Students rage about flighty helicopter school

By Abigail Goldman

Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Call the attorney general’s consumer protection hotline and you’ll get a recording that goes something like this: Press one for foreclosure scams, two for telemarketing annoyances, three for rogue sweepstakes operators and four for information about Silver State Helicopters.

Jerry Airola’s company filed for bankruptcy protection on Feb. 4 and became the fourth punch on the consumer protection hotline a mere three days later.

The phone recording directs students of Airola’s defunct helicopter flight school to the state bankruptcy court’s Web site, where they can start the process of trying to recover tuition they paid the company. Some say they are out as much as $70,000.

It’s another chapter in the Silver State saga, which has received national news attention. Airola had helicopter flight schools in 18 states, where it’s estimated that more than 2,000 students were locked into student loans. According to a Wednesday New York Times article, attorneys general in Oregon and California are “looking into the company’s activities.”

The fact that Airola appears to have formed a new limited liability corporation, Airola Helicopters International, three weeks before Silver State declared bankruptcy has caused several students to wonder whether he moved Silver State assets over to that new corporation.

Airola refused to comment to the Sun.

Kathleen Delaney, Nevada senior deputy attorney general, said despite the company’s debut on the consumer protection hotline her office will not have any involvement in the bankruptcy because that’s a federal issue.

The attorney general’s office could, however, investigate allegations of criminal activity at Silver State. Delaney would neither confirm nor deny whether such an investigation is under way.

Silver State got its own spot on the hotline because it became clear thousands of students could be affected by the bankruptcy, Delaney said.

“You start to hear the number of people that might be calling,” she said, “and you think if there’s room on the (hotline) queue, it might not be a bad idea to throw something on there.”

By that time, students had started calling. Delaney could not say how many, nor could she say how many have called since Silver State was singled out on the hotline.

Among former students, there has been much talk of the company being run as a pyramid scheme. Many have joined together for class-action lawsuits seeking a tuition refund.

Though separated by states, the students have created online forums for their mutual misery.

The Web sites, which quickly appeared after the bankruptcy, draw hundreds who want to rage together.

They compare form letters to send to senators, argue about attorney selection, debate what kind of charges they might pursue, wonder whether they’ll get any money back and commiserate, as one student put it, about a company that “sold a dream then closed its doors.”