Low-flying craft can be distracting
Dear editor: Last Sunday, a CF-18 fighter jet visited Penticton airport and gave two short displays.
Shortly after 1 p.m., I happened to be driving east on Highway 97 past the airport in the right lane. I have good peripheral vision and a movement to my left caught my eye. I looked and saw the CF18 racing down the runway on a takeoff run over Skaha Lake.
I instinctively tightened my grip on the steering wheel and, less than a second later, the CF18 passed directly over my car about 30 feet above me. The blast from its engines as it passed strongly rocked my car. If I hadn’t had a tight grip on the steering wheel, I could easily have been forced out of my lane.
Needless to say, if I had been in the left lane, I could easily have been forced into the path of oncoming traffic. Had I been driving a high-sided vehicle, it would almost certainly have overturned.
Many years ago, during service with the RAF in the UK, I was stationed at an airport where large aircraft coming in to land passed about 30 feet above a heavily travelled road which was also part of a bus route operated by double deck vehicles.
Traffic lights were installed on that road at the runway which were under the control of the airport control tower and all traffic was stopped when aircraft were coming in to land over that roadway.
It is surely important for something similar to be in place at Penticton. I notice that float planes coming into land on Skaha Lake frequently fly along the runway and over Highway 97 before landing. These and other low flying aircraft are a serious potential distraction for drivers, particularly those who are strangers to the area and may not be aware of the presence of the runway.
There are traffic lights on either side of the runway at the intersection with Airport Road and where Highway 97 turns north. It would not be technically difficult to provide air traffic control with a switch to override both sets of lights and turn all lights to red if an aircraft is flying over the highway, whether landing or taking off.
Surely this should be done as a matter of urgency? The only question is: Why is this not already in place? Brian Butler Penticton