Runway peril in LaG plan
“Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger on Sunday blasted Gov. Cuomo’s planned $4 billion upgrade of La Guardia Airport, saying it ignores the hub’s most dangerous feature — the notoriously short runways that jut into the East River and Flushing Bay.
Sullenberger, who famously saved a planeload of passengers when he landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009, said there’s no question the maligned airport’s 7,000footlong runways need to be longer.
During a discussion with 77WABC Radio host Yitzchok Saftlas, Sullenberger said he had “seen some of the overviews” of Cuomo’ s La Guardia plan and was dismayed it didn’t include extending the takeoff and landing strips.
“I’m sure it would be difficult and expensive, but there have been more difficult challenges taken up around the world,” he said. “In fact, it’s a sad commentary that many of the most advanced airports in the world are outside the United States — in fact, all of them.”
Sullenberger, whose Airbus A320 was crippled by birds after taking off from La Guardia, called landing at the Queens airfield a “challenge” due to the runways, the shortest of any major airport in the nation.
“You must fly the approach very accurately, very well,” he said.
“You must have the airplane flight path exactly aligned with the runway . . . You must touch down at the right altitude at the right speed to allow all that to happen.
Sullenberger also noted that “often there are winds that you have to contend with, some times low visibility, sometimes snow and other challenges, sometimes convective thunderstorms in the summer. ”
“It would be a better airport if [the runways] could be made longer and have better runway safety areas on the three runways that face the water.”
Last month, Cuomo unveiled the proposal to redevelop and modernize La Guardia, which Vice President Joe Biden has slammed as befitting “some Third World country.”
A report from Cuomo’s Airport Advisory Panel detailing the plan mentions the word “runways” only once — in a photo caption describing how Hurricane Sandy flooded them.
Sullenberger, who retired as a commercial pilot and now works as a lecturer and safety consultant, said that “while I was glad to hear that there’ll be some improvements on the land side — the terminal side of the airport, the roadways and such — I wish that more improvements were being planned for the air side, the runway side of the airport.”
Asked about Sullenberger’s remarks, Cuomo’s office pointed to recent comments by Dan Tishman, the Tishman Realty CEO who chaired the governor’s advisory panel.
“The runway configuration will remain the same, avoiding lengthy delays from the studies and approvals necessary if the runways moved,” Tishman said.
Cuomo’s plan won’t lengthen the runways but will move its terminals 600 feet closer to the Grand Central Parkway.
That shift will more than double the space for planes to maneuver on the ground and reduce delays at passenger gates, Cuomo and Tishman have said.
Additional reporting by Catherine Zini