Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport (MTPP): update on 1/16/2010 @ 11:15 AM EST

I found two FAA advisories dated Jan. 16, 2010 (005, 007) updating the situation at MTPP. The ground stop at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport (MTPP) was canceled late yesterday (EST). I am copying relevant portions of the text of FAA advisories 005 and 007 date 1/16/2010 and one of the notams (notices to airmen) referred to in advisory 007.

A word on the notam, from what I understand from my pilot friends, the FAA often issues multiple notams with the same wording to ensure that the notice gets out to all affected parties. In this case there are three notams all saying that the "U.S. Government has established temporary air traffic flow management procedures for flights into MTPP."

ATCSCC ADVZY 005 DCC 01/15/2010 HAITI UPDATE
MESSAGE: THE GROUND STOP FOR TRAFFIC DESTINED MTPP HAS BEEN CANCELED. THIS ADVISORY SUPERSEDES ALL PREVIOUS ISSUED FAA COMMAND CENTER ADVISORIES CONCERNING OPERATIONS AT PORT AU PRINCE - MTPP AIRPORT. ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATING INTO MTPP MUST COMPLY WITH NOTAMS 0/1856 AND 0/1857. THE FAA COMMAND CENTER CRISIS MANAGEMENT CENTER RECOVERY DESK WILL REMAIN STAFFED AND BE AVAILABLE FOR INFORMATION DISSEMINATION AND ASSISTANCE.
EFFECTIVE TIME: 160030 - 160559
SIGNATURE: 10/01/16 00:31

ATCSCC ADVZY 007 DCC 01/15/2010 HAITI UPDATE NOTAM CLARIFICATION
MESSAGE: ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATING INTO MTPP MUST COMPLY WITH NOTAMS ZZZ 0/1856, FDC 0/1857 OR KFDC A0001/10.
EFFECTIVE TIME: 160050 - 160559
SIGNATURE: 10/01/16 00:51

NOTAM Request for: KFDC A0001/10
KFDC A0001/10 KFDC - .. SPECIAL TEMPORARY ACCESS PROCEDURES FOR MTPP .. AT THE REQUEST OF ICAO AND HAITI'S NEIGHBORING STATES IN SUPPORT OF EARTHQUAKE RELIEF OPERATIONS, THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS ESTABLISHED TEMPORARY AIR TRAFFIC FLOW MANAGEMENT PROCEDURES FOR FLIGHTS INTO MTPP. ALL FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT FLYING TO MTPP ARE REQUIRED TO BE ON AN ACTIVE IFR FLIGHTPLAN AND PRIOR TO DEPARTURE OBTAIN ARRIVAL SLOT TIMES FROM THE HAITI FLIGHT OPERATIONS COORDINATION CENTER. ARRIVAL SLOT TIMES ARE VALID +/- 20 MINUTES OF THE SCHEDULED ARRIVAL TIME. IF UNABLE TO MEET SCHEDULED ARRIVAL SLOT TIMES, CONTACT THE HAITI FLIGHT OPERATIONS COORDINATION CENTER OR YOUR CONTROLLING AGENCY TO COORDINATE NEW SLOT TIMES. DEPARTURES FROM MTPP MUST COMPLY WITH NORMAL ATC PROCEDURES. ALL OPERATORS ARE ADVISED THAT FUEL AND OTHER GROUND SUPPORT SERVICES MAY BE UNAVAILABLE. 16 JAN 00:01 2010 UNTIL UFN. CREATED: 15 JAN 23:54 2010

Toussaint L'Ouverture (MTPP): update 12:10 PM EST

Delays by Destination:

* Due to NO RAMP SPACE, departure traffic destined to MTPP airport will not be allowed to depart until at or after 19:00 UTC.

It seems that the problems of no ramp space at MTPP continues. Not surprising. Instead of posting these every two hours, I'll monitor on my own, and touch base on this tomorrow. In the meantime, those of you who are interested in following the status of MTPP can go to the map on this FAA webpage and click on any of the airports to see the FAA notices of delays be destination.

Toussaint L'Ouverture (MTPP): update 10:30 AM EST

Delays by Destination:

* Due to NO RAMP SPACE, departure traffic destined to MTPP airport will not be allowed to depart until at or after 17:00 UTC.

Ground stop continues at Toussaint L'Ouverture

I just checked the the FAA webpage that I wrote about last night and found that there is a ground stop on flights to Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport (MTPP) until 15:00 UTC (3 PM) or 10 AM EST.

Delays by Destination:

* Due to NO RAMP SPACE, departure traffic destined to MTPP airport will not be allowed to depart until at or after 15:00 UTC.

Toussaint L'ouverture International Airport: 1/14/10 @ 11 PM

I went to the Aviation Week website and found two updates on conditions at Toussaint L'ouverture International Airport (MTPP) in Port Au Prince.

1. In this article, James Ott of Aviation Week reports that crews from the U.S. are assisting Haitians in staffing a remote temporary Control Tower serving MTPP. Ott reports that only 12 ramp positions were available at the airport. He reports on other difficulties faced by humanitarian flights into MTPP today.

2. Paul McLearly writes about the important role played by the U.S. Air Force's 23^rd Tactics Special Tactics Squadron, 720^th Special Tactics group a late afternoon post to the Defense Technology Blog at Aviation Week. He writes:

The 720th, based out of Hurlburt Field, Fla. is a force designed to be rapidly deployed to provide the tactical ground-to-air communications required to link up air assets with special operations missions on the ground, and in Haiti, they’re running the show until more help arrives.

Speaking with reporters on a conference cal this afternoon, Lt. Col. Brett J. Nelson, Commander of the 23^rd / 720^th; said that when his team arrived, “the airfield from a structural perspective was in good condition, but… there were uncontrolled operations going on there for at least twenty-four hours prior to our arrival, so it was in quite a state of disarray on the ramp in particular. The first priority was to get that efficiently organized in some way and we continue to work that effort.”

According to Lt. Col. Nelson, there were as many as 44 aircraft on the ground at the airport this afternoon being unloaded and taking on evacuees. See the article for more information on the work of 720^th.

FAA has ground stop on flights to Toussaint L'ouverture Inter. Airport

Much thanks to one of my pilot friends who helped me find some info from the FAA website confirming a CNN report that I saw earlier that flights to Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport (MTPP) have been suspended. I looked around, but could not find confirming information from the FAA until my friend pointed me in the right direction.

Here is what my friend pointed me to. If you go to this FAA webpage, you will see a map of the country showing some of the major airports. The purpose being so you can easily find flight delay information. So, I clicked on the dot for Miami International Airport,and saw this information:

Delays by Destination:
* Due to AIRBORNE INVENTORY, departure traffic destined to MTPP airport will not be allowed to depart until at or after 01:00 UTC.

I clicked on the dots for several other airports, Newark, Washington International, Teterboro, Logan in Boston and saw the same information. You can also find this same information on Flight Aware's webpage for MTTP (Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport), this page may be found here.

As I write this, it is a almost 7:30 PM EST, which means it is 12:30 AM in London. If I am thinking about this correctly, UT is universal time where UT is the time at the Greenwich meridian which runs through Greenwich England. I've been to Greenwich and its observatory, it is across the Thames River from London. If you are interested, go here for information on the current time in time zones around the world.

Update on aviation situation in Haiti (1/14/10, 3:40 PM)

Christopher Fotos of Aviation Week's Things with Wings Commercial Aviation Blog, posted an an article with links to reports from the Wall Street Journal on the opening of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport and other relief efforts, and the relief efforts of American Airlines. In addition to the information provided by Things with Wings, I just found a NY Times articles with more aviation related information.

According to this Wall Street Journal article, troops from the U.S. Southern Operations Command led efforts to repair the quake damaged Air Traffic Control Tower at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport (MTPP). The good news is that MTPP is now open for 24/7 operations. The article also reports on the deployment of other relief teams from the U.S. and elsewhere.

For an update on the relief efforts on American Airlines go here (another Wall Street Journal article). As I reported earlier today, American Airlines efforts are restricted to the very important role of flying in supplies and equipment, notably water, food, and other supplies. They are unable to fly in passengers at the moment.

Unfortunately, while MTPP is open, there are other problems at the airport as reported by this NY Times article. To summarize, airplanes are backed up at MTPP, both on the ground and in the air. The airport is crowded with civilian and military aircraft on the ground, some waiting to be unloaded. Additional airplanes, including cargo transports are stacked in the air waiting to land on the one runway. There are also reports of shortages of aviation fuel, the result being that some aircraft are unable to leave because of these aviation fuel shortages. The article also discusses problems arising from the damage to the seaport, and difficulty in travel by road in and around Port Au Prince including travel by ground out of the airport.

copyright 2010 K. Tyler Miller

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.