Pilot just wanted to go to the beach

He just wanted to go to the beach. Joyriding pilot Jason Maloney made every loopy, bizarre excuse in the book to air-traffic controllers to justify setting down his single-engine Piper in shallow water off the Rockaways shoreline on Monday evening - while dodging giant passenger jetliners taking off from Kennedy Airport in the process. In the oddball transmissions, Maloney, 24, claimed he landed because he had a sick passenger or because his engine was "a little teeeensy bit rough" - although he made a series of seemingly implausible excuses to land on the sand.



"Whooooa . . . What if I want to hide from you?" he radioed after a controller said radar showed his plane east of Jones Beach. "This might be crazy," Maloney radioed a few minutes later. "But are we allowed to land on the beach?" "I don't think so, unless it was an emergency," the controller answered. "I'm a paramedic, uhhh, is there anyone I can ask?" he responded, before asking, "Any private beaches around?"

The transmissions were odd from the beginning. Soon after taking off from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, Maloney asked if he could land his plane with its two passengers - Clarke Oler, 22, and Chelsea Protter, 21, both Long Islanders - at JFK. He said he wanted to "drop a pastor off at JFK who is doing some medical mission work. Where would I drop him off at your airport?" The controller advised Maloney to check with the Port Authority.


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After Maloney finally landed - without declaring an emergency - he incredibly didn't understand why his stunt enraged FAA officials. "It happens in Alaska all the time!" he told cops, sources said. "Welcome to New York," a cop replied. Maloney's high jinks could cost him his pilot's licence, and he might be fined. "He doesn't sound drunk. He doesn't sound stoned. He sounds like a jerk. He was looking for somebody to tell him to do that - land on the water," a law-enforcement source said after listening to the audio recording.