Like most airfields in the United States, the Durango-La Plata County Airport is without an air traffic control tower.
That’s not unusual, considering both the Durango airport’s size, which factors into need, and the declining rate of new tower construction nationwide.
Nevertheless, as the county and city make progress on plans for an $85 million expansion of the terminal on the runway’s east side, some wonder if a control tower shouldn’t come first, or factor into the plans, for safety’s sake.
“Safety,” Ron Johnson, an independent flight instructor, said bluntly. “Primarily, and this has happened to me numerous times, if I’m landing to the south, and other traffic comes flying from the opposite direction, we’re essentially nose-to-nose. Sometimes, people will just push the issue and say they’re landing this way, so I have to do some nonstandard maneuvers to avoid a possible collision.”
Johnson has flown in and out of the airport, teaching students from all over the region, since the mid-nineties. Over the years, the “potential for something to happen” has grown with the airport’s traffic.
FAA controls
Control towers typically aren’t local matters. They’re federal projects funded and staffed by the Federal Aviation Administration, which determines the necessity of a tower by considering passenger numbers and factors such as complexity of the terrain, hours of operation and proximity to airports with control towers.
Durango-La Plata averages 200,000 enplanements – people flying out on commercial flights – every year, and about the same number flying in. That does not include business and private flights.
When local flight instructors need to give students field practice at a controlled port, it’s a 20-minute flight to the Four Corners Regional Airport in Farmington, New Mexico. In 2015, Farmington logged 3,067 enplanements, yet it’s been equipped with a tower since the 1950s because traffic is heavy, between the flight school at San Juan College and military operations.
“There are clearly cases when they are or aren’t necessary. Then there’s a gray area,” said Durango Air Operations Specialist Tony Vicari. “We are a nontowered airport, but it’s not like the Wild West in the sense that there is no control. There is a reason we don’t have incidents.”
A common frequency
Airports without control towers units use a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF), which is a radio frequency pilots use to self-coordinate. Additionally, high-altitude airspace is overseen by the Denver-based Airports District Office, but it doesn’t handle ground direction. Once a pilot enters Durango, he or she gets on the local frequency to announce the landing pattern.
Rarely do people complain, but questions out of curiosity from fliers are common, Vicari said.
“The important thing to convey is the setup we have using CTAF is quite common in airfields across the country, especially smaller ones,” he said. “Any pilot is trained on how to use that. They’re comfortable with that system.”
Apart from the common sense “see and avoid” tactic, pilots adhere to traffic patterns and protocol set out within the Aeronautical Information Manual and FAA regulations.
But pilots can, and do, deviate from those standards, said Ellen Schneider, a ground instructor teaching out of Animas Air Park since 2010.
“That can create a safety issue,” she said. “When you have a control tower, you have someone who is basically directing traffic in the sky and adhering to air traffic control instructions.”
Freedom
The lack of a control tower doesn’t impact all Durango pilots, and some even see it as an asset.
“I don’t think it affects me either way,” Mike Gormally said. Gormally has been a pilot since 1977 and instructor since 1983. Gormally said his job is to teach students real-world experiences, which can mean navigating a congested, uncontrolled airport.
“As an instructor, it’s good to have a tower environment to train in, but having a tower also restricts a lot of your movement,” he said.
Despite the “safety first” mentality, local pilots say a control tower would eliminate the spontaneity of flight teaching.
“It does limit my ability to do things spur-of-the-moment with students and surprise them with simulated problems,” Johnson said. “When I take my flight students into the controlled airport at Farmington, I can do a lot of stuff, but I still have to ask permission.”
Virtual towers
Late last year, the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport was chosen to test the first FAA-sanctioned virtual tower piloted in the U.S. The $6 million project is funded by the Colorado Aviation Fund, and it will operate on cameras and sensors monitored remotely when completed this year.
The FAA also is considering Durango for a potential test site and conducted a site assessment of the airport in 2015. The state would fund initial infrastructure while the local airport would pay for repairs and maintenance.
David Ulane, aeronautics division director at the Colorado Department of Transportation, couldn’t place a dollar amount on a virtual tower versus a brick-and-mortar structure, but said savings are significant, particularly because tower operations can be shut off when not needed.
Meanwhile, the city and county continue to debate how to pay for the terminal expansion, including possible property tax or sales tax increase proposals on the November ballot and FAA grants. The latter could cover as much as $45 million of the project.
An air control tower, airport officials said, is not in the picture right now.
“You can get to where there’s so much traffic where that coordination isn’t sufficiently done,” Vicari said. “It’s just, when do you get to that point?”
jpace@durangoherald.com
