A light dusting of snow earlier this month may have averted a serious interruption of service when winter weather actually hits Johnstown, Pa. airport, leaders learned on Tuesday.
Maintenance supervisor Josh Keyser said runway braking tests after the flurries revealed a malfunction in the computerized device used to measure the friction.
“It tells you how slippy the pavement is,” Keyser said after the Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Authority meeting Tuesday. “It means a lot to the airlines during a snow or ice event.”
The equipment was sent back to the manufacturer for recalibration and is now working, Keyser reported.
The de-acceleratometer is mounted on an airport vehicle, which is then driven about 30 mph along a runway before locking up the brakes, Keyser said.
“As soon as we get it plowed and cleared we go out and get those numbers,” Keyser said. “The airline does rely heavily on those numbers.”
Reports from the tests are relayed to Silver Airlines, which uses the data in determining if it’s safe to land in Johnstown.
Weather-related cancellations have plagued the airport, reducing passenger counts and revenue.
Board member Michael Parrish suggested getting a backup system. “This is one aspect we can control,” he said. “I think we should definitely consider some redundancy.”
Airport Manager RaNell Fenchak said she would look into adding another de-acceleratometer to equipment being purchased through some federal funding.
Meanwhile, plans for additional reporting have been developed to provide Silver with a more accurate picture of runway conditions in Johnstown, Fenchak said. The idea is to make sure airline managers at Dulles International Airport near Washington know what it looks like in Johnstown.
“We are going to report conditions 60 minutes prior to every departure (from Dulles),” Fenchak said. “If conditions change, we will report again 30 minutes prior to their arrival.”
Currently, Johnstown files the notice to airmen, or NoTAM, when conditions change, but the information may be several hours old when Silver managers make decisions about the local service, she said.
“There definitely was a lack of communication,” Parrish said. “They were scheduling us for a no-go or a fly-over without any relative data.”
Improving reliability has been a top priority for the authority, Parrish added.
“I think we have done all we possibly can to improve our winter performance,” he said. “We have remediated the communications problem.”
