NOT CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF

A plan by the Federal Aviation Administration to close control towers at dozens of small airports, including Bangor’s, needs to be re-examined. In the case of Bangor, the nightly closure would slow Air National Guard operations, potentially harming military missions. It would also harm operations at the commercial airport, which is a frequent diversion point for aircraft that experience problems.

The Senate Commerce Committee should hold a hearing on the issue, which Sen. Olympia Snowe, a committee member, has proposed. After reviewing the evidence, the Senate and FAA will see that closing BIA’s control tower every night is a poor way to save a little money, a point made by Sen. Susan Collins who has written two

letters to the FAA administrator asking for reconsideration.

The FAA has proposed to close control towers at 42 airports from midnight to 5 a.m. The agency says this will save $5 million a year. The FAA says it is

in the early stages of reviewing operations at airports with low overnight activity. The review has been ongoing for years, but has taken on new urgency with pressure from Congress to reduce the agency’s costs. The agency points out that 60 airports nationwide, out of 400, have reduced control tower operations. Nearly 200 small airports have no control tower. These airports likely only handle small planes and aren’t

co-located with a military base.

At Bangor International Airport the savings would come at a heavy cost to safety and national security. Because of its long runways and strategic location as the last or first U.S. airport passed by flights crossing the Atlantic, planes, both military and commercial, are routinely diverted to BIA. Some are sent to Bangor due to mechanical problems. Some have sick passengers aboard. Some are diverted due to bomb threats.

An increasing number of flights are landing in Bangor because passengers appear on government watch lists. In the most celebrated case, last September, a London to Washington flight was diverted to BIA after officials discovered a passenger – Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens – was on the federal no-fly list. Bangor’s customs and airport officials have the experience to deal with these emergency and national security situations, which can arise at night.

Weather also sends planes to Bangor. During a late January storm, seven flights were diverted to Bangor.

BIA is also unusual because its control tower is shared with the Maine Air National Guard’s 101st Refueling Wing. The guard base is one of the busiest in the country, according to Col. Don Reynolds. Because of the war in Iraq and stepped-up Homeland Security operations, the base has been much busier at night in recent years. When it primarily operated training missions, it could schedule them during the day and early night. Now, orders to refuel planes headed to the Middle East are apt to come during the middle of the night. Without a manned control tower, Col. Reynolds said it was foreseeable that poor weather or other conditions could make it impossible to launch such a mission.

Between midnight and 5 a.m., the BIA tower is operated by one person. As Sen. Snowe wrote to the FAA administrator, it is hard to see how saving that person’s salary is worth putting lives and military operations in jeopardy.