Aug. 23—Three months after it was damaged in a fatal traffic crash, officials announced the Yakima Air Terminal air traffic control tower will be repaired thanks to a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration.
"The Federal Aviation Administration, Air Traffic Organization and FAA Technical Operations appropriated $267,000 in emergency Operational Sustainment Funds to make repairs to the tower," said Jaime Vera, acting Yakima airport manager.
"We anticipate to start working on the repairs the end of September and have them completed by the end of November," Vera added. "We are working with the FAA to coordinate the efforts and have a successful project outcome."
A May 20 crash caused structural damage to the airport's air traffic control tower, located just south of Washington Avenue and just east of the 24th Avenue intersection. Since then, the FAA has loaned the Yakima airport a trailer, which houses air traffic controllers at ground level immediately west of the passenger terminal.
Yakima police reported that Vance Terrell Jourdan III, 19, was speeding between 80 and 90 mph on West Washington Avenue sometime before 3 a.m. May 20 and lost control of his BMW at the curve near the airport, crashing into two transformers outside the airport. From there, a tire flew off the car and struck the side of the airport's control tower 15 feet off the ground.
Jourdan died from his injuries. A 23-year-old man who was a passenger in the vehicle also was injured; he has since been released from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The crash and resulting power outage caused the airport to cancel all commercial flights that day and temporarily affected National Weather Service monitoring. FAA inspectors found structural support beams inside the control tower were damaged in the crash.
Since then, the trailer has housed the airport's four full-time air traffic controllers, Vera said. He said as a temporary solution, the equipment used in the mobile trailer could be moved into the 1950s-era air traffic control tower which sits atop the passenger terminal.
"We are coordinating with the FAA to have the terminal tower available and in operation for use in the near future to allow the air traffic operators to operate from," Vera said.
In June, Vera noted that the terminal tower, while only half the height of the tower near Washington Avenue, would improve sightlines and other working conditions compared to the ground-level trailer.
Contact Joel Donofrio at [email protected].
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