I ran up the tower stairs, bypassing the second floor, bypassing the fax machine with the NOTAMs in it, bypassing the specific faxed NOTAM that indicated Meigs Field was closed today. I had to get up to the tower cab and find out what happened to my airport. I climbed the final stairs with quickness and trepidation.
X
X
X
X
X
X, I saw. Trenches in the runway, Runway 18/36. X’s in the runway. Dug up with a sort of violence. It was plotted and carried out like a murder and the conspirators succeeded with a mortal blow to Meigs.
This is how you close a runway. You X it out. Typically, you use red paint. No one digs ditches in the runway. What I saw was a malicious act of utter vandalism, a way to forever ensure closure of the airport, an obvious and overt political move done secretly and quietly in the dead of a Sunday night.
I plugged in my headset at two minutes to six and began quickly to take the weather. I still had a job to do, X’s or not. Then the phone rang. And that’s when the news copters started calling me on the frequency.
"Meigs Tower, Fox32, two miles west, would like to position myself on the east side of the airport, we’ll be there for a few minutes."
"Hello, you’ll have to hang on," I said into the phone. Then, into my headset, "Fox32, Meigs, that’s approved as requested." And back to the phone, "Yeah?"
The airport manager briefly explained that the airport was closed.
"The runway is closed," I stated.
"No, no," he said, "the airport is closed."
"Can I land a helicopter? The heli-pads are open."
"No, no," he said, "the airport is closed."
"So, I shouldn’t even be talking to the traffic copters? I have no airspace with a closed airport, right?"
"No, no," he said, "the airspace is open. The airport is closed."
It was so ******** simple to him, the s-o-b. I was mad. Who the f* did this to me and when can I see them next? I was under the impression that a closed airport had no airspace authority, but the Meigs experience proved me wrong. The stress of feeling somehow responsible for this dying airfield in front of me added to the anger I felt at the gall of someone to take away my airport, my new job, my dusk-show, on my first day shift. ....
http://micahsgospel.blogspot.com/2006/03/true-stories-of-lowly-air-traffic.html
