EAA493 Mailing List: FAA judgement call

[Edward Treadwell (pilot.dt]

Located in Indiana, Freeman Municipal Airport will be under construction in the coming months as a $5 million project gets underway this spring to relocate a portion of the main runway.

Last month, the Seymour Redevelopment Commission received an update on the airport’s plans to shorten runway 5-23 by 1,000 feet on its northeast end and add 1,500 feet to the southwest end.

One reason for the project involves the south ends of Runway 5-23 and Runway 14-32 which meet.

Thompson said two runways at an airport at Lexington, Kentucky, came together the same way. On Aug. 27, 2007, a pilot taking off turned on the wrong runway and ran out of room to get into the air, because it was shorter than the other runway. Forty-seven passengers and two of three crew members on Comair Flight 5191 died.

“(The FAA) were potentially going to restrict us on any future projects if we didn’t correct that,” Thompson said of the issue even though Seymour’s runways are the same length.

Don