Damage Caused By Visiting Presidential Aircraft

Accepting some responsibility (and swallowing just a tiny bit of crow) for damaging a runway at the Las Cruces airport during a presidential visit last year, the Air Force has offered to pay the airport $623,000 for repairs -- which is much less than the $2.1 million that airport authorities had asked for.

The incident in question, as was reported extensively by ANN last year, all started when President Bush visited Las Cruces last August during his reelection campaign. At least two of the president's support aircraft, one C-32 (the military version of the B757) and a C-17 heavy-lift cargo plane, caused deep, half-mile long ruts in the soft asphalt surface of runway 4/22, upon landing on the longest runway of three at LRU.

To add insult to injury, airport officials maintain that they had told the Air Force several times in advance of the trip not to land the heavy aircraft there, as such an event was likely to occur.

While the city could not prevent the Air Force from landing there, it is still not clear why crews onboard those aircraft would want to land on that runway in the first place, as the soft surface could have caused significant damage to their aircraft, too.

Runway 4/22 has been closed to aircraft carrying more than 30 passengers since the incident. Smaller aircraft are strongly discouraged from utilizing on it, as well. On a popular airport website, the surface of 4/22 is described as "rutted and wavy."

According to Las Cruces Public Works Director Robert Garza, the settlement will not be presented to the city council until next month. No word yet on if the offer will be accepted... or if President Bush will be invited back to Las Cruces any time soon.

Some visitors who will be welcome at the airport are participants and spectators for the first annual Ansari X Prize Cup, scheduled to be held at the airport October 9th.

FMI: www.las-cruces.org/facilities/airport