Washoe County Airports Director Wants Answers About FAA Equipment Failures

The exodus of stranded passengers from Reno-Tahoe International Airport appears to be over after a snowstorm caused the airport's ILS to fail at just the wrong time.

They left on standby, they left by car and some simply left with friends or relatives after they were stranded by the malfunction.

It was the second time in a month that the glideslope antenna froze up, according to Reno-Tahoe spokesman Brian Kulpin.

"Why wasn’t this piece of equipment fixed?" airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said. "That is a question we’ll be seeking an answer to all the way through to Washington."

Indeed, Kulpin told the Reno Gazette that Krys Bart, executive director of the Washoe County Airport Authority, is headed for Washington and a possible showdown with FAA officials over the failure.

Kulpin said he's never heard of flights being canceled because of an ILS failure.

"You don’t hear the reports (of that happening)," FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer told the Gazette. "We do have ILS problems. Equipment does sometimes fail. We’ll do an investigation and find out what all the factors were that came into play to cause it and ideally we’ll put something in place to make sure those things that failed don’t fail again. I can’t really speak to the reliability of the equipment."

Stay tuned.

FMI: www.renoairport.com, www.faa.gov