Let It Snow

It was a somber day at Fort Wayne Municipal Airport. No flights in; no flights out. Tired passengers watched from the empty terminal building as maintenance crews worked to clear the mountainous drifts of snow blanketing the airfield. 

The Blizzard of 1978 was raging in full force. 

The airport’s public safety and maintenance people were practically living at the airport, working day and night to keep up with the wind and blowing snow. Flights were cancelled for days; the entire Midwest was practically shut down. Officer Bruce Cook of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority Public Safety Department recalled that winter, when it was a losing battle trying to keep the runways clear and, according to Cook, no winter since then has come even close in comparison.

When it finally stopped snowing, there is a reason the runways were clear long before the roads to the airport. It is because a team of committed employees did their job and did it well. And although the airport’s name has changed since 1978, the dedication employees have to keeping air traffic moving during winter months has remained the same. 

Airports operate under Federal Aviation Administration rules and regulations and must meet specific requirements for runway and taxiway pavement conditions. To take on an Indiana winter it takes continuous review, planning and preparation for FWA’s maintenance, operations and public safety crews. As soon as the snow stops falling for one season, the planning begins for the following year beginning with post-season meetings to discuss how things went that season and how can we improve. Staff training consists of training maintenance personnel on proper operation of snow equipment, how to operate safely on airport pavement and how to communicate with the air traffic control tower. Supervisors are trained on proper inspection and airport pavement condition reporting. 

The FWA snow crews work in two, eight-hour shifts consisting of at least seven employees. During a snow event, crews work in two, 12-hour shifts until the event is over and the airfield is clear. 

The equipment used for each snow event depends on the type of snow resulting from that event. The FWA maintenance department has 20 snow removal vehicles with a response time of 15 minutes or less during a snow event. For typical dry snow, 18-foot wide snow brooms and rubber blade plows are used. The plow trucks have 19-foot wide rubber edge plows, which protect the in-pavement lights on the runways. Plows and brooms are alternated to push the snow to one side of the 150-foot wide runway. A large snow blower, capable of throwing 300 tons of snow per hour, is then used to throw the snow over the runway lights and into the grass. Once the runways are clear, crews can focus on clearing the taxiways, which provide a path for airplanes to get from the runway to the terminal. 

Because the airport has two intersecting runways, crews work to clear one runway while the other is being used for arrivals and departures. Once one runway is completed, aircraft operations are switched to the plowed runway and the process is repeated. Runways are closed when snow depths reach two inches or more. For wet snow and slush, runways close at one half inch or more. Because snow removal vehicles work closely near planes arriving and departing, communication between maintenance crews and the air traffic control tower is critical. 

Safety is the most important factor during snow removal at FWA. Keeping snow equipment separate from aircraft operations is the main goal while also keeping pilots informed of pavement conditions. Although forecasters aren’t predicting the Great Blizzard of 2011, they are expecting about 22 more inches of snow than last year in our area, a challenge snow removal crews at FWA are prepared to handle.