Foreign student pilots in for a rougher ride

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Nov. 2, 2001 | 10:22 a.m.

Before Sept. 11, German nationals Alexandros Milanowski, 20, and Mehmet Wabamci, 26, would have no problem traveling, via tourist visas, to Las Vegas, where they would spend relatively little to learn to fly small planes.

German nationals and other Europeans eager to learn to fly have for years represented themselves as tourists, enabling them to avoid the paperwork associated with a trip to the U.S. Consulate to complete a visa application for vocational training.

But on Monday, while attending classes at a North Las Vegas flight school, the men learned that the once-lax federal regulations have been tightened: the two men, in Las Vegas since Sept. 23, were arrested and handcuffed by agents for the Immigration and Naturalization Service for falsifying visas.

As of Thursday afternoon the men remained in custody at the North Las Vegas jail while awaiting a flight home. Whether they will be reimbursed for the roughly $5,000 they paid for the flight classes is still in question. In Germany, similar training would cost about 12,000 U.S. dollars.

Milanowski, who comes from a small town near Frankfurt, said he didn't realize he was doing anything illegal by entering the country on a tourist visa.

"I'm German, we don't do anything bad," he said in German during an interview at the jail Thursday evening. "Germans have always had good relations with Americans."

He added that the Sept. 11 attacks had shocked him immensely, but that he decided to come to America for his training anyway.

"I actually really like it here, except for this little affair," he said, adding that he is considering a return to the United States on a proper visa to finish his flight training.

Wabamci declined to be interviewed.

The men are not being deported, Sigrid Sommer, consul of Germany in Las Vegas, said. There will be no hearing. They are simply being removed, she said.

Marc Sanders, assistant officer in charge for the INS in Las Vegas, would not comment on the case.

He also had little to say about a new measure, signed into law late last week, that allocates $36.8 million toward monitoring foreign students enrolled in classes in the United States. The tracking program was approved in 1996, though never funded.

Now included as part of the USA Patriot Act of 2001, the program charges INS, as of January 2003, with tracking foreign students enrolled in air flight schools, language training schools and other vocational schools. INS already tracks foreign students taking college academic classes. Sommer called the arrest of the two German nationals an unfortunate result of misinformation provided by West Air Aviation, a flight school that has maintained close business ties with flight schools in Munich, Germany for several years.

According to Sommer, officials at West Air Aviation told Milanowski and Wabamci that they needed only to sign what is known as a "waiver pilot visa" when boarding the plane to the United States. This would allow them to travel as tourists for a maximum of 90 days. The two made plans to enroll in the class before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Both German flight students had completed some training at the Munich ground school, giving them a slight head start and allowing them to obtain pilots' licenses within 90 days.

Such business advice for foreign students has for years been the unofficial general practice around the Las Vegas Valley and the rest of the country, Dot Stewart, owner of Aviator's flight school in North Las Vegas, said.

John Giles, CEO of West Air Aviation, did not return calls for comment made over three days.

"Maybe now we will understand better what is meant by the Homeland Security," Sommer said. "The appeal is that everyone has to participate, work together, and this is a good example. All the firms involved should be careful in handing out information. I would hope in all fairness that they let students know what is required of them."

Said Stewart, "People would come visiting for over a year, and the INS didn't do anything. But that's going to change. It looks like they're really cracking down on this. But to throw them in jail? That's going too far. They just fibbed on their application like everyone used to do."

In this instance, INS officials apparently were tipped off to the presence of two German men in Las Vegas. The tip came from law enforcement agents who detained a German national who was planning to take flight lessons elsewhere in the country. Federal agents questioned the man extensively at a Pittsburgh airport on Sept. 23 after finding a flight training manual in his bag.

The heightened awareness stems in part from an announcement by the State Department Wednesday that 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks legally obtained visas in Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, Valerie Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, declined to say what type of visas were granted.

Those details, and details of information-sharing between agencies, are likely to be shared publicly only after information is deemed less sensitive, in part because of the knowledge that planes can indeed be used as weapons of mass destruction.

The Federal Aviation Administration, for instance, has always received daily mailings from flight schools. The information includes profiles of students who completed written exams as part of the flight training process.

Which doesn't necessarily mean the FAA reviewed those files.

The FAA is now not only reviewing those files, but is making them available to the INS on request, as required in the new anti-terrorism legislation.

"There weren't reasons for the INS to ask for this information before Sept. 11," Jerry Snyder, spokesman for the western Pacific region of the FAA, said. "But now, if they request it, it's required by law. Certainly, we will be working with them."

But Snyder declined to verify whether records of written tests taken in early October by the two German nationals in Las Vegas helped the INS locate them.

"That kind of information would be very valuable to someone trying to thwart this type of operation," Snyder said.

This new sharing of information may force foreign students to complete more cumbersome visa forms required for vocational studies -- giving federal authorities information on students' destinations and intentions -- but that won't stop students from receiving the training.

Now, to earn certification as a student pilot, a foreign national needs just three things: to be at least 16, have an ability to communicate in English, and a doctor's note that says he or she is in good health.

Even if a person doesn't meet those minimal qualifications necessary in obtaining legal flight papers, they still can receive equivalent practical training.

Officials for local flight training schools say they would never knowingly teach potential terrorists to fly. But they agree that they have few tools to identify them: they require one form of identification, usually a driver's license or passport, and a medical bill of health. Nothing more. They conduct no background checks.

Officially, at least, the FAA and FBI have advised flight schools only to report anything "suspicious," including requests to learn how to steer a plane but to skip instructions on landings. According to national news reports, flight instructors at Florida schools -- where at least four of the 19 terrorists allegedly trained -- said the terrorists made similar requests while learning to fly. Janice Herrmann, who with her husband owns Desert Southwest Airlines -- a flight school in Henderson -- says she doubts those accounts. Even in a relatively complacent time, such a request would raise suspicion, Herrmann said. And given the new climate of awareness, she said doubts that potential terrorists would make such requests today. If they did, "I would show them the door," she said.

Stewart said that FBI agents -- while interviewing her about flight school records after the attacks -- told her she could call the agency if people who appear to be Arab descent apply for flight school.

"Of course, they didn't come out and say it, but if someone walked in -- and I don't want to say racial profiling -- but at my discretion I can turn people away. If they insist, I can call the FBI. I have an agent's number," she said. A school administrator at Sheble's Tri-State Aviation in Bullhead City, Ariz., also said examiners are "reviewing people on a case-by-case basis." The woman, who declined to give her name, said she has a contact at the FBI who she will call if she has any questions. Agents told her they would "give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down" after running a background check on the applicant, she said.

Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "As far as targeting people who look a certain way -- that's not helpful. I hope nobody would say they won't allow anyone who looks Middle Eastern to take flying lessons. A potential terrorist could be another Timothy McVeigh as easily as a Mohammed Atta."

Still, the FBI's advice to continue to do business while watching for suspicious behavior is sound, Lichtenstein said.

"People have assumed that we can have absolute freedom and at the same time have absolute security, but it doesn't work that way," Lichtenstein said. "You may be more secure in a police state, but do we want to live that way? There are more risks in a free society, but we have always felt the risks were worthwhile."

"As big a tragedy as the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was, as opposed to the rest of the world we are still relatively safe. To descend into paranoia because we expect total safety and total freedom is unreasonable," Lichtenstein said.

A terrorist intent on wrecking havoc on the Strip could rent a car as easily as a plane, Lichtenstein said. Amy Spanbauer, press secretary for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who is working on congressional legislation that focuses largely on new airport security measures, said most of the 19 hijackers had no criminal records. Background checks on the men, most of whom were Saudi Arabian, would have done little to draw the attention of law enforcement agencies, she said. Gibbons is a member of a newly created, nine-member subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security. "Flight schools are a private enterprise and have a duty to train those who are interested in flying," Spanbauer said.

Snyder of the FAA agreed, saying his agency is responsible only for overseeing what flight schools teach, not who they teach.

"Flight training is not something that the FAA runs. That is a commerce venture," Snyder said.

Herrmann and Stewart train students on single or twin-engine planes up to a maximum of 12,000 pounds with seating for six passengers at most. Both women also rent planes.

Nevada has no flight schools for flying commercial jets such as those used in the Sept. 11 attacks. California and Arizona are among several states across the country that do train pilots to fly large jets, however.

"The flight schools took a lot of heat after the attacks, but all those people came in with proper documentation," Herrmann said. "Those schools had no reason to be concerned. For most people, flying is their hobby or they're looking for a career, and that's supposed to be what we're able to do in America."

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