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A look back at Sept. 11 in Garden CitySep 10, 2011 (The Garden City Telegram - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- When Mike Scheiman arrived at work around 8 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, and climbed the long flight of stairs up the air traffic control tower, little did he know the news awaiting him at the top. At some time along the morning commute from his home to the Garden City Regional Airport on that fateful Tuesday morning, a Boeing 767 hijacked by terrorists crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 a.m. EST. Scheiman, who was an air traffic manager at that time, joined his fellow air traffic controller, Bob Funari, to watch the events unfold on a small television inside the round tower that also serves as a visual for the tower's security camera. "After we saw the first one hit, we thought, 'Wow,' that it was just an accident, like most people thought -- a strange accident. We thought something must have happened with the aircraft," Scheiman said. "When the second one hit, then you knew it was really out of the ordinary, that there was something more to it." The air traffic control tower in Garden City had been built only nine months prior, and Scheiman -- with two decades of experience already under his belt -- had been there from day one, he said. As the only controlled air tower in southwest Kansas, it was to the Garden City Regional Airport that dispatchers from the Air Route Traffic Control Center near Kansas City, Kan., called to alert the following news: The Federal Aviation Administration had directed all flying aircraft to land immediately at the nearest accommodating airport, and Scheiman and his partner would be landing some very large planes. "We're the only controlled airport within a couple of hundred miles, and it just so happens we were open nine months. ... They started calling us, to tell us these planes were coming inbound. And then the scramble was on from there," Scheiman said. Authorities acted on a declaration of local disaster when three commercial jets carrying about 180 passengers diverted to Garden City after the terror attacks in New York City: a United Airlines 757 plane, a U.S. Airways 757, and an Air Canada Airbus, an A320 aircraft, two of which left from the same Washington airport where two of the four hijacked planes had departed. "We were pretty confident as far as them landing. They have plenty of runway," Scheiman said. "An aircraft is an aircraft is an aircraft to us, whether it's big or small. We treat 'em all the same, with the same safety precautions." On any given day, there are between 15,000 to 20,000 aircraft in the skies across the nation, the air traffic controller added. To "see the skies so completely empty," Scheiman said, was unsettling. In all the years of directing air traffic, never had he seen the skies so empty. "(It was) just amazing to see out there because usually you can see the contours of the really high airplanes. It was just completely quiet, and that was just an eerie feeling," he said. One of the passengers on the planes that landed at the Garden City airport that day was Roger Noel. Noel, chief of the mobility division of the Federal Communication Commission's wireless telecommunications bureau, said that before Sept. 11, 2001, he'd never been to Kansas, let alone deep in the heart of southwest Kansas. The FCC chief officer was on the United Airlines flight that landed in Garden City, and he along with several co-workers were headed to a telecommunications conference in Los Angeles that week and had boarded at the Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. The Fairfax, Va., resident said colleagues of his who were headed to the same conference and boarded one of the other planes from the same airport were killed that day in the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon. "When we landed, the pilot came over the intercom and told us it would be a while before we could deplane. (The flight staff) tuned into an AM station out of Denver and we all listened with our headphones, and that's when we first got the news," Noel said. "There was a lot of misinformation at first, that D.C. was under attack, that there was a fire at the National Mall, and most all of us were from D.C., so we were very concerned." The local airport was not equipped to handle the load of passengers or even get them off the planes, and so the Garden City Fire Department used its hook-and-ladder truck to help passengers exit the aircrafts. After the passengers descended the jets, law enforcement continued providing security at Garden City High School, where the passengers were taken to be briefed on the situation and offered food, lodging and telephones for communication. Noel said the community was generous and gracious to all who landed and stayed that week, an experience he won't ever forget. "We were plopped down and saw the vast fields when we got off (the plane)," Noel said. "The toughest part was you didn't know anything about what would happen next, but we always felt completely safe in Garden City. Heck, it was probably the safest place on Earth. ... Folks couldn't have been nicer. Everywhere we went we stuck out a little bit, and people were very respectful and shared their concerns. You couldn't have asked for any more from a community." Scheiman, Garden City's air traffic controller, said he feels grounding all planes that infamous day was the right thing to do. "It was the right decision to do. That was the best decision to make. It was like something that you would never expect to happen and it did," he said. Scheiman added that in the long term, the events of 9/11 affected the jobs of everyone involved in security, including airport and air traffic security. The air traffic controller said new and improved regulations and protocols are in place on how to handle potentially hijacked or diverted aircraft. Everyone is more vigilant now. "We keep everybody in the loop, we try not to keep secrets. ... We do a lot more communication now," he added. "Security-wise we're questioning pilots more, we're tracking everybody. ... If someone goes off the radio, we make sure they're closely tracked, and if need be, the FAA can send up a military plane or somebody to check them out." Scheiman, who has called Garden City his home for more than a decade, said the local events of 9/11 also had an impact on his feelings about Garden City. "I was new here. I didn't know a lot about Garden City. After that, and to see how the community turned out ... we're talking about a tragedy that happened a thousand miles away and basically strangers that have come in and are stranded. It was amazing to see the amount of heart and soul and charity that (we) gave to these strangers. It was so heartwarming to me and made me think Garden City could be my home. And it has been for 11 years." Read These Related Stories A real-world lesson for the youth of 9/11 -- 9/10/2011 ___ (c)2011 The Garden City Telegram (Garden City, Kan.) Visit The Garden City Telegram (Garden City, Kan.) at www.gctelegram.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |