July 1975

This summer day started out like any other, a quick breakfast, and a few chores and out came the scanner.  I used to listen to the scanner, monitoring Denver Center and the Aspen Airport frequencies.  Listening to all the comings and goings of private and commercial aircraft was a favorite hobby of mine.  I even kept a log of the aircraft to see how often they visited our airport.  Soon my log began to show how often the jets of major oil companies were visiting.  Atlantic Richfield, Conoco, Amoco and Texaco were frequent visitors as were jets belonging to CBAS, NBC, Chrysler and Executive Jets International (the company that is now known as NetJets) with their red and blue strips around the fuselage.

Over the summer I got to know Donnie Barr and the rest of the crew in the control tower and they would let me come up and sit quietly in the back and watch all the activity.  During times of slow or no traffic they even let me play with the radar displays.

On this day I had already made plans to go spend a few hours in the tower with Donnie’s blessings and I was unaware of the activities about to unfold.  My mom gave me a ride out to Sardy Field around 10:00am and dropped me off, promising to come get me around noon.

It all started quietly enough, a few small aircraft were in and out along with the constant departure of Dieter Bibbig’s gliders and tow planes.  Around 11:00 N31WS dropped in to take John Denver off to a far off place.  Just as John, his dad and a few other passengers were boarding the Learjet, a call came over the approach frequency – N180AR, a Gulfstream II was inbound.  Minutes later N179AR, a Sabreliner 65, was also inbound.  Things were picking up.  Then another call came in, a less frequent visitor was inbound.  Gulfstream II, N400M, belonging to Daniel Flour or Flour Corporation was about 10 minutes out and was requesting priority handling.  Unknown to me, the tower controllers were expecting this visitor and the Gulfstream was granted the handing they requested.  A call went out to N31WS and all the other aircraft moving about on the ramp to shut down their engines and hold at their present positions.

N180AR and N179AR had landed at this point and were in the process of parking down at the far ramp near the newly completed passenger terminal.  There were all kinds of vehicles and activities down on the ramp where a number of other Atlantic Richfield jets were already parked.  The vehicles included a number of local police, sheriff and unmarked law enforcement cars, all surrounding the arriving aircraft.

As N400M landed it, too, headed for the far ramp and parked a good distance from any of the other aircraft.  Suddenly, the law enforcement vehicles all converged on the arriving Gulfstream.  As all of this unfolded I kept asking Donnie what was going on and never received an answer.  

Almost like clockwork a couple of passengers disembarked from N400M and immediately sped away in the unmarked vehicles.  Minutes later the ramp looked deserted with the exception of a few of the police cars that remained by the jet, guarding it.

After the commotion died down, Donnie looked at me and told me that the wife of the Shah of Iran, Shabanu, Empress of Iran, Farah Diba Pahlavi, had come to town to speak at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies as an invited guest of Robert O. Anderson, then Chairman of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO).  Donnie offered to let me stay the rest of the day of which I was delighted.  A quick call to my mom not to pick me up and I was there for the rest of the day, Donnie even gave me a ride home.

John Denver’s pilot was his father, Henry John Deutschendorf Sr., a decorated Air Force Pilot who was known for his flying abilities as well as his quick temper, informed the controllers of his displeasure with the “ground hold.”  Donnie said nothing to him about what had just gone on.

The departure of N400M around 4:00PM that afternoon went off with the same amount of security and special handling we had witnessed that morning.  It was not until a few days later that anybody outside of the Institute knew of her visit.  Things in Iran were starting to heat up and the need for tight security around her was necessary. 

In 1979 the Shah fell from power.  Over the years, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the tower until security rules changed and my visits were no longer permitted.