It’s Déjà vu all over again? Middle Easterners being trained to fly in Venice, FL!
At times we forget that three of the 9/11 hijackers, including their leader Mohammed Atta, learned to fly in Venice, Florida.
Sixteen years later two citizens have discovered that Florida Flyers European US Flight School, Inc. in Venice, FL is, once again, training men from the Middle East to fly.
As American professional baseball catcher, manager, and coach Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again!”
Senior writer for the Venice Gondolier Bob Mudge took exception to this investigative journalism by two citizens. But did Mudge do his homework as a the “senior writer” for the Gondolier? Did he look into who actually owns the Florida Flyers Flight Academy? Did he look into the owner Rainer Hueckels Loeffeck? In his column on the work of these two citizen journalists Mudge wrote:
Florida Flyers Flight Academy is a relatively new Venice business, with its principal facility in St. Augustine established in 2008. State records show the president is Rainer Hueckels Loeffeck.
[ … ]
Florida Flyers Flight Academy has good connections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, its website shows it has an office in Egypt.
Florida Flyers European US Flight School, Inc. facility in Venice, FL
Egypt, home to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia, home of many of the 9/11 hijackers?
Our research found that The Florida Flyers European US Flight School, Inc. (aka Florida Flyers Flight Academy) is owned by president Rainer Hueckels Loeffeck and vice president Bettina Ruhrmann. According to public records, Rainer Hueckels Loeffeck has been reigstered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for an airmens license. Loeffeck lives at 3355 State Road 13, Switzerland, FL. In 2013 Loeffeck was given an FAA Airline Transport Pilot Certificate (ATP), which is required to fly a commercial airliner.
Loeffeck was also the registered agent of Stellawinx, Inc. which filed as a Domestic for Profit Corporation in the State of Florida. Stellawinx, Inc,’s corporate entity was filed on Thursday, August 29, 2013 as recorded in documents filed with Florida Department of State. The president of Stellawinx, Inc. was Alexander Krueger who lives at Rheingaustr. 167 Wiesbaden, Germany. Stellawinx, Inc. is no longer active. Records show that Alexander Krueger is now the president of Winx Aviation GmbH located in Wiesbaden. According to MoneyHouse.de:
The company Winx Aviation GmbH is the commercial register at the Wiesbaden District Court under the number HRB 27560 registered. The registered legal form is limited liability company. The main activity is in the range with financial services related activities . The domicile is located in Wiesbaden. The registration took place on 17 May 2013. The Board is Alexander Krueger commissioned.
Is Krueger feeding foreign students from the Middle East to Florida Flyers European US Flight School, Inc.’s two schools in Florida?
9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flying in Venice, Florida in 2000.
Mudge, to make the point that this is much to do about nothing in his article quotes Arne Kruithof, owner of Florida Flight Training Center at the Venice airport, writing:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) application requires personal information about place of birth, nationality, citizenship, residences and employment; a copy of the applicant’s passport; and, at the end, fingerprints taken by law enforcement of an approved agency.
The applicant must come on a student visa and begin training within 180 days of getting approval and finish within 360.
The flight school is involved throughout the process but “we’re not allowed to teach them at all” before the TSA gives its approval, Kruithof said. Before these new restrictions were put in place, he said, there was far less oversight. The TSA didn’t exist and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and flight schools were concerned about pilot safety, not national safety. [Emphasis added]
But Mudge didn’t fully do his research.
9/11 Research did a profile on one of the hijackers Ziad Jarrah and the people who trained him. One is named Arne Kruithof:
Ziad Jarrah was a student at his school from 27 June 2000 to 13 January 2001. His flight instructors were Dorothy Anke Heidecke (a German national who moved to Argentina) and Frank R Martin. Jarrah lived at 400 Base Street, Suite, 221 Venice, Florida. His flatmates were Marcel von der Bruggen and Anja Ludwig. Mr Kruithof saw Jarrah at a flight school in Essen germany in Feb 2001
Although he has described himself as “the boy from Rotterdam,” according to the 911 Commission’s interview with Arne Kruithof, in 2004, Mr. Kruithof is a German national.
He describes himself on his website as follows: “Arne Kruithof, principal of Venice Aircraft Sales, has been in the aviation industry since 1988. As a former airline pilot, he has extensive knowledge of aircraft and aircraft maintenance having operated a flight school and maintenance service for almost twenty years.”
Arne’s background is much like Rainer’s.
Mudge wrote:
The attitude among flight school owners at he time was “my job is to teach them how to fly,” he said.
That attitude is what enabled Atta and al-Shehhi — as well as Ziad Jarrah, who trained at FFTC — to get licensed despite questionable backgrounds.
Now, he said, the TSA, the FAA and the schools work together, and the fact no incidents involving student pilots or domestic flights have occurred since 9/11 is proof the system works.
But is the system working?
In a July 2012 U.S. News and World Report article titled Report: Terrorists Could Be Learning to Fly at American Flight Schools Jason Koebler reported:
More than a decade after 9/11, a new Government Accountability Office report has found significant loopholes that could allow terrorists to learn to fly in U.S. flight schools.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the TSA created the Alien Flight Student Program, a screening process that requires non-citizens or permanent residents to undergo a “security threat assessment” before being cleared to attend flight school.
The government watchdog found that of the 26,000 foreign nationals who completed flight training in the U.S. between January 2006 and September 2011, “some … had not applied to the AFSP or been vetted by TSA before taking flight training and receiving an FAA airman certificate” and that others “had not been successfully vetted or received permission from TSA to begin flight training.”
People in the country illegally are theoretically not allowed to be cleared to attend flight school, but the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has found flight schools that were training illegal immigrants. In 2010, ICE discovered that TJ Aviation, a Boston-area flight school, was training students who “consisted primarily of visa overstays and illegal aliens,” according to John Woods, a top investigator for ICE. [Emphasis added]
According to Koebler, “Woods told the House Committee on Homeland Security that his agency has found ‘several other schools’ in the past few years that were training illegal immigrants. ‘We do find problems,’ he said.”
Remember that the The Florida Flyers European US Flight School, Inc. was established in 2008 by Loeffeck and Ruhrmann.
It appears to this writer that Mr. Mudge may be ignoring the truth that a company owned by foreigners is training men from the Middle East to fly. The question is: For what purpose?
Why these Middle Easterners want to learn to fly is open to further investigation. It appears that it will be citizen journalists who will be doing the work of people like senior writer Mr. Mudge. Mudge wrote, “Florida Flyers Flight Academy, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.” I wonder why?
Bravo to these citizen journalists, who are outdoing “senior writers” like Mudge.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
RELATED ARTICLES:
TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien
TSA Replays 9-11: Authorizes Illegals To Learn To Fly
And, following Mr. Mudge’s abominable job of “reporting,” his boss, Gondolier publisher, Roland Dupont, doubled down with an editorial screaming “lies and racism” vilifying a “couple” of citizen journalists who he claims not to know or know anything about. Predictably, a few of his friends and the office manager at the flight school wrote glowing letters to the editor thanking Mr. Dupont for sticking up for the poor “put upon” Arab students and their flight school. Doesn’t anybody remember that in the summer of 2001 most people would have felt equally outraged at anyone leveling suspicions about their Arab neighbors who were learning to fly at Venice Airport? How did those same people feel by the end of September of 2001? Deja vu..? We’d better hope not!
Why isn’t this information given to the people who can investigate this and stop it?
It is frustrating for us to hear this and not be able to do anything. I will forward this
to Joe Gruters and Sen Steube who may be able to do something. We hope.