ERAU campus trashed by tornado

[Ram]

ERAU had a pretty rough Christmas. This afternoon, a tornado ripped through their flightline and destroyed most of their airplanes. Here are the gory pictures:

My sources say they lost 50 of the 65 aircraft, and their Mx hanger got hit pretty hard, too.

[ 26. December 2006, 06:04: Message edited by: Toro ]

[PapaJu]

http://www.wesh.com/video/10606743/index.html

Video...guy is an idiot though.

[Ram]

Originally posted by PapaJu:

http://www.wesh.com/video/10606743/index.html

Video...guy is an idiot though.

Yikes.

[MCO]

lots of photo's of campus

http://photos.revenanteagle.org/index.php?album=torndao

[Ram]

Here too:

http://www.leadingedgesim.com/mkaprocki/ERAU/

[Toasty]

Glad it happened over the holidays and no one was killed. Unfortunately some of my friends may be losing their jobs :

[Hacker]

You sure that isn't just standard equipment attrition with the Riddle training?

[Guest KoolKat]

Zing!

Someone was thinking when they put that nice new engineering building over by the street and away from the flightline!

What a mess.

BENDY

[M2]

All joking aside, it is good to hear there were no injuries or deaths. That is a lot of damage, hopefully the school will recover quickly.

Cheers! M2

[Beaver]

Injustice: all those planes crumpled up and piled on top of each other, and someone's little black piece of shit car comes through with a broken window.

[Guest adamgavrich]

I graduated from the Prescott Campus, and everyone used to have all of these conspiricy theories about our tuition dollars going to the Daytona campus....looks like the prescott peeps have some justification now!

Crazy....

[Guest Hydro130]

Originally posted by Swingin:

What was wrong with the original thread title? Gayness.

My guess is that it's because it helps out the search function. Maybe not as much fun, but for as much as we all tell rooks to "UTFSF", I'm all for whatever can help with that. Not really a factor here, but...

Cheers, Hydro

[Guest sleepy]

Originally posted by Swingin:

What was wrong with the original thread title? Gayness.

For those who missed it, the original title was

"Tornado causes thousands of dollars in improvements to ERAU campus."

[Guest KoolKat]

"Another reason for Preskit students to complain their campus is inferior to Daytona's"

:D

BENDY

[Ram]

Toro sent me a PM that the thread title had gotten clipped or something, so he changed it.

I have no problem with it, so neither should anyone else.

[BADFNZ]

That'll all buff out.

[dmeg130]

(un)Holy Ghost of Mohammad Atta! I guess Daytona approach won't have to break me off final at three miles for awhile... and ERAU alums will be getting hit up for some extra coin this year.

[ 26. December 2006, 23:48: Message edited by: dmeg130 ]

[Insubordinate & Churlish]

My FBO purchased a 172 from ERAU a few months ago. Guess who called early one morning a few days ago wanting to buy a plane back?

[Shakermaker]

As if the monthly phone calls from Daytona every month asking for a contribution weren't bad enough... At least you can say Prescott right Bendy

[Guest KoolKat]

Daytona never calls me...Smartest thing they ever do.

It's a bum deal they got and the students are going to be the ones that end up suckin' it up in the end. I would only care if someone was injured; the school can go take a leap. I think their alum relations are awefully piss poor.

The det is big, I liked that. I wanted to fly there until I saw what they charge, what a joke. You can spare me the comparisions and rationalizations if you were thinking about it.

The engineering ciriculum is pretty stale as well to be claiming the best program (w/o a masters.)

Everybody like to do the hoorah flag waving for the school they attended, but I'm just not the biggest fan, if you can't tell. I'll get over it; don't worry about me.

I should have gone to Penn State.

BENDY

[Guest cbire880]

I would hope that ERAU had an insurance policy to cover such events (not having one would be complete incomptence in management). They should get most of the value of the aircraft back from that. I'll bet the much harder task will be finding 50 suitable aircraft in that timeframe to replace them with. They don't churn 172s with fancy avionics off the line too fast these days.

Originally posted by Bender:I should have gone to Penn State.

Yes, that would've been a better choice. It is the greatest institute of higher drinking in the nation. Although my degree does say something different on it, I must've went to class at some point.

[ 31. December 2006, 08:49: Message edited by: cbire880 ]

[Toasty]

I hear they're flying aircraft from around the country in so students can graduate on time. All of the aircraft were insured, so I can't imagine them asking current students or alumni for money, unless they're just being greedy (which is probable).

On a side note: apparently, while the tornado was touching down on the airfield, tower was still clearing aircraft to land.

Story:

December 29, 2006

Controller: Due to FAA radio ban, tower unaware of tornado

By MELISSA GRIGGS

Business Writer

DAYTONA BEACH - As a 50-passenger jet approached Daytona Beach International Airport for landing Christmas Day, air traffic controllers had no idea a tornado was touching down near the runway.

The Delta Air Lines/Comair pilot landed the plane safely, but controllers Thursday criticized a Federal Aviation Administration decision to ban radios from its control towers.

"If controllers had known a tornado was out there, we wouldn't have let the plane get anywhere near our airport," said Kelly Raulerson, a controller at the airport and local representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Controllers are able to pick up precipitation on tower radar, but not tornadoes embedded in the storms, Raulerson said. Although the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning 20 minutes before the tornado hit Monday, controllers in the tower were oblivious to the danger.

The local FAA manager installed weather radios Wednesday, Raulerson said.

Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman, said the agency never banned weather radios in control towers. She said the FAA banned commercial radios and cell phones in September to eliminate distractions in the towers.

The Christmas Day tornadoes touched down in four spots in Volusia County, injuring at least 16 people and causing $33 million in damage, according to county officials. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University next to the airport took a direct hit, leaving four buildings destroyed and mangled airplanes littering the tarmac adjacent to the campus. In contrast with the county's estimate, university officials said the damage at the school totaled at least $50 million.

No one disputes that controllers, pilots and passengers had a harrowing experience on Christmas Day.

Comair flight 5580 from New York's LaGuardia Airport was scheduled to land in Daytona at 1:39 p.m.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 1:20 p.m. Daytona controllers first had contact with the Comair pilot at 1:28 p.m. They told him there was heavy rain in the area. Radar showed a storm moving in rapidly from the west.

Controllers in the tracon, the radar room at the base of the tower, told the pilot to head back up the shoreline to Flagler.

A private single-engine Cessna also was approaching the runway. Controllers diverted the flight, sending the plane to land at New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport.

The Daytona airport lost power at 1:40 p.m., plunging the radar room and the tower into darkness. Two transmitter receivers also went out. Controllers lost contact with the pilot.

The tornado hit at 1:45 p.m.

Two controllers in the tower saw the windows start to move in and out. They said the building shuddered and they heard a low, moaning sound.

Emergency generators kicked in, restoring power. But only the tower had radio frequency. The pilot called the tower on a different frequency and the tower controllers, still unaware there had been a tornado, directed him to land at another runway.

The plane landed at 2:06 p.m.

The Comair pilot saw the damage to Embry-Riddle and asked the controllers on the radio what had happened.

Raulerson, who has been an air traffic controller for 16 years, said the airport narrowly averted a tragedy. "Had the small plane landed, knowing now what they didn't know then, the controllers said it wouldn't have made it," she said.

"The Comair flight was approaching a runway that would have placed it head-on into the tornado's path. Instead, it was redirected to another runway and landed about two minutes after the tornado had passed," she said.

The FAA's Bergen agreed controllers cannot pick up tornadoes on their radar, but she said they have other ways of finding out about severe weather. She said the nation's 20 end route centers, which control flights between airports, receive updates from the National Weather Service and pass them along to local control towers. She could not confirm whether the Hilliard center, which covers Daytona Beach, received a warning or tried to pass it on.

"The controllers had no advance warning of the tornado," Bergen said. "Had they been aware of it, they would have evacuated the tower."

Stephen Cooke, the airport's director of business development, said the FAA controls the tower and the airport does not get involved in issues between the FAA and the controllers.

The control tower operated on an emergency generator after the storm Monday afternoon until 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, Cooke said. The rest of the day's flights took off and landed on time.

The FAA and its controllers have been in bitter disputes for years. In September, the federal agency imposed work rules and conditions on the controllers after declaring an impasse in contract talks.

Bergen said the ban on radios, which came as part of the September rules, was necessary. "I've been in towers where the music was blaring," she said.

Raulerson said the FAA is rewriting history because its ban was for all radios. "They came in and took our radios," she said. "If they were going to allow us to have weather radios, why didn't they replace our AM/FM radios with weather bands when they knew that is how we get our weather information?

"Before this ban went into effect, we used to hear frequent tests of the Emergency Broadcast System on the radio in the tower," she said. "We certainly needed to hear that familiar alert on Monday. Instead, we were cut off from the world and left in a very vulnerable position."

The controllers union said two other airports have had close calls. Controllers in DuPage, Ill., and Lincoln, Neb., didn't know tornadoes were in the area because they didn't have radios, Raulerson said.

melissa.griggs@news-jrnl.com

TIMELINE

1:20 p.m.: National Weather Service issues tornado warning

1:28 p.m. : First contact between controllers and pilot of Comair Flight 5580

1:40 p.m.: Airport loses power

1:45 p.m.: Tornado hits

2:06 p.m.: Comair Flight 5580 lands

[Shakermaker]

No rationalizatioins... I'm an alum, and I'm one of the few that wishes they'd spent their money at a real University and learned to fly in my spare time. Oh well, lesson learned.