Former Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport director recounts 9/11 and subsequent airspace closure

The Director of Sky Harbor during 9-11 tells what happened at the airport that day. After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, US airspace was closed and Dave Krietor, who was Director of Sky Harbor at the time, spoke about the events that fateful day 20 years ago. FOX 10’s Danielle Miler reports. PHOENIX – This Saturday 20 years ago, thousands of flights were landed in the immediate aftermath of the infamous attacks on US soil, and a man in charge of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport at the time speaks about what happened that day. On September 11, 2001, all of US airspace was closed for the first time, and while the situation in Phoenix Sky Harbor would appear chaotic, Dave Krietor, the airport’s director at the time, said her emergency training kept it from getting chaotic . Krietor said anger and sadness about what happened didn’t creep in until days later. “I think about the tragedy of what happened and the loss of life regularly,” said Krietor. On that fateful day, Krietor was tasked with interrupting all travel to and from the airport. “There were all these planes going to different locations and they were all being rerouted to the nearest airports, so all of these commercial flights that shouldn’t have been in Sky Harbor in Phoenix had to disembark and land at the airport.” “Said Krietor. Krietor says when he realized the planes were hitting the towers, he rushed to the airport, where he would spend the next few days. He ran with no sleep and relied on adrenaline. From then on it was a tactical problem. The airport’s emergency call center immediately took security measures to get the planes back into the sky three days later. “The security precautions at the airport obviously did not work. They had to be adjusted in an instant,” said Krietor. “There were very few bomb detection devices at US commercial airports. Not that that happened on September 11th. So after that there was a lot of effort to install bomb detection devices in Sky Harbor and all other airports.” Krietor said changes made after the attack will help prevent something like 9/11 from happening again. “The TSA was created – there was no Department of Homeland Security. There was no TSA. There were no bomb detectors at the airport. All of these things happened after 9/11, ”said Krietor. After 9/11, Kreitor said Sky Harbor was a ghost town and people were just too scared to fly again. He said it took about two years for the aviation industry to recover. Related Stories Tune on to FOX 10 Phoenix for the latest news Download FOX 10 apps for local breaking news and weather Sign up for FOX 10 email notifications and newsletters

[ad_2]