WASHINGTON - US authorities Thursday reviewed their response to the biggest security alert to hit Washington since the September 11 attacks, one day after a rogue small plane strayed into restricted airspace over the US capital.
The White House meanwhile defended a decision not to immediately inform President George W. Bush about the incident.
The rogue plane that strayed into restricted airspace over the US capital on Wednesday triggered a massive security scare and the scrambling of jet fighters, but Bush was not informed of the incursion during a bike ride outside the city.
Fresh security jitters were triggered by another air scare Thursday when an Air France flight from Paris to Boston was diverted to a Maine airport after a passenger's name matched that on a terrorism watch list.
The Air France jet stayed at Bangor, Maine, for almost two hours before being allowed to complete its flight to Boston and authorities subsequently said the passenger had no apparent link to terrorism.
David Rothkopf, a security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AFP the response to Wednesday's light plane scare was "just a big overreaction."
"If you watched the news last night, you would have thought that something horrible happened," he said.
But The Washington Post said in a Thursday editorial that "given the situation, law enforcement agencies were right to evacuate the Capitol and the White House, and the federal government was right to go on high alert."
"Although it will be easy in retrospect to blame officials for overreacting, this incident proves that some of the early warning systems set up since September 11 do work," the daily's editorial board added.
The stray Cessna aircraft sparked panic at the White House and Congress, as the government buildings were hurriedly evacuated.
Staffers and reporters were seen frantically evacuating the White House during the incident.
No official announcement was made over the loudspeaker to alert journalists stationed at the White House; Secret Service agents merely entered the press room and shouted for reporters to evacuate.
Bush was only told about the evacuations of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court about an hour after Wednesday's alert had ended.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended that decision on Thursday.
"The security detail that was traveling with the president was kept apprised of the situation as it developed," he told reporters.
"They were in close contact with officials back here at the White House. The president was never considered to be in any danger, and the protocols that were put in place after September 11 were followed," he added.
McClellan nonetheless said the official reaction would be examined to see if the alert procedures could be improved.
"I think, stepping back from this, any time there's a situation like this, there's going to be a review undertaken, and it will be thoroughly reviewed. And if there are any improvements that need to be made, they will be made," he said.
Bush had been on a bike ride in a park in suburban Washington when the plane got within 4.8 kilometers (three miles) of the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney was evacuated from the White House.
Fighter jets intercepted the plane when it failed to answer radio messages. The two men in the Cessna 150 were detained briefly, but no charges have been filed.
The alert was the biggest in the US capital since the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks that felled New York's twin World Trade Center towers and bore a hole in the Pentagon outside Washington, sparking a major review of national security.
05/12/2005 22:39 GMT