Suffolk Life
April 19, 2006
Airport Runway 4-22 Closed For Safety
By Susan J. Greenberg

As a response to what he says is the continued pressure put upon him by a group called Save East Hampton Airport, Inc., East Hampton Town Supervisor William McGintee closed runway 4-22 at the East Hampton Town Airport on March 30.

“It was temporarily shut down due to allegations by this group of people, I don’t know who they are, that are saying that the runway is unsafe,” said McGintee. “I was told by the town’s attorneys and insurance advisors that the best course of action is to close the runway until engineering experts can refute these claims.”

The runway has long been a source of conflict within the community, with the pilots wondering why the town is refusing FAA funding to repair the runway and whether not doing so is a precursor to closing the airport altogether.

“The town has been offered money and they turned it down, saying that there are strings attached by using federal funds,” said John Fiore, who has been a pilot since 1969, and has been a flight instructor and commercial pilot out of East Hampton since 1973.

Fiore said that there are very wealthy and powerful locals who own real estate around the airport and want it closed. “If the town takes federal money, there will be no way that that airport could legally close for many years. Meanwhile, the safety conditions on the runway are deplorable,” he said. “If the town ever does fix the runway and uses town money to do it,” he said, “this is an incredible and unnecessary burden on taxpayers, especially when federal money is available. If they don’t fix the runway, we are all at risk.”

Runway 4-22 is one of three runways at the airport, and the one that is the most important, according to Tom Lavinio, a Southampton resident who learned to fly in the Navy in the late 1940s and continued to fly in East Hampton after he came back in 1947. He said that 4-22 is a southwest runway that runs with the type of wind that is necessary for pilots, called prevailing winds, unlike the other two runways that run in a north-south and east-west direction.

“Since the Wright brothers started aviation, it is known that pilots take off and land into prevailing winds, which are southwest like 4-22, from Maine to South Carolina, “ said Lavinio.

According to both Fiore and Lavinio, light aircraft must land into the wind or into the wind “as close as possible,” for optimal safety, and the closing of 4-22 with its prevailing winds will prevent many pilots from flying into the airport.

“If an inexperienced pilot feels uncomfortable landing on the other two runways, he or she is perfectly welcome to land at Westhampton Beach,” said McGintee. “If I were an inexperienced driver, I would not drive in a snowstorm.”

McGintee said that the runway has been abandoned since 1989, with the FAA’s approval, which means “that it was not shut down but that nothing will be done with it.” In addition, said McGintee, the FAA approved airport operations with just the other two runways, saying that the prevailing winds rotate, making the other two runways perfectly safe.

Lavinio said that the experience level of a pilot has nothing to do with not wanting to fly in a crosswind and has everything to do with the size and mechanics of the plane. He said that it is “simply about safety,” adding that runway 16-34 “is in almost as bad condition as 4-22, with huge cracks.”

Lavinio, who has been instrumental in SEHA, believes that closing the airport is the objective of the town board at the behest of “the small group of 45 to 55 people who are complaining about noise.”

“What is happening is that the smaller aircraft are going away because the winds are not right to land on the other runways,” said Lavinio. “If the aircraft leave, then the support services of the fixed based operators, such as those who sell fuel and provide maintenance services, will also leave and the airport will have no choice but to close.”

In its campaign, SEHA appeals to people to urge the town to repair runways at the facility, so that it may be used for the safety of pilots as well as for the safety of the town in case of a disaster.

“We started this campaign late last year and put it on Cablevision and have since revised the content to show what would happen in the case of a Katrina-sized hurricane here if the airport was closed,” said Lavinio. “Those of us who lived through the hurricane of 1938 know the reality of trying to evacuate, and closing the airport would be disastrous.”

Addressing the evacuation scenario presented by SEHA, McGintee said that “their tactics are based on misinformation,” and that “saying that evacuation in a Katrina-like situation would be impossible is a blatant lie. There are two other runways. They are using scare tactics to support their position.”

While Lavinio sees the abandonment and the subsequent closing of 4-22 as being a prelude to the closing of the airport, McGintee sees it as merely a remedial decision that a municipality must make in the face of what SEHA called dangerous conditions.

“We are not looking to close the airport. This decision to close the runway that these people say is so dangerous is one that a responsible government makes,” said McGintee.

McGintee added that the town recently hired a full-time maintenance person at the airport and patched runway 16-34. The town also has $250,000 set aside in the capital budget for the next two years for security measures, replacing the roof on the fuel farm and erecting deer fencing. “Does this sound like a board that wants to close the airport?” McGintee asked.

As for the future of the runway and of the airport, McGintee said that the board will not “be bullied, cajoled, pushed or threatened into doing something in a piecemeal manner.”

The issue of the airport must be addressed in the master plan of the town, he said, which will now take six months longer to complete due to having to wait to get the results back from engineers about the conditions of the runway.

The board had initially called upon the FAA to inspect 4-22, but was told that this was a courtesy given only to large runways in large airports. Hiring the right experts and creating a report will push the master plan back to the middle of next year, rather than by the end of this year as was initially projected.

“We have made no decision as to whether the runway will be included in the master plan of the town, as we have to look at it in context with the plans for the entire town, which will take time,” said McGintee.

Lavinio was curious about a white line being painted on the runway after its closing, stating that “it was the first attention being paid to it in 30 years.”

“We painted a white line on the runway, soon to be marked out with Xs, as an official route for closing the runway, and in response to a letter written to a local paper by a pilot stating that he didn’t know the runway was closed. Now, if a pilot decides to play games and says he didn’t know, he will have had clear notice that the runway is closed and any potential injury incurred will solely be due to the bad decision of the pilot,” said McGintee.

McGintee added that he wants to have a safe, viable place of transportation that also meets the safety needs of the homes surrounding the airport, and that the decision to close 4-22 was “an effort to protect a municipality from a potential safety hazard.”

“It may be an unpopular decision, but if there was a beach with sharks or rip tides,” said McGintee, “I would have to close that too. A good governmental official will err on the side of safety.”

“I’ll tell you what would be in the best interest of safety,” said Lavinio. “Repairing the runway, not at taxpayers’ expense, allowing the pilots to fly into the wind. If we don’t have that runway, it won’t be safe. If we don’t have the airport, we also won’t be safe.”