Sierra Academy of Aeronautics

The Sierra Academy of Aeronautics is an aviation flight school headquartered in Atwater, California. It operates its training facility at the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California. Sierra Academy is also contracted by several foreign air carriers to perform pilot training, including Shanghai Airlines.HistoryThe Sierra Academy formerly was based at the Oakland International Airport, where it had hangars, offices, and classrooms. It was owned by the Everett family of Atherton, California.It operated a fleet of commercial jetliners, to provide instruction leading to "ratings" on each class of plane. Tuition fees were considerable (and remain so), because they included the cost of jet fuel.By the mid-1960s, Sierra was training pilots from many countries, some for national airlines, like Saudi Arabian Airlines.In the 1990s, Sierra developed a new campus in Livermore for Korean students. In 1996, Hani Hanjour who would later fly a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon was admitted to the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, but before beginning flight training, the academy arranged for Hanjour to take intensive English courses at ELS Language Center in Oakland.. The flight school also arranged for Hanjour to stay with a host family, with whom he moved in with on May 20, 1996. Hanjour completed the English program in August, and in early September 1996, he attended a single day of ground school courses at the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics before withdrawing, citing financial worries about the $35,000 cost.