Airport getting non-skid runway system

BY JOHN L. GUERRA

NEWS WRITER

Key West International Airport will construct a system designed to quickly and safely stop aircraft that skid off the west end of its runway.

It is just one of $2.5 million in construction projects the airport is undertaking, according to Peter Horton, director of airports for Monroe County.

The Material Arresting System (MAS) which replaces solid ground beyond the end of the runway with crushed stone or other combination of dirt and small stone, bogs down aircraft wheels and quickly stops the aircraft. Aircraft tires roll easily on hard-packed gravel, which is common around the airport. Even an aircraft skidding on its belly can maintain momentum on the hard ground for hundreds or yards — or until it collides with trees or other object.

“It works like the truck arrest ramps on interstate highways in the mountains,” Horton said. “If a truck’s brakes fail, drivers pull onto those long ski-slope-like dirt ramps and their wheels sink deeper into the ground as the vehicle moves forward. The trucks slow, then stop and the drivers survive. Easy concept.”

The skid-prevention system was already in place on the eastern end of the runway when a Cessna Citation business jet went off that end of the paved runway in September 2011, Horton said. It halted the private jet before it could break apart and injure passengers.

“There were five people aboard as the aircraft skidded off the runway and hit the MAS,” he said. “It snapped the nose gear, so they put on a new nose gear, fixed the main gear doors and used compressed air to blow any dirt out of the engine. Then they flew the plane away, back in commission.”

The work does not include developing the plot of land along South Roosevelt Boulevard on the eastern end of the airport property. The airport bought the private parcel of property after it went into foreclosure, Horton said.

“It’s almost at dead man’s curve; the previous land owners used to park all of the trailers and so forth from the beach there,” Horton said. “We’re not going to develop it at all, so we can keep our runway-protection zone, free of obstacles.”

Other work:

Resurfacing the airport’s access road

New drainage work

The airport just finished the $1.2 million renovation of the downstairs section of the airport terminal.

“We always have projects going.” Horton said. “The way we’re growing and expanding, we have to do that to keep up with the passenger numbers.”

The airport’s operating budget and capital improvements are paid for by fees and leases the airport charges airlines and private pilots; from aviation fuel taxes, from lease agreements with rental car companies and hangar owners; and money raised from Federal Aviation Administration taxes included in ticket prices.

“No ad valorem or other tax money from homeowners and residents of Key West are used in the operation and maintenance of the airport,” Horton said.

 

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