Quote
Originally posted by Feathered
“Given the politics of the area, it would be much easier to simply close the runway or the airport entirely than expand the runway areas or flatten wooded wetlands.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanscom_Field
Hanscom is a critical part of the air transportation infrastructure for
Massachusetts and the rest of
New England. As
T. F. Green Airport in
Warwick, Rhode Island and
Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in
New Hampshire have become viable alternatives to
Logan International Airport (the region's main commercial airport), Hanscom has emerged as one of the most important airports serving the region's business and general aviation needs.
There are trade-offs in almost every area of our country today between environmental considerations and cultural growth of various kinds, a move I support. I grew up in rural southern Indiana and my Great Grandfather plowed behind a mule, not as efficient as the H Farmall I drove as a kid but certainly more environmentally conscious. I now live in Santa Barbara, CA, and every project of almost any kind starts with concern for the environment.
After the Korean deal ended I was transferred to a base outside Falmouth, MA. I found the locals very friendly, partied heavily, even dated a gal from Ipswich, MA, and did the tourist bit around Concord and Lexington. Well remembered is a graveyard behind the Unitarian Church on the Green in Lexington, a graveyard that contained whole families of children that had died in some epidemic.
That was in the fifties and I’m sure the area has changed, but it was very pretty, and worth a struggle to protect the remaining beauty.
When G-IV N121JM started its TO roll it was just like hundreds of other takeoffs, but this one ended broken in a ravine where it stopped suddenly from 100 mph and the fuel load didn’t have far to go to find ignition. I notice the entry door was open and it is possible that Teresa Bernhoff might have had time to open that door before her world ended.
Had the flight used Rwy 29 instead of 11 they would probably have survived because there was no ditch/river waiting, and even a cleared road leading through the trees. Still, once the airplane lost its gear and was sliding along on it bottom, ruptured fuel tanks would have probably occurred, but the fuel would not have been so concentrated in one place. The what – ifs do not replace the facts that some good folks died and a good airplane is a pile of junk. The locals helped make that choice.
I recall an F100 taking off from a base in Thailand when at Vr the nose wouldn’t come up due to a hydraulic fitting coming loose at the break in the fuselage that opened for engine changes. He hit the brakes, popped the chute, pickled his externals and came to rest in a swamp off the end of the runway, and lived to tell the tale. Fate does not deal an even hand and the laws of probability do not exclude a single one of us.
What I have learned upfront from this tragedy is that the ditches off the ends of the runways at the Santa Barbara Airport SBA should be modified, just in case, and that’s more important than saving the tree frog, or whatever, and a campaign to do just that is now underway.