Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Are Friedman night flights in danger?


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

The owner of ranch land south of Friedman Memorial Airport has refused to allow installation of obstruction lights in towering trees on his property to comply with Federal Aviation Administration safety regulations.

The impasse comes after months of discussions between the airport and a representative of the Flying Hat Ranch that Airport Manager Rick Baird declined to identify.

Stalemate over the issue has been feared for months. At virtually every meeting of the Friedman Airport Authority, Baird and airport attorney Barry Luboviski have indicated that owners of the land would resist installation of the lights.

What step the airport might take next hasn't been decided, Baird said, but would be discussed by the governing board, probably at the Aug. 1 authority meeting.

He said the board had hoped to meet with the landowner. But that hasn't happened, he said.

Baird said that airlines, whose operational rules require pilots to follow instrument procedures for landings and takeoffs even in clear weather, probably would not operate out of Friedman at night without the obstruction lighting.

Baird said if the trees still are not lighted when the FAA redefines approach procedures to the airport effective Oct. 28, he said SkyWest Airlines and Horizon Air might cancel a total of five nightly airline arrivals and five departures.

Friedman is extending its 6,950-foot runway southward and closing a corresponding amount at the north end. The touchdown zone for aircraft will be 600 feet closer to the ranch's cottonwood trees, which are 75- to 100-feet tall.

Friedman has proposed, and the FAA has tentatively approved, six solar-powered, low-impact lights on fiberglass poles attached to the trees as adequate obstruction warning.

However, the landowner, the Eccles family, has refused to allow the lights or to remove or trim the trees.

Since the trees at night are shrouded in darkness, lighting would provide a margin of safety by warning pilots they might be too low and in danger of brushing the tops of the cottonwoods.

This new safety issue just adds to the obstacles Friedman has been facing since the FAA declared the field does not comply with safety standards required for larger aircraft using the field, such as Horizon's Bombardier Q400.

Expanding the field has been rejected by the city of Hailey and Blaine County as too costly and too disruptive on surrounding property. A site for a new airport with a longer, 8,500-foot runway has been tentatively designated in an isolated area south Blaine County.




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