story4439.xml
Title
story4439.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-11
911DA Story: Story
Written on 9-11-02
My husband and I own an airplane service business (called an FBO for Fixed Based Operator) at the Burley airport in Idaho, which is a non-commercial general aviation airport. My husband had just gone on vacation to go hunting with friends, and that morning at about 6:50am I was discussing the day's work with our two mechanics in our office. There is a TV in the office that was turned on to FOX news, but the volume was low while we were talking. Suddenly one of the mechanics pointed to the TV; there was a tall building with smoke pouring out of it. I turned up the volume, and we stood there stunned and wondering how in the world an airplane could go into the building in such good weather and outside of all commercial flight routes. We were all watching it live a few minutes later when the second airplane hit, and then it was obvious without speaking that this was an intentional terrorist attack.
About 20 minutes later, at 7:30am, I tried to call my husband at the cabin he was at, but they had already left to go hunting for the day, so I got the answering machine. Without any forethought, this is the message I left: "Hi guys. When you get back this evening, turn on the TV to a news channel - heck, probably any channel. The World Trade Center is no more, Osama Bin Laden just won."
When I hung up, one of the mechanics looked at me kind of strange and said "Isn't that a bit of an exageration?" At the time I made that statement, both buildings were still standing. I told her I hoped I was wrong; but by the time my message was picked up that evening it had become true. To this day, I don't know why I said it that way on the answering machine. The hunters came home after that day; they lost interest in hunting.
Shortly after 8:00am that morning I got a call from the FAA; the national airspace was closed; we could allow airplanes in the immediate area to land, but no one would be allowed to take off. They requested I call out on our Unicom frequency for any pilots flying to immediately land at the nearest airport. Fortunately, only one pilot got stuck at our airport. There is one other business at our airport, and I had to notify them of the air restriction, and ended up trying to tell them all of the events because they didn't have a TV or radio on. All the other person could say is "are you kidding??" after everything I said. I finally told him to go find a radio and verify it.
That day I was glued to the TV as I watched one horror unfold after another. I will never forget the images I saw that day. Mere words cannot express the sadness for all the innocent people and familes that were killed or affected that fateful day.
My brother, Gary Dalleske, a pilot, was at the Reno air races, all set to fly in his first formula 1 air race. The airspace was shut down before he even had a chance to qualify. The Reno air races were cancelled for the first time in it's 36 year history. My brother said he didn't care about racing anyway after what happened. He is racing this year in two airplanes, Blackjack 21 and 38 Special.
While commercial aviation was able to resume after a few days, general aviation (small privately owned airplanes) were grounded for quite awhile. On September 18th we had to lay off our two mechanics because no one was coming in; our airport was effectively closed. No traffic=no money coming in=no payroll. Fortunately, our business had been totally paid off for two years, otherwise we would not have survived the business downturn. As it was, it was 12 months before my husband drew another paycheck out of the business. It's still just the two of us running it, 7 days a week. At least we're open; many similar FBO's like ours were forced to close down because of financial loss. I often wonder why general aviation small airplanes were so severely restricted, in some areas of the country for months, while commercial carriers were allowed to resume almost immediately. About 48,000 small airplanes and their pilots were stranded all over the country much longer. The government is bailing out the big commercial carriers that are going under; but not a penny to all the FBO businesses that were so badly affected, and those that closed. Our two mechanics eventually did find jobs at the China Lake Naval Facility in California, and are making better pay there then did here, but they miss Burley and they told us they want to come back here to retire (they are a husband and wife team).
The FBI contacted me and I had to make up a list of all the information we had on file for all the students who had taken lessons through our flight school for the past 5 years. It took me a whole weekend to sift through the files and do it, but I was happy to comply. However, all of our students were local and none was a foreign national, so I don't think they learned anything from the pages of information I provided.
Our shop and airplane insurance company contacted us and informed us that from now on, no acts of terrorism would be covered by our insurance. When we went to renew our insurance last spring, the rates had jumped way up. We had to pay the higher shop insurance, but they wanted $6300.00 a year to insure our single rental airplane for a value of $38,000. This was just too ridiculous, so we closed our flight and rental school last April, and our airplane is for sale. I've heard that about 3,000 small flight schools have closed across the U.S. for the same reason.
Actually, we consider ourselves quite fortunate to have gotten by as good as we have in the past year. We're alive, and we still have our business. So many people lost so much that awful day, and afterwards.
From now on, I think we all realize that we can't take anything for granted anymore; it's a dangerous world but we should all count our blessings and enjoy our lives while we can. We'll never forget the heros and stories of courage that day. It's all just a part of what makes this a great nation.
Sharon Campbell, Campbell's Idaho Aviation
www.campav.com
My husband and I own an airplane service business (called an FBO for Fixed Based Operator) at the Burley airport in Idaho, which is a non-commercial general aviation airport. My husband had just gone on vacation to go hunting with friends, and that morning at about 6:50am I was discussing the day's work with our two mechanics in our office. There is a TV in the office that was turned on to FOX news, but the volume was low while we were talking. Suddenly one of the mechanics pointed to the TV; there was a tall building with smoke pouring out of it. I turned up the volume, and we stood there stunned and wondering how in the world an airplane could go into the building in such good weather and outside of all commercial flight routes. We were all watching it live a few minutes later when the second airplane hit, and then it was obvious without speaking that this was an intentional terrorist attack.
About 20 minutes later, at 7:30am, I tried to call my husband at the cabin he was at, but they had already left to go hunting for the day, so I got the answering machine. Without any forethought, this is the message I left: "Hi guys. When you get back this evening, turn on the TV to a news channel - heck, probably any channel. The World Trade Center is no more, Osama Bin Laden just won."
When I hung up, one of the mechanics looked at me kind of strange and said "Isn't that a bit of an exageration?" At the time I made that statement, both buildings were still standing. I told her I hoped I was wrong; but by the time my message was picked up that evening it had become true. To this day, I don't know why I said it that way on the answering machine. The hunters came home after that day; they lost interest in hunting.
Shortly after 8:00am that morning I got a call from the FAA; the national airspace was closed; we could allow airplanes in the immediate area to land, but no one would be allowed to take off. They requested I call out on our Unicom frequency for any pilots flying to immediately land at the nearest airport. Fortunately, only one pilot got stuck at our airport. There is one other business at our airport, and I had to notify them of the air restriction, and ended up trying to tell them all of the events because they didn't have a TV or radio on. All the other person could say is "are you kidding??" after everything I said. I finally told him to go find a radio and verify it.
That day I was glued to the TV as I watched one horror unfold after another. I will never forget the images I saw that day. Mere words cannot express the sadness for all the innocent people and familes that were killed or affected that fateful day.
My brother, Gary Dalleske, a pilot, was at the Reno air races, all set to fly in his first formula 1 air race. The airspace was shut down before he even had a chance to qualify. The Reno air races were cancelled for the first time in it's 36 year history. My brother said he didn't care about racing anyway after what happened. He is racing this year in two airplanes, Blackjack 21 and 38 Special.
While commercial aviation was able to resume after a few days, general aviation (small privately owned airplanes) were grounded for quite awhile. On September 18th we had to lay off our two mechanics because no one was coming in; our airport was effectively closed. No traffic=no money coming in=no payroll. Fortunately, our business had been totally paid off for two years, otherwise we would not have survived the business downturn. As it was, it was 12 months before my husband drew another paycheck out of the business. It's still just the two of us running it, 7 days a week. At least we're open; many similar FBO's like ours were forced to close down because of financial loss. I often wonder why general aviation small airplanes were so severely restricted, in some areas of the country for months, while commercial carriers were allowed to resume almost immediately. About 48,000 small airplanes and their pilots were stranded all over the country much longer. The government is bailing out the big commercial carriers that are going under; but not a penny to all the FBO businesses that were so badly affected, and those that closed. Our two mechanics eventually did find jobs at the China Lake Naval Facility in California, and are making better pay there then did here, but they miss Burley and they told us they want to come back here to retire (they are a husband and wife team).
The FBI contacted me and I had to make up a list of all the information we had on file for all the students who had taken lessons through our flight school for the past 5 years. It took me a whole weekend to sift through the files and do it, but I was happy to comply. However, all of our students were local and none was a foreign national, so I don't think they learned anything from the pages of information I provided.
Our shop and airplane insurance company contacted us and informed us that from now on, no acts of terrorism would be covered by our insurance. When we went to renew our insurance last spring, the rates had jumped way up. We had to pay the higher shop insurance, but they wanted $6300.00 a year to insure our single rental airplane for a value of $38,000. This was just too ridiculous, so we closed our flight and rental school last April, and our airplane is for sale. I've heard that about 3,000 small flight schools have closed across the U.S. for the same reason.
Actually, we consider ourselves quite fortunate to have gotten by as good as we have in the past year. We're alive, and we still have our business. So many people lost so much that awful day, and afterwards.
From now on, I think we all realize that we can't take anything for granted anymore; it's a dangerous world but we should all count our blessings and enjoy our lives while we can. We'll never forget the heros and stories of courage that day. It's all just a part of what makes this a great nation.
Sharon Campbell, Campbell's Idaho Aviation
www.campav.com
Collection
Citation
“story4439.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 16, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/12732.