WASHINGTON — The pilot who caused a midday panic in Washington on Wednesday failed to obtain briefings about the weather and restricted airspace and became lost minutes after leaving a Pennsylvania airport, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records show.

Hayden "Jim" Sheaffer, 69, froze when he saw a Black Hawk helicopter appear on his right wing while he was flying toward the White House and had difficulty operating his small, single-engine aircraft, officials said Friday. It took the valiant effort of Sheaffer's student-pilot companion, Troy Martin, who had only 30 logged hours of flight time, to take over the controls and land the plane at an airport in Frederick, Md., officials said.

The FAA plans to take the most extreme action against a pilot since new airspace rules were put in place in 2003 and will revoke Sheaffer's pilot certificate, according to aviation officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the order had not been completed. The FAA does not plan to take similar action against Martin, 36, because he is a student pilot and does not have a pilot certificate, sources said.

New details are emerging about what took place in the cockpit of the Cessna single engine piston aircraft during the noontime drama that led to the evacuation of more than 35,000 people from Capitol Hill and the White House. A log prepared by federal security officials shows how tensions escalated to the point where a fighter jet was "about to use missiles" to shoot the plane down.

"Clearly had no idea"

"It's quite evident from anybody who witnessed Wednesday's incident that the pilot clearly had no idea what he wandered into," FAA spokesman Greg Martin told The Associated Press yesterday.

After landing in Frederick, Sheaffer and Martin were handcuffed and questioned before being released. They have been unavailable for comment since then. They were forced down about 90 minutes after they took off from an airport in Smoketown, Pa., near Lancaster, headed for an air show in Lumberton, N.C.

Some neighbors said they were mystified about the whereabouts of the two men and their families. At the Sheaffer home in Warwick Township, Pa., no one answered the door or telephone. About 10 miles away, at Martin's residence in Akron, Pa., a note was fixed to the door asking reporters to go away. No one answered the door or phone there, either. A next-door neighbor, Cindy Hamill, said of the Martins: "This family's in crisis."

The FAA plans to cite Sheaffer for a "careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another," records obtained by The Washington Post show. Sheaffer may appeal the revocation with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Within hours of the scare, authorities said that the pilots were lost and disoriented. But the account provided in FAA documents casts Martin in a different light.

"It shows a tremendous presence of mind to be able to take the training he had and, under a very stressful situation, to bring that aircraft to Frederick," said Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a group representing private pilots.

Dancy said Martin probably was about halfway through his student training, as most student pilots take about 60 to 75 hours to earn their certificate.

Failed to check

FAA records indicate that Sheaffer failed to take the most basic steps required of pilots before operating an aircraft. He did not check the weather report and failed to check FAA's "Notices to Airmen," which serve as the agency's required predeparture reading for pilots to alert them of airspace restrictions.

Had Sheaffer checked the notices, he would have realized that the 2,000-square-mile area around Washington is the Air Defense Identification Zone.

Sheaffer became lost soon after departure, records show. The documents show he also failed to communicate with the FAA and provide necessary navigation information.

The Cessna 150 crossed through three layers of increasingly restricted airspace. The first area, known as the Air Defense Identification Zone, covers the overlapping, 30-mile radii of the Washington area's three major airports. The second, known as the Flight Restricted Zone, covers a 16-mile area around the Washington Monument.

Once intercepted by the Black Hawk and minutes away from flying over sensitive landmarks in the city, Sheaffer told investigators that he thought he mistakenly had flown over Camp David, another restricted airspace known as Prohibited Area P-40, FAA records show.

The FAA also said Sheaffer was unaware of intercept procedures and did not know how to respond once he saw the Black Hawk, police jet and two F-16s. The F-16s flew by several times, both dropping flares to get his attention.

The most dangerous breach occurred when Sheaffer crossed into Prohibited Area P-56, no-fly airspace covering the White House and the Naval Observatory. The Cessna passed over that area while being escorted away by the Black Hawk. Compounding the problem, federal authorities had difficulty establishing communication with the Cessna, a security log of the events shows.

The log shows the Black Hawk was airborne by 11:55 a.m., as the plane kept heading into Washington. Five minutes later, the log says "fighters are on the target" and "flares are authorized."

Close call

At 12:03 p.m., the White House was put on its highest level of alert. At 12:04, the log shows the missiles were about to be used. No order to shoot down the plane was issued, although officials said it was the closest they had ever come to calling for the downing of a civilian aircraft.

The log shows that authorities initially planned to divert the plane to Leesburg, Va. Even with the jets and helicopter roaring nearby, however, the Cessna was "not communicating" at 12:16, the log said. Finally, at 12:22, an entry says, "They are communicating, the fighters will force down at Frederick."

Washington Post reporters Fredrick Kunkle and Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report; details on events after the plane was forced down in Maryland were provided by The Associated Press.