Morgantown Airport Receives FAA Grant for Planning Effort

Jul. 8—MORGANTOWN — The Federal Aviation Administration has asked the Morgantown Municipal Airport to undertake a planning process that will consider additional safety components needed at the north end of the airport's runway.

During the most-recent meeting of Morgantown City Council, the body approved a grant agreement with the FAA through which a $20, 925 local match will leverage $397, 564 in federal assistance for an Airport Layout Plan update expected to take between six and nine months to complete.

"What this will encompass is a look at a safety change to the runway. They want us to look at a few different options that we can do at the north end of the airport by Easton Hill, " Airport Director Jon Vrabel said. "Right now, we only have a 200-foot safety area at the end of the runway. Traditionally, airports have 1, 000 feet—which is what we have at the south end."

Vrabel said the enhanced safety zone has become necessary for multiple reasons. One, the jet aircraft operated by SkyWest, the airport's new essential air service carrier, is larger and more powerful than the propeller-driven aircraft operated by previous carriers. Two, the size of the aircraft the airport can accommodate will increase once the ongoing runway extension project is completed in the next three to five years.

Vrabel said the safety zone options will largely come down to physically building out and extending the safety zone or, more likely, the installation of an engineered arresting system similar in principle to a runaway truck ramp along the interstate.

Once consensus is reached on the best route forward, he said the feds will fund the work as a component of the 1, 001-foot runway extension.

"The FAA will sponsor that. It'll become a safety project and our funding will go to their highest level of contribution. That being said, that's one of the reasons it's being asked for us to do it, so that it'll help with the funding of the runway extension as well, because they'll tie the two together and make it all a safety enhancement instead of a capacity enhancement."

According to Vrabel, the updated layout plan will also incorporate the additional 105 acres added to the airport property footprint in 2023 as well as new hangars — one completed last year, one currently under construction — and some additional locations where commercial and /or aviation development is anticipated.

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