A long-standing safety issue at the Colorado Springs Airport is on the docket to get fixed again, after officials identified it as a priority eight years ago.
The airport needs to eliminate the intersection of two runways that creates a potential for accidents, Director of Aviation Greg Phillips said. An accident has never happened at the intersection of the far western runway and a crosswind runway, but similar intersections have caused problems elsewhere. For example, a similar intersection created a mix-up at a Kentucky airport in 2006, causing a crash that killed 49 people, The Gazette reported previously.
The problematic intersections at airports nationally were generally built during the early days of aviation to save space before the safety concerns were understood, Philips said.
The Federal Aviation Administration wants to see hot spot intersections like the one at the Colorado Springs Airport phased out nationally to improve safety.
“It is a high priority to eliminate those kinds of things,” Phillips said.
The airport plans to move the far western runway south on airport property so it will no longer intersect with the crosswind runway, a solution that was estimated to cost $60 million in 2013, before Phillips started at the airport.
The airport has prioritized other projects ahead of the runway relocation project, including pavement rehabilitation, Phillips said.
Plans from the Colorado Springs Airport master plan presentation show the runway intersection that needs to be eliminated. Courtesy of Colorado Springs Airport
But the relocation is rising to the top again and Phillips presented plans for it to the Colorado Springs City Council and El Paso County Commission recently as part of the airport’s work on a 20-year plan that will guide development.
“This is the right time to seriously address this issue and start to prepare,” Phillips said.
He expects the project to extend the runway south by 2,500 feet and eliminate 1,790 feet of the northern portion of the runway to take about 10 years.
The airport is likely to use federal funding for the project, although it may not come from the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The funds could come from federal excise taxes on plane fuel, Phillips said.
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