Runway at LR to get fresh backstop
The state’s largest airport, Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, is replacing a structure designed to stop aircraft runway overruns at an estimated cost of $6 million.
A grant from the Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday by members of the state’s congressional delegation will cover much of the of the funding, $4.9 million, for the project, made necessary because the existing structure has reached the end of its useful life.
The structure, located at the south end of the west commercial service runway, is formally known as an engineered materials arrestor system and is “one of the oldest in the country,” according to Shane Carter, the spokesman for Clinton National.
The FAA requires airports to have a 1,000-foot safety area beyond commercial service runways in the event of an aircraft overrunning the runway. If the airport lacks the room for a safety area, the agency requires the airport to in-
stall the arrestor system.
The south end of the west commercial service runway, known to aviators as 4L-22R, abuts a section of East Roosevelt Road near its intersection with Bond Street, leaving no room for a safety area.
The structure uses an engineered material, often light concrete, to “catch” an aircraft by causing its tires to sink as it rolls through the material, forcing the aircraft to decelerate. In the work at Little Rock, fresh material will replace the worn-out material.
The technology, which dates from the 1990s, has been installed on 108 runways at 67 airports, according to FAA data.
To date, the structures have stopped 12 overrunning aircraft with a total of 284 crew and passengers aboard those flights, the agency said. The most recent happened in April when a Cessna 750 Citation with a crew of two overran the runway at Burbank Airport in Burbank, Calif.
The money came in the form of what Carter said was an “expedited FAA discretionary grant,” and is available when other airports are unable to spend all of the grant money awarded to them and must return the money to the agency. Airports must have projects ready for construction to be eligible for the expedited grants.
The grant was announced jointly by U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and U.S. Rep. French Hill, all R-Ark.
“Arkansas’s largest airport moves over one million passengers every year and is instrumental in growing our economy in Little Rock and throughout our entire state,” Hill said in the announcement. “By investing these funds at the Clinton National Airport, we can better ensure safe and efficient travel for passengers.”
Carter said airport officials worked closely with the delegation and the FAA to secure the grant.
“We greatly appreciate the assistance of Senators Boozman and Cotton and Congressman Hill in helping secure funding,” he said. “We also wish to thank the staff of the FAA Southwest Region Airport Division for its continued support.”