An Airline in Pieces, Going Once . . .

"Starman is obviously doing well. They even sent me a glossy four-page color brochure for this auction," said Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant based in Evergreen, Colo. "But there aren't other shutdowns of this size. No one comes close to the fiasco that was Independence Airlines."

In January, the low-cost carrier with 2,700 employees announced it would close due to competitive pressure and higher fuel costs.

It left a trove of assets behind.

In its training offices on Shaw Road in Dulles, where the auction was held, thousands of desks and chairs and hundreds of computer terminals littered offices where name placards still hang. One whiteboard was stacked against a wall with a motivational statement: "We are part of the solution. . . . Are you part of the problem?"

Starman and his crew of three other auctioneers attempted to make even the mundane sound good.

"We've got a chair here! She's got arms, boys! Take a look at her," said Starman, wearing the company uniform of cowboy hat, boots and a sandwich-size belt buckle. "Do I have five? Five, five, five," he says in a monotone voice at lightning speed.

There were a total of 3,000 office chairs selling yesterday, most going for no more than $5 apiece.

Pat Symonds, owner of indoor basketball courts Hoop Magic in Chantilly, snapped up 25 office chairs and 18 large conference tables for $400. She was also looking for stanchions and posts used at ticketing booths and gates by airlines.

"I could use those for crowd control at our basketball games," Symonds said.

In another room, hundreds of navy blue flight-attendant suits and pilots' uniforms hung neatly on moving racks, all tagged for sale. A full-scale Airbus cabin was also up for bid, equipped with 36 leather seats, a full-service food and beverage galley and controls to simulate fire and extreme turbulence. Along the wall, dozens of large boxes were stacked unopened and filled with Independence's bright blue blankets and pillows.

For $3,750, Ken Hyde, head of the Wright Experience flight foundation, won a heated bidding war for a multi-engine flight simulator, where pilots train on controls and gears. About the size of a small car, the simulator is a life-size replica of a cockpit with an electronic screen to simulate flight conditions.

"We're trying to get young people interested in aeronautics, and this will be used as one of our training tools," Hyde said.

Of the hundreds that walked through the maze of Independence's training offices, there were several serial auction attendees, including Robert Stumpff, a 76-year-old Department of Labor retiree who "just came by for a look."

Last week, he attended a cattle auction, and he regularly scours newspapers for auctions. He was unimpressed with the day's offerings.

"Tomorrow is when the corporate offices' stuff goes on sale, and that will be good," Stumpff said. "And next weekend, I have my eye on one of the pickups for sale."