Fredericton airport may get control tower
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 | 10:01 AM AT
CBC News
Staff at Fredericton International Airport are anxiously waiting for a report by Nav Canada that could pave the way for a control tower at the airport.
Moncton Flight College CEO Mike Doiron said it's about time Fredericton had a control tower.
His pilots-in-training use the same air space as commercial jets landing and taking off at Fredericton, which is the busiest airport in Canada to operate without a tower.
In June, Doiron said, five student pilots crossed the flight paths of incoming jets at Fredericton. He said they were not close calls, but still indicated the need for traffic controllers.
"If there had been an air traffic controller, chances are the air traffic controller would probably have set things up to ensure that the airliner was outside the traffic pattern of the smaller training aircraft," Doiron said.
According to numbers complied by the airport, just in the month of May planes travelled across its runways 10,000 times, landing and taking off
That's double the number at the next busiest Canadian airport operating without a control tower, according to airport spokeswoman Melodie Beal.
She said the Nav Canada traffic report may determine if Fredericton gets a tower.
"All we've been told is that the study has been completed. It's being reviewed in Ottawa by Nav Canada, and there could possibly be an announcement later this week on the result of that study," Beal said.
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