Airlift will bring more than 2,500 Special Olympics athletes and coaches to Iowa (USA) in 2006 for the Inaugural Special Olympics USA National Games
At a press conference on 7 July in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, Cessna Aircraft Company announced its plan to launch its fifth Citation Special Olympics Airlift to support the 2006 Special Olympics USA National Games. The airlift will include 400 Citations that will transport more than 2,500 Special Olympic athletes and coaches from across the United States to participate in the inaugural Special Olympics USA National Games, to be held in Ames, Iowa, from 2-7 July 2006.
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For many athletes who are transported to Special Olympics Games on the CitationAirlift, the trip is their first time on an airplane, or on a business jet. |
The Citation Special Olympics Airlift, which was created in 1987, is the largest peacetime airlift in the world. Next summer's airlift will be the largest Citation airlift ever. Corporations and individual Citation owners and operators will donate their Citation business jet(s), pilots and fuel to transport athletes and coaches to the National Games. The jets will depart for the Des Moines International Airport on 1 July 2006 from approximately 35 U.S. states. A Special Olympics Citation will land or takeoff every 60-90 seconds during a 12-hour period. After the conclusion of the USA National Games, the Special Olympics Citation fleet will return to Iowa on 8 July to pick up athletes and return them to their homes.
"We applaud Cessna and their Citation aircraft owners for providing this wonderful service and experience to our Special Olympic athletes," said Bruce Pasternack, President and CEO of Special Olympics. "Cessna's leadership in corporate philanthropy will provide more athletes with the chance to showcase their abilities at a national level, which means, in turn, that more lives will be transformed through changed attitudes about people with intellectual disabilities."
According to Jack Pelton, President, Chairman and CEO of Cessna, "The Citation Special Olympics Airlift is always a success because of the collaboration and tremendous support we receive from individuals within Cessna, the FAA [U.S. Federal Aviation Administration], on-site airport officials, local fixed-base operators, hundreds of volunteers from the community, the Special Olympics organization and, most importantly, Citation owners and operators. Without each of these groups donating their time and resources, we would never be able to stage this type of event. And, everyone would agree that all the work leads up to that moment when a Citation door opens and an athlete steps out smiling from ear-to-ear. They are excited not only because they are about to compete in events they've been practicing for year-round, but for many athletes this is their first airplane ride, especially in a business jet."
The first Citation Special Olympics Airlift took place in 1987 and involved more than 130 Citations that carried almost 1,000 athletes to the SPecial Olympics World Summer Games in South Bend, Indiana, USA. In 1991, 200 Citations took nearly 1,500 athletes to and from the World Summer Games in St. Paul/ Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. In 1995, 215 Citations transported 1,600 athletes to Hartford, Connecticut, USA. In 1999, 275 Citations donated by 260 individuals and companies transported more than 2,000 Special Olympic athletes and coaches to and from Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Additional information and sign-up sheets for volunteering a Citation for the 2006 Citation Special Olympics Airlift may be found at www.citationairlift.com or by calling 1-877-DSM-LIFT (1-877-376-5438). The Citation Special Olympics Airlift is made possible by the generosity of companies and individuals who donate their Citation business jet(s), pilots and fuel in support of Special Olympics. For more information about the 2006 Special Olympics USA National Games, visit http://www.2006nationalgames.org/.
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