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The board announces its conclusions on why Charles Bishop flew into a downtown building.
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 18, 2003
TAMPA -- The National Transportation Safety Board issued a one-sentence conclusion Friday to the case of Charles Bishop, the troubled teenager who flew a small airplane into the side of a downtown Tampa high-rise a year ago.
The cause of the crash: "The pilot's unauthorized use of an aircraft for the purpose of commiting suicide."
Coming less than four months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Bishop's crash into the Bank of America tower received nationwide attention. Bishop expressed support for the terrorists in a suicide note, but investigators concluded the teen had no connection to any such group.
In his suicide note, Bishop claimed to have been recruited by al-Qaida, said attorney Michael J. Ryan. Bishop wrote, "Osama bin Laden is absolutely justified in the terror he has caused on 9-11. . . . You will pay -- God help you -- and I will make you pay!"
Three months after the crash, Julia Bishop, mother of the 15-year-old East Lake High School student, described her son as a compassionate child "determined to make the world a better place."
His behavior provided no warning of the Jan. 5 crash, she said.
Julia Bishop did not want to discuss the NTSB's final report Friday.
"As far as anything being over, what's over?" she said at her home in New Port Richey. "It'll never be over for me."
The NTSB's final word on the incident recounted the sequence of events.
About 4:30 p.m. Jan. 5, 2002, Charles Bishop's flight instructor at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport told him to check out a four-seat Cessna 172 and wait for him by the plane.
Instead, Bishop -- who had fewer than 20 hours of flying time -- started the engine, taxied to a runway and took off without contacting controllers in the airport's tower.
The controllers alerted the tower at Tampa International Airport and a Coast Guard helicopter in the area of the unauthorized flight. As they tried unsuccessfully to contact Bishop, the young pilot flew southeast across Tampa Bay.
The Coast Guard helicopter was asked to intercept the Cessna as it flew toward MacDill Air Force Base. Before the helicopter caught up with Bishop, he buzzed the MacDill tower, at one point flying below the cab windows, then flew within a few feet of two fully loaded tanker aircraft on a MacDill runway and three aircraft hangars.
As he flew away from the air base, the Coast Guard pilots got close enough to give him hand signals to land. The pilots said they thought Bishop saw their signals and signaled back, but they couldn't tell what gestures he was making.
At 5:30 p.m., Bishop hit the 28th floor of the office tower.
The Hillsborough County medical examiner listed the cause of death as skull fractures and brain lacerations. Toxicology tests found no drugs or alcohol in Bishop's system.
Bishop's family has filed a $70-million lawsuit against the manufacturer of the acne medication Accutane, claiming it caused the teenager to become severely psychotic. The manufacturer, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., has declined to comment on the suit but denied that there is a link between the medication and emotional deviation.
The suit is scheduled for trial in March 2004.
-- Staff writers Ed Quioco and Graham Brink contributed to this report.