Flights resume at Delta County Airport
Flights are once again coming and going from the Delta County Airport.
The F.A.A. re-certified and put the airport’s automated weather observation system back into operation at 11 a.m.
It was a simple fix that did not require any large parts to be replaced. The antenna atop the airport that communicates with the system at the end of the runway simply lost connection.
“That can be just because of ice, strong winds, the antenna moves over time,” said airport manager Kelly Smith. “It’s been there in that one spot 10 years, maybe a bolt loosened up a little bit, but they went up there and were able to get the system back up, talking to each other on both ends. Then they optimized it and at 11 o’ clock they re-certified it that it’s all good to go.”
Without weather observers as a back up, planes can’t land or depart from the airport. Delta County Airport officials plan to have staff certified to prevent something similar from happening again.
Smith said, “It’s not something you plan on having happen because hopefully all of your equipment is up and running and your parts are good. But even if they had to replace the equipment we’d have a weather observer here in case some glitch happened where it was overnight. We could get the airlines in and out by having a weather observer here.”
The first plane since the repair came in shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday, taking back off just before 2 p.m.
The system initially went down some time around midnight Saturday.