By Peter Rutledge
I see the spin machine aimed at pushing little LaGuardia airport to its limits is trying to persuade us that the latest accident, the one involving now-VP-elect Mike Pence, was just a “rough landing.”
It was more than that. It showed how LaGuardia’s runways quickly flood in rain and it should serve as a warning to Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer not to rely on PR from the airlines, FAA or “airport advocates” in making upcoming decisions on LaGuardia. The Pence jetliner hydroplaned down the runway and was stopped only by a bed of concrete blocks at the end designed to halt a 50-ton jetliner hurtling to doom dead in its tracks. A few more yards and Mr. Pence would have been in the drink.
The reason the runways flood at postage-stamp sized LaGuardia is that 95 percent of the land is covered by terminals, hangars, runways, taxiways, roads and parking. There isn’t much open space at LaGuardia so when there is heavy rain, as there was Oct. 27, the runways can flood. (The 95 percent figure comes from an FAA report.)
This is the second time in two years that there has been an accident in severe weather, the last occurred when a Delta jetliner landed in a snowstorm (“Thor”) and wound up hanging over a berm above Flushing Bay. Winter is a problem for LaGuardia’s runways because they have been extended over the bay on pilings; as the temperature falls to freezing aircraft may encounter two different surfaces on the same runway. These were the conditions when “Thor” struck on March 6, 2015, and Delta 1086 went skittering down Runway 13 in a near whiteout.
My question is, why wasn’t LaGuardia closed during these bad weather events?
One answer is that there is a lot of pressure to keep LaGuardia running at or above peak capacity—pressure from the airlines, because bigger planes mean more money; pressure from the FAA, because it desperately wants to show it knows how to fly right, pressure from Port Authority to keep Gov. Cuomo’s high-priced, high-risk redevelopment project at LaGuardia on a very tight construction and financing schedule, not to mention pressure from our hometown “airport advocates,” Global Gateway Alliance.
Or as I like to think of them, Global Gimme Alliance, funded by real estate developer Joe Sitt and operated by the politically connected Steve Sigmund, who knows how things work in Albany and Washington. (VP Joe Biden’s remark that LaGuardia was a “third world” facility was a plant by GGA—it came from an article written by two GGA people. And what would Joe Biden know about LaGuardia? Only what he sees from inside a limo that is hightailing through traffic, possibly the only time anyone really makes it from LaGuardia to Manhattan in 20 minutes anymore. But I digress.)
This hydra-headed public relations juggernaut is in the business of persuading the public, the press and our politicians that more can always be squeezed out of LaGuardia, more passengers, bigger planes, just leave it to them. Build us a new terminal, provide free bus rides, how about a casino license? The list is pretty long and they get just about everything they want.
The rationale is always the same—New York City needs the business! Think of the jobs, the billions that LaGuardia brings in. When they talk about the benefits they remind me of that astronomer guy – Carl Sagan? – “billions and billions of stars!”, our advocates get similarly glassy-eyed about “billions of dollars”.
To hear them tell it, NYC owes its livelihood to LaGuardia. Just to put this in perspective, LaGuardia accounts for less than 1 percent of all daily travel in NYC by rail, bus or air. If you counted car passengers, LaGuardia would be a mere rounding error in our giant urban transportation network.
(Part II of this letter will appear in the next edition)
Peter Rutledge
Bayside
