FBI checked flight school students

Mathis Winkler

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 | 10:36 a.m.

Flight school operators around the valley said Wednesday that FBI agents went through their student files immediately following last week's terrorist attacks.

Federal investigators are searching for nearly 200 people to question them about the plane crashes.

"They just handed me a list of names and wanted to know if we had contact with these people," said Janice Herrmann, who owns Desert Southwest Airlines, which offers flight training at Henderson executive airport.

Herrmann said the five or six names on the list were "Arab-looking" and added that she didn't recognize the names.

"We don't market to overseas," she said. "I just have not had any people from that region at all here."

Dot Stewart, the owner of Aviator's at North Las Vegas airport, said an agent handed her a list with 50 or 60 names, all of which were "Middle Eastern," she said.

Stewart added that the agent then made copies of several student files, including the file of a U.S. citizen with an Arabic name.

"I guess they're checking everybody out," she said, adding that her only student from a Middle Eastern country was an Israeli citizen, who took a written test.

But federal investigators missed at least one flight school in the valley.

Elizabeth Gallagher, who owns Condor Training and Aviation at North Las Vegas airport, said she planned to contact the FBI this morning to ask whether agents wanted to look at her student files.

"We may have something useful, we may not," Gallagher said.

She added that she personally had some concerns about a group of people in Nigeria, who had contacted her about a year and a half ago. They wanted to set up flight training as well as accommodations and pay for everything up front, she said.

The group backed off when Gallagher told them that all students had to speak English fluently.