{"id":661,"date":"2016-09-14T17:17:54","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T17:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/?p=661"},"modified":"2016-09-14T17:17:54","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T17:17:54","slug":"remembering-the-day-that-forever-changed-aviation-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/remembering-the-day-that-forever-changed-aviation-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the day that forever changed aviation – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"6082984661_0433e2e1fd_b\"<\/a>
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s four airports serve the aviation needs of Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. Through good times and bad, we work tirelessly to ensure the safe travel of millions of passengers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly every generation has “one event” which not only left unforgettable\u00a0memories of where people were and what they were doing when it happened, but was a pivotal time in our collective history. September 11, 2001, is that event for our generation.<\/em>
\n
\nFifteen years ago, our nation suffered\u00a0an inconceivable horror on our own front doorstep. The consequences of those events will have lasting impact on not only our generation, but generations to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

We sat down with several current and former Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) employees who worked\u00a0at one of our four airports on that fateful day, and will post their stories throughout this week.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s how September 11, 2001, is remembered, in their own words.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"bryan-spink\"<\/a>
Ramp Agent, Bryan Spink takes a spin around Herlong Recreational Airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bryan Spink, a Ramp Service Technician at Herlong Recreational Airport, was on duty at the main terminal front desk on the morning of September 11th. A pilot who hangared his plane at the airport called from home and told him that an airliner had just flown into one of the Twin Towers. Like millions of other Americans that fateful morning, Spink flipped on the nearest TV and watched events unfold with others who happened to be nearby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe figured it had to be because of bad weather,\u201d Spink explained. Like many at Herlong, he was a private pilot \u2013 and knowing the unlikelihood of what he had just heard, figured the first crash was due to a freak accident in a low visibility situation. But when they turned on the TV to the image of the smoking tower, \u201cit was a beautiful, clear blue sky. It wasn\u2019t very long after we started watching that the second plane came in and hit. And that\u2019s when we all realized, OK, that wasn\u2019t an accident. We are under attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herlong is unique among the Aviation Authority\u2019s airports in that there is no air traffic control tower; pilots flying in the airport traffic pattern monitor a common radio frequency and periodically announce their position and intentions. Ramp Service Technicians listen in on the frequency and occasionally speak with the pilots and provide advisories. The announcement Spink made that morning still stays clear in his memory to this day.<\/p>\n

Less than an hour after the second tower was hit, a man from JAX TRACON, the regional air traffic control located in the building below Jacksonville International Airport\u2019s tower, called Herlong\u2019s front desk and told Spink, \u201cYou need to call everyone on your frequency and get them on the ground right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the Herlong staff knew and was friendly with the TRACON staff, Spink asked if the man was joking.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the air traffic controller replied, \u201cas you know, there\u2019s something going on and the President of the United States has just given the order \u2013 we\u2019re closing down the National Airspace System. There are still two aircraft unaccounted for, and I don\u2019t think they\u2019re done yet. I have to go,\u201d and abruptly hung up the phone.<\/p>\n

There were three aircraft in Herlong\u2019s traffic pattern at the time, all training flights. \u201cI got on the radio and\u2026what are you supposed to say?\u201d recalls Spink. \u201cYou\u2019re not telling someone there\u2019s wildlife on the runway or some other basic airport advisory, so I remember just trying to keep it as short as I could. I said, \u2018Attention all traffic in the pattern at Herlong. The President of the United States has ordered all airspace closed and all aircraft have been ordered to land.\u2019 He continued, \u201cAs many as four airliners have been hijacked, and two of them were just flown into the World Trade Center. So they are shutting everything down.\u201d All the aircraft landed in an orderly fashion, and shortly thereafter Spink and the rest of the people at Herlong watched footage appear of the Pentagon in flames.<\/p>\n

He describes the next hours as an unrelenting stream of phone calls from law enforcement and government agencies. Herlong staff immediately began securing the airport, locking buildings and gates and funneling any visitors to the airport into one entry point. Airplane owners whose planes were located at the airport called constantly asking for updates, and Spink and his coworkers continually had to communicate the news: you can\u2019t fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many calls we got, that day and the next several days, saying if anyone takes off, they\u2019re going to be intercepted and possibly shot down,\u201d he remembers. \u201cThat\u2019s what we were being told by the FAA, even getting calls from the military saying, \u2018Just to remind you, no civilian traffic is allowed to depart. If anyone takes off, they\u2019re going to be intercepted.\u2019 That lasted for the better part of a week before we were actually able to start launching flights again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The empty sky that afternoon and for nearly a week after was a phenomenon that impacted the memories of many Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was surreal,\u201d Spink says. \u201cI remember I got up the next morning and came to work, and that\u2019s probably the most eerie I\u2019ve ever felt here, because it was dead quiet. Everything\u2019s tied down, there was not a contrail in the sky, there wasn\u2019t a single radio call\u2026nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking at the flight tracking software that Herlong staff used at the time was equally uncanny. On the 11th, he could see the airspace clearing out and aircraft funneling into the commercial airports. Thereafter, Herlong staff would get on the computer and \u201cthe entire lower 48 states was a blank map\u201d for the rest of the time that the flight ban was in effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou knew so very little after the initial couple of hours, after things stopped happening,\u201d Spink says. \u201cBut you knew this was going to be big. You wondered how long this was going to last. What else was going to happen? It was totally unprecedented; obviously, nothing like this had ever happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe began to wonder, Are they going to let general aviation fly again? What are they going to do with the airlines? You knew something was going to happen, you just didn\u2019t know what.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perceptions of airports and general aviation were forever transformed. Spink recalls that actions previously considered harmless were subsequently viewed with suspicion, things like wanting to go out onto the airport ramp to look at airplanes, or someone showing up with a camera to take pictures. Everything was viewed with a wary eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the longest time, you\u2019d look at a small airplane at Herlong and think, OK, we can go up in it and have some fun. Now you stop and look at that same airplane and are forced to think, how could this possibly be used as a weapon?\u201d<\/p>\n

Spink summarized that momentous day with the ultimate understatement: \u201cIt changed everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly every generation has “one event” which not only left unforgettable\u00a0memories of where people were and what they were doing when it happened, but was a pivotal time in our collective history. September 11, 2001, is that event for our generation. Fifteen years ago, our nation suffered\u00a0an inconceivable horror on our own front doorstep. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flyjacksonville.com\/jetstream\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}