Haiti Earthquake: focusing on aviation

I am sure that most of you have been following the tragic earthquake that has wrought untold devastation and loss of life on Haiti. Because I write about aviation, I was curious about the status of the airport near Port Au Prince, so I did some checking this morning. And while I was at it, I came across some reports about the response of the General Aviation community and the Commercial Airlines in the U.S. I end with a list of internet sites, aviation and others, that I have looked at this morning.

This airport, the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, has one asphalt runway (10/28) that is approximately 9,974 feet long. More information about the Toussaint Louverture International Airport (MTPP) may be found here.

From what I understand from various media reports, the Air Traffic Control Tower at MTPP either collapsed or has seen significant damage. The United States is assisting in efforts to provide air traffic control to relief flights bound for MTPP. Some time during the day yesterday, the Haitian Aviation Authority issued what is known as a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), restricting flights to relief flights (emergency aid, equipment, supplies, and emergency personnel). See for example this report from Aviation Week.

Power is out in many areas in Haiti. I wonder about the status of the runway lighting and the electric supply elsewhere at MTPP. I also wonder about the navigational aides in and around MTPP. and I expect that this means that runway lighting at MTPP is affected. Then there are the navigational aides in or near the MTPP airport, between power outages and other disruption to radio communications; I suspect that these navigational aides are, at the very least, unreliable. Of course, these are my own speculations, as I have not seen specific reports addressing either the runway lights at MTPP or the status of their navigational aides.

Reuters is reporting here about the response of American Commercial Airlines. General Aviation is helping out also, as reported by the AOPA here.

There is a second international airport in Haiti, Cap-Haitien International Airport (MTCH). For more specific information about this airport, including runway length (4,886 ft), go here. I am uncertain about the status of this airport, so I don't know if there was any earthquake related damage. It is located in the northeastern portion of the country.

For those of you who are interested, here are some sites that I checked out this morning in regards to the earthquake. The first two are aviation specific. I have also included some links to maps, and finally links to a couple of wildfire related blogs that I follow, both of whom have written about the earthquake.

1. Aviation Week, with news report, links to blogs, and the like. I do not subscribe to the Aviation Week periodical, so I suspect that there is information that I don't have access to. However, there is much that I have been able to access on this site in the past. At least one of their writers is writing about the earthquake.

2. Aviation News Today provides a variety of links to external media sources on the latest news affecting the aviation community. I got the Reuters report mentioned earlier from this site.

3. The U.S. Geologic Service has a page of various maps devoted to the Haiti quake on this webpage..

4. A google map (where you can zoom in) may be found here.

5. Ramblings of a Chief Officer is writing about the earthquake, see for example this article where he writes about U.S. emergency responders.

6. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today is also writing about the earthquake, for example see this article.

I'll get back to my final post in my series on Flying Fires -- Fog, smoke and VFR or IFR in a few days. I'll try to keep abreast of aviation concerns related to the earthquake in Haiti and report back here.

Update: Jan 14 11:30 AM. Just found this CNN article providing updated information about the role of U.S. Airlines in earthquake relief in Haiti. Apparently, the role of the relief efforts of U.S. Airlines, for example Jet Blue and American Airlines, is limited to flying in supplies and other equipment to aid in relief. They are not able to fly in passengers, including relief workers (physicians and nurses), at this time. The CNN article cited above is also reporting the following:

U.S. Embassy staff at the Port-au-Prince airport said the tower and the lights were working, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday.