The runway was closed for nearly 16 hours, disrupting commercial flights Friday.|
EMMA MURPHY AND MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County airport runway closure
Are you flying in or out of the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport? Have you experienced any delays or been warned of potential delays at the airport?
Let us know.
You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.
You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.
The discovery of a hole overnight Thursday underneath the main runway at Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport forced airport officials to close that runway for nearly 16 hours, disrupting commercial flights Friday.
The subsurface hole was discovered on the runway around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, about 10 minutes after the last commercial flight landed at 10:20 p.m., Airport Manager Jon Stout told The Press Democrat on Friday afternoon. That fight, operated by Alaska Horizon, according to the flight tracking website flightradar24.com, originated in Seattle.
“When we got out to the runway, we had a hole that had appeared on the runway,” Stout said. “It was not there during our evening inspection.”
Stout said the hole was near an area of failing runway highlighted in a Press Democrat investigation published in April about deteriorating pavement and other safety concerns at the airport.
Short-term repair work was completed Friday morning, but the runway did not reopen until just before 2 p.m. after the Federal Aviation Administration granted clearance, said Johannes Hoevertsz, director of the county’s Public Infrastructure Department, which oversees the airport.
Photos shared by the county showed an area of the north-south Runway 14/32 with three concrete patches each spanning four feet or more across the tarmac.
Alaska Airlines confirmed that two of its Friday flights were disrupted by the closure. One was diverted to Sacramento and the other to Oakland. Passengers who were diverted to Oakland were shuttled via ride share services to Santa Rosa, the airline confirmed in an email.
“Guests who were diverted to Sacramento are preparing to depart again for Santa Rosa. We apologize to our guests for the inconvenience,” the airline said in a 3:08 p.m. email Friday to The Press Democrat.
Alaska is the airport’s dominant commercial carrier, alongside upstart Avelo Airlines and American Airlines.
Other planes used the airport’s secondary runway while the main runway was closed, Stout said.
The closure for emergency runway repairs is likely to raise new questions about the full extent of the county’s maintenance backlog and urgency of longer-term runway work at the growing airport north of Santa Rosa.
About the Sonoma County airport
Constructed just before World War II on 339 acres outlying northwest Santa Rosa, the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport was initially used as a military airfield.
The U.S. Fourth Air Corps trained fighter groups and squadrons at the site from 1943 to 1946. After the war it resumed operations as a civil airfield and underwent some growth through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
Today, the airport offers service from three commercial airlines — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Avelo Airlines — with 15 nonstop destinations by May, as well as a newly renovated, $40 million terminal.
In 2023, it served a total 641,178 passengers. Avelo’s new hub could bring even more.
The airfield has two runways, with only one, Runway 14/32, capable of handling large commercial aircraft. That runway also is the site of many of the airport’s current infrastructure problems.
Airport and county officials have continued to insist, as they did again Friday, that the airport and its runways are safe and meet all FAA requirements.
The hole was not evident on Runway 14/32 during the airport’s regular evening inspection, which takes place between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., Stout said. He said he did not know if the hole had already formed when the last plane landed, but the pilots did not report anything.
Airport staff, including Stout, and contracted engineers discovered “voids,” or underground cavities, while conducting a previously scheduled subterranean survey of the runway using radar.
Stout on Friday could not provide the sinkhole’s dimensions because it “wasn’t a clean void.” He said crews had to cut a larger opening to pump slurry into the hole. Crews used about six yards of infill material, he said.
In an Instagram post Friday afternoon, the airport described the problem as a “limited section of degraded pavement with some depressions and separations.”
Hoevertsz said he wasn’t surprised by the discovery because the culvert is “failing.”
“The culverts are older, they’re expected to fail at some point and this is what a culvert does when it fails. It says ‘Hey, I’m done, come replace me,’” Hoevertsz said in an interview Friday afternoon.
