1976

It was one of the hottest days of the summer that mid-July when what appeared to be a new Learjet 25 landed at Aspen’s Sardy Field.  What exited the aircraft was somewhat of a shock but few people even took notice except for some of the other “ramp workers” and me.

The pilots, dressed in their airline looking uniforms exited first and headed to the office.  The other occupants took much longer to exit and only did so when informed that they could not be on board while we fueled the aircraft.  The two remaining occupants looked like they had just flown in from some sort of rock concert or Rastafarian get together.   Very long hair, baggy clothes and un-shaven, these guys did not look like your normal corporate jet passengers.  For a few minutes we thought they might be members of a rock band but we soon learned that was not the case.

To make things even stranger, the pilots jumped into a rental car and the other two individuals headed out on to highway 82 and began hitch-hiking into town.  The rest of the day seemed rather boring for us out on the ramp after what we had just witnessed but the oddities had just begun.

I was one of the first to arrive to work at Monarch Aviation, the local “Fixed Based Operator” at Sardy Field the next morning and much to my surprise the two individuals were back. They were fast asleep under one of the wings of the Learjet, with the door to the aircraft wide open.  Even Stranger, they had placed their “boom box” on the wing above them and their music was blaring as they slept.  After a couple of other ramp workers had arrived and the laughing had abated we headed out to the Learjet to wake them up and get them off the field before the police arrived.

They were not easy to wake up but once they did the story only got stranger. 

As it turned out, the jet belonged to their father who had a home in Snowmass.  The plane had come out to get their parents who were leaving the next day.  Apparently they were not getting along with their parents at the time and did not want them to know they were in town, they had come for the summer concert series in Snowmass.  The pilots gave them a ride to town and promised not to tell their parents but that was where their help ended.  Having no money or a place to stay, they decided to sleep in the aircraft but were to uncomfortable and ended out under the wings. 

Later that day the Learjet left with their parents aboard.  We heard that they snuck into the family’s Snowmass house and lived there for rest of the summer.  We never saw them again.