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As some of you know, my brother and I run a food trailer at a small sirport in southern New Hampshire. Yesterday I spoke to the guy who runs the maintenance hanger and also operates the flight offices and flight services....basically the whole shebang...Because of the date I asked him what it was like to be running an airport as the events transpired that day. He said he wouldn't personally know as he was not running the airport on 9/11-his wife was...
...and now, as Paul Harvey say's, "The Rest of The Story". "Glen" was near a small lake in northern Maine that morning, hunting bear after having landed a pontoon plane on the lake the evening before. He was to spend the day scouting the area that day and to fly out shortly before nightfall heading back home-that weekend he and his partner were to take 3 days for a full hunt. As planned he contacted base about 4pm before his planned take-off and found that-A. He wasn't going home that night, and B. no one had any hint when he might be able to fly home.
As it turned out, since there were no roads within 40 miles of him and taking off in the plane would have cost him several of the licenses he held, he wound up staying on the pond two extra days with plenty of water...the plane was floating on it, but extremely limited food.
Anyhow the story showed me a different facet of the 9/11 experience. It must have been strange and lonely staying there with little food and little information. I wonder how many other light plane pilots were stranded facing such difficulty.
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