Did Contractor Do Shoddy Work... Or Is This Just Grandstanding?

Calling Long Island's MacArthur Airport "a model of exactly how we should not run our airports," on Tuesday New York Senator Charles Schumer called for the FAA to launch a safety audit of the facility.

Newsday reports Schumer's request comes on the heels of recent safety concerns following -- and, Schumer says, related to -- a recent $65 million expansion at the busy airport. The senator claims that expansion was "done so poorly and, quite possibly, crookedly" that the FAA needs to get involved.

"As a result of the town's poor job managing the airport, safety has been imperiled, corruption has run rampant and the precious economic value to the region has been needlessly threatened," Schumer wrote in a letter to FAA Administrator Marion Blakey. "Therefore, MacArthur is in desperate need of not only a comprehensive, one-time safety audit, but also careful and continuous oversight by the FAA."

In particular, Schumer and others at the airport are concerned with cracking asphalt on airport aprons laid down during an expansion of the airport two years ago. Cracking in asphalt can cause chunks of the paving material to break free... which could then get drawn into an airliner's turbofan engines.

As Aero-News reported in August, Southwest Airlines sued the paving company, Pav-Co, for substandard workmanship. The Dallas-based airline, which is the largest carrier at MacArthur, funded most of the expansion.

At the time, a lawyer for Southwest acknowledged the carrier knew the cracks were "not an emergency... [b]ut we also know that whatever it is, we're going to want it fixed."

Officials with the city government of Islip, NY -- which oversees the airport -- declined to comment on Schumer's accusations. The town referred all questions to the PR firm hired to promote the airport.

"We would welcome any and all regulatory oversight and we would cooperate with any and all calls for further examination of how this airport operates," Rubenstein and Associates spokesman Gary Lewi said.

Schumer's comments have drawn fire from other area business officials, including the vice chairman of the Long Island Business Aviation Association, Bill McShane -- who said the apron cracks were not a public safety issue, and if the airport was unsafe it would have been shut down already.

Furthermore, some Islip officials hinted Schumer's news conference -- held in front of the short-term parking structure at the airport -- was nothing more than political grandstanding... as the Democratic candidate for Islip supervisor stood alongside Schumer during the event. The senator also endorsed Phil Nolan in his three-way race for the position.

Schumer, of course, is no stranger to a microphone when it comes to aviation safety issues... most recently in the aftermath of October's crash of a Cirrus SR20 into a Manhattan highrise.

"I do think that every flight should have to fly a flight plan, every plane should be identified, every plane should not be allowed in willy-nilly," New York Senator Charles Schumer said in response to that accident.

FMI: www.macarthurairport.com, www.senate.gov/~schumer/