Barkley Regional Airport Manager Richard Roof expects Federal Aviation Administration officials next week to inspect upgraded navigational equipment so that instrument landings can resume on the main runway.
"Hopefully everything will check out OK, and we're up and going," he said. "The instrument landing system and all the navigational equipment is FAA owned and maintained."
A crew and FAA plane designated to perform flight checks are slated to visit, but Roof didn't know which day.
"The FAA has probably 15 to 20 of these aircraft used for flight checks, so you've kind of got to get on their schedule," Roof said, adding that the nearest plane is stationed in Atlanta. The FAA schedules inspections at various nearby airports to make best use of the planes and fuel, he said.
Landing instrumentation exists only on Barkley's longer main runway, which was closed in May and June for repaving. While it was out of service, the FAA did some maintenance and improvements, but the system can't be turned back on until a flight check is performed.
During repaving, the airport relied on its secondary runway, which was extended by 1,500 feet last year. The shorter runway does not have instrument capabilities, so in rare instances some commercial flights have been diverted to other airports in bad weather when instrument landings are mandatory. Northwest Airlink cut its maximum passenger count from 32 to 26 to safely use the shorter runway, which requires at least a 1,500-foot ceiling to circle and land.
A Northwest plane was rerouted to Evansville, Ind., at 11 a.m. July 28 after several approaches to the main Barkley runway during rainy, blustery conditions. Passengers were bused back to Paducah, Roof said.
But Roof said he doubts the diversion could be blamed solely on the inability to make an instrument landing. He said very unusual conditions of low clouds combined with strong southwesterly wind made it unsafe to land.
"I'm not sure that even with the ILS (instrument landing system) he could've landed because we were sitting here with a 12-knot or great tailwind on a wet runway," Roof said.
Roof said he is working with the FAA to get global positioning system approaches on both runways to cut down on instances when planes can't land.
"In the old days you could close a runway and leave the ILS up, but the FAA had a couple of accidents where people landed on closed runways that were under construction," Roof said, adding that pilots were unaware of the closures. "The FAA tends to learn by experience, so now if a runway is shut down the ILS is shut down."
Copyright: The Paducah Sun -- 8/07/06
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