Thu, Jan 11, 2007
A Progress Update From ERAU
Students will return to
classes on Jan. 16, and training aircraft are flying again at
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Fla.,
campus.
After a Christmas Day storm, the university delayed the start of
the Spring 2007 semester by six days to prepare the campus for a
normal start of the spring term.
“Fortunately, our students, faculty and staff had gone
home for the holidays when the storm hit, so nobody was
hurt,” said Tom Connolly, chancellor of Embry-Riddle’s
Daytona Beach campus.
The campus’s training fleet and some administrative
buildings were not so lucky.
A number of aircraft were destroyed or severely damaged by the
storm. The aircraft maintenance hangar was leveled and the main
administration office building was rendered unusable. Three other
campus structures suffered minor damage.
As soon as the storm subsided, the university acted quickly to
return to normalcy:
- Embry-Riddle has replaced all of the planes it lost with others
of the same high quality required by its aeronautical science
degree program. Flight training has resumed. “The
enthusiastic assistance of our alumni, students, and Cessna
Aircraft, as well as promotional help from many industry groups
made the process much easier,” said Frank Ayers, director of
flight training at Daytona Beach.
- Aircraft maintenance work has been moved to a nearby hangar at
Daytona Beach International Airport. Ironically, the destroyed
hangar had been slated to be replaced by the second phase of a
College of Aviation complex that is on the drawing board.
- More than 120 employees have been relocated to other campus
office spaces until the administration building is repaired or
replaced. A few classes were moved to other buildings.
“We never doubted for a moment that we’d be able to
return to our mission of providing the best education in aviation
and aerospace,” said John P. Johnson, president of
Embry-Riddle.
“The best way to describe the spirit on campus is: onward
and upward.”
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