I wonder if runway 18 has just recently been used for larger aircraft, as Tyrone Reed indicates in the article? Someone mentioned, earlier in the thread, that runway 18 was usually used for General Aviation. Maybe the airport felt like they've cleared out enough houses, where they don't need to worry so much about noise abatement, so they are using it to land bigger aircraft. Landing on runway 18, may be like landing at a different airport for even crews very experienced at landing in Birmingham, since they come in from a different direction, and Birmingham has varied terrain, having not only hills, with coal, lime, and Iron ore, for Iron and steel production, but navigable rivers for barges to transport it, that made it a steel boom town in the first place. The Magic City, as it popped out of nowhere, except a railway crossroads, when the Bessemer process of mass producing Iron was brought there . Even though it isn't perfect, it's sounds like the buyout of homes, to clear a path, is going comparatively well (compared to clearing for a roadway, for instance). I'm surprised that the funds to buy the houses, haven't been somehow diverted for the City of Birmingham's use. They've had some financial difficulties; ya know. Sorry, I digress.