Aspen is known as one of the toughest airports in the country to fly into and out of because of the narrow valley and high surrounding peaks.<\/p>\n
Wayne Hall has dedicated the past 17 years to helping increase the safety of flight operations due to those challenges. Hall, 58, retired June 1 after working up the ranks from air traffic controller to supervisor and ultimately air traffic manager.<\/p>\n
He oversees the staff who guides aircraft on the ground and in the air from the tower. He said he is very proud of the air traffic control crew he is leaving behind because of their dedication to teamwork and safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy opinion is Aspen is a safe, safe airport,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reason we do (various) mitigations is to counter the challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aspen is one of only three airports in the country where landings and departures occur in opposite directions. Aircraft generally take off to the north and land to the south.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Aspen, because of Aspen Mountain and the upgrade slope and other things that feed into that airport, it\u2019s an opposite direction operation almost all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That requires more coordination by the air traffic controllers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just need to be on your game and we\u2019re very, very good at it,\u201d Hall said. \u201cWe have to do a lot more talking than at a typical airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
He estimated that there are about 15 days per year that are \u201cextremely busy\u201d at the Aspen airport and another 150 or so days that are moderately busy. That leaves ample time to train new air traffic controllers and get them prepared for the busier times.<\/p>\n
They currently have a crew of 17, including seven trainees.<\/p>\n
For the benefit of Aspen\u2019s tourism-oriented economy, some business factions have clamored for higher priority for commercial aircraft over private aircraft. That\u2019s a debate that\u2019s moot for the air traffic controllers because of their legal responsibilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom air traffic\u2019s perspective, an airplane is an airplane is an airplane,\u201d Hall said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really comes down to first come, first served and that\u2019s the rule,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf you ask people in the commercial family, they will say, \u2018Why are the (general aviation) getting all the priority?\u2019 And if you ask the GA community, they will say, \u2018Why is the commercial getting the priority?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In his eyes, the issue isn\u2019t private versus commercial flights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a volume thing,\u201d he said, noting that the volume is primarily an issue on about 15 days. \u201cWhen that happens, everybody gets delayed. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a GA or a commercial. Everybody gets delayed. It gets spread out fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall said one of the highlights of his career in Aspen was working with the air traffic managers for the Lake Christine firefighting effort in July 2018. They teamed to devise a way to keep the vast majority of airport traffic moving despite the intense air operations in the skies over Basalt, El Jebel and Basalt Mountain. The Federal Aviation Administration recognized the Aspen air traffic control team<\/a> for its special efforts.<\/p>\n Other collaborations with stakeholders at the airport led to other safety improvements, particularly for aircraft departing the airport and for planes that are landing.<\/p>\n Hall and others spotted a trend where on some scattered winter days when snow was on the ground and specific natural light conditions existed, it created a visual effect that made the airport runway difficult for pilots to spot. During his tenure, he was aware of three aircraft going off the side of the runway while landing. Thankfully, all three incidents were minor.<\/p>\n It would have been easy to write the incidents off as pilot error, but Hall was presented with a photo from a different pilot that demonstrated how the runway location could be difficult to see from 5 or 6 miles out in certain conditions. Stakeholders discussed the issue and safety lights were added.<\/p>\n \u201cEven on nice clear days we run the approach lights to delineate the runway,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThere\u2019s a new project to put lights near the end of the runway to help define the runway.\u201d<\/p>\n He stressed that just because conditions are safer now than they were five years ago, it doesn\u2019t mean conditions were unsafe before.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can be safe but we can still get safer. That should be my tag line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There has been one fatal crash at the Aspen airport in recent years on January 2014, when a Bombardier Challenger 600 aircraft attempted to land in high winds. The copilot was killed. The pilot and a passenger survived when the aircraft crashed nose down at the airport and burst into flames.<\/p>\n