CONWAY — The death of a pilot trying to return to the Conway Municipal Airport when his plane’s engine failed after takeoff has renewed focus on the new airport, which is scheduled for completion in August 2014.
The death of Mississippian Robert Allen III on Nov. 8 was the third at or near the current airport since the city began moving toward building a larger and safer one in a less densely populated area.
On June 29, 2007, a plane smashed into a house across the street from the airport near Conway’s downtown, killing the pilot and a woman inside the home.
Seven weeks later, the Federal Aviation Administrationapproved Conway’s land-use plan for the airport in the Lollie Bottoms area.
Mayor Tab Townsell said workers have finished grading work at the site and have begun paving a concrete runway. An asphalt runway would have cost $1.2 million more than the concrete, he said.
City officials had estimated that the 380-acre airport, which will be more than twice the size of the present one, would cost roughly $20 million.
The good news is that the actual price “could be coming in under” that estimate, Townsell said. The bad news is that because of economic problems that have beset federal and state governments, the city must bear more of the cost than had been expected.
Townsell said he “ absolutely” believes that pilots and residents will be much safer once the new airport opens.
The current airport is adjacent to Interstate 40 and along Sixth Street in Conway. It is just yards from residential neighborhoods and near Conway Commons, the city’s busiest shopping center.
Referring to the recent plane crash, Townsell said, “When he [Allen, the pilot] took off to the west ... an engine started failing. He didn’t know where to set it down. He had a tree-covered residential area. You’ve got [the University of Central Arkansas to the west]. ... So, all he could do was take it down in an area that would cause damage” to the landscape rather houses, businesses and the like.
Authorities have said Allen’s plane struck some trees and a fence at the airport as it landed, and smashed into an empty truck. No one else was hurt.
Allen “would have had a lot more choices” at the new airport, Townsell said.
The new airport’s runway will be 5,500 feet long, more than 500 feet longer than the one at the present airport. There also will be an extra 1,000-foot safety zone at the new airport. And beyond that zone is unpopulated farmland.
On the new runway’s southwest end, there will be a 1,000-foot safety zone and enough extra space for the city to extend that side of the runway by 1,500 feet in the future.
“It’s a much safer area in terms of the safety zone,” Townsell said.
Brad Teague, UCA’s athletic director, is a member of Conway’s airport advisory committee. Teague is a pilot and said he uses the Conway airport two or three times a month.
He said he is excited by airport plans, “and one main reason is for safety.”
Of the recent crash, Teague said, “part of the problem [was], there was nowhere to put the plane down because [the current airport] is right in the middle of a commercial, industrial, residential area.”
Another benefit, Teague said, is that the new airport will allow larger private jets to land, which could help attract more industry.
Conway is home to three colleges - UCA, Hendrix College and Central Baptist College.
A better airport will “give [more] folks who have business with the colleges an opportunity to fly into Conway where currently they have to go to Little Rock,” Teague said.
On the funding issue, Townsell said, the federal government “in midstream” cut the amount of money it would put toward the airport from 95 percent to 90 percent.
Further, the state hasswitched from agreeing to match 50 percent of the landside work to helping only on the airport itself, he said.
Land-side facilities include such things as T-hangars, water and sewer lines, an access road, fueling facilities, a terminal and a reserve for wildlife mitigation to make sure the airport doesn’t attract ducks and deer that can cause crashes.
“All of a sudden instead of having to pay for half of the land side, the city now is going to have to pay for the full cost,” a projected $7,455,000, the mayor said.
The FAA requires that the city close the old airport within one month of opening the new one, the mayor said. The city plans to sell the old one and use that money to pay for the land of the new airport, he said.
“I don’t know how much we can get for the land at the old airport, but what we can’t get, the city’s on the hook for, and we just have to reduce what we build on the land side,” Townsell said.
Unless the situation improves, the city now expects to get roughly $9.1 million in federal money for the airport and about $1 million from the state.
Among other things, the city might have to build a temporary terminal building until it can afford a permanent structure, Townsell said.
On the positive economic side, the mayor is optimistic about the potential for the land where the old airport sits.
He noted that the City Council already has tentatively agreed to build an overpass from the Conway Commons shopping center over I-40 to the old airport site and connect that area to Bruce Street, which leads to UCA.
Townsell said the plan creates an area that would be great for commercial development.
“Very rarely do you get a chance to take roughly 150 areas on the interstate and produce a chance for redevelopment,” Townsell said. “We’re of the opinion that the redevelopment of the old airport [site] offers a better possibility for a game-changing [commercial] development in Conway than the opening of the new airport.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/24/2012