TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A string of serious aviation accidents, especially the crash of an Army helicopter and civilian airliner in Washington, DC, prompted Pima County Supervisors to ask about the safety of military and civilian air traffic in our own skies.
Tucson has a busy mix of civilian and military aircraft, with an Air Force Base, and a civilian airport that shares runways with F-16s of the Arizona Air National Guard. Pima County Supervisors got a lesson in how those pilots stay safe.
Davis-Monthan Air Force base hosts a busy mixture of A-10s, and helicopters on runways not far from Tucson International, where civilian airliners use the same runways as an Arizona Air National Guard Base that makes a specialty of training pilots on the F-16.
It’s a complex mixture that shares the skies smoothly, but recent aviation accidents in other parts of the US prompted Pima Supervisors to ask how they maintain that safety.
Pilots from Davis-Monthan, the Arizona Air National Guard Base, and the director of the Tucson Aviation Authority came to answer questions.
They say they all depend on careful coordination with FAA Air Traffic Controllers who approve any movement right down to the moment an aircraft’s wheels start to move.
Davis-Monthan helicopter pilot Lieutenant Colonel Paul Sheely says he has plenty of ways to know what’s in the air around him.
“We're flying around with five radios, and three of them are able to be multi band. So for the helicopter specifically, we can hear what the tower’s saying. We can pick that up. We also cross tune those radios so that as we’re departing, we can build our picture and our understanding of the flight environment. We take off, we transfer to TIA's airspace and through TIA's airspace in the local area.”
Tucson Aviation Authority CEO Dannette Bewley says Tucson International is building its way to better safety with a second large runway under construction to help keep aircraft away from each other.
“First of all, it provides a separation between the two runways. . Second of all, it provides redundancy. In case one runway is under maintenance, or if there's a problem with a plane, like a flat tire or something which does happen, and the military can operate, we can operate, operate very synergistically with the dual parallel runways.”
But Supervisors and pilots say they are concerned about shortages of air traffic controllers now, and the prospects that the administration will make deep cuts into the Federal Aviation Administration that controls everything from air traffic, airport construction, and who gets a pilot's license.
