Army spy plane tracked Times Square bomber?

Wired is speculating that a secret Army spy plane tracked alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. According to the story, Shahzad called and reserved his plane ticket on his way to the airport.

What I don’t understand is why a plane was needed to track him. His cellphone was being tracked by the cellphone company, potentially within 50 feet of his location. Why put a plane up to suck down all electronic signals if you can already pinpoint his location easily?

And I was wondering how Shahzad got on a plane with the No Fly List supposedly protecting us from harm. Fortunately, CNN covered this part – saying that the list doesn’t get updated in real time but every 24 hours. Airlines are now being urged to refresh their databases within 2 hours.