability, that, quite frankly — in this case, the guy’s just going postal literally — it exposes a vulnerability that terrorists I think can exploit.”

RELATED: Williams Battles Hume over Gyrocopter Response: We Can’t Just ‘Start Shooting Everybody’

McCaul told Raddatz that had the gyrocopter gotten any closer the Capitol had mechanisms in place to shoot it down, but would not answer her question of whether they had seen him at all.

Watch the clip below, via ABC News:

[h/t The Hill]
[Image via screengrab]

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