I don't believe the Burley Airport will be closed. This is a picture of the runway with a light plane landing. I believe the processing plant is in the background. I think those are grain silos and not chimneys, but, the picture below shows the chimneys that Jim Bob Infanger discusses below.The Burley Airport (click here) was dedicated on the 4th of July 1930. It is located right on a bend just off the Snake River. It is one of the most stunning airports to fly into in Southern Idaho. The Airport rests just on the east side town but is still close enough to downtown that pilots can walk in for a bite to eat.
Rededication
In late October of 2002 the airport was rededicated Burley J R Jack Simplot Airport. If you wish to contact the airport call Kevin Gebhart at 678-7118....
The picture to the right is the street level view of the Gem State Processing Plant (click here). There are multiple smoke stacks and what appears to be grain elevators at the plant site. The grain elevators are in line with the products produced at this plant. At the very least any tower near any airport should have long lasting digital lights so planes can plainly see them on approach, but, there is something else I need to discuss below.
However, the picture below shows a lovely and competent pilot in Chelsea Brittney Infanger. She looks typical of the women in the Midwest that come from farming areas. Happy and competent in their career choices.
14 April 2022
By Rett NelsonIdaho Falls – A local family (click here) is mourning the loss of their daughter and sister after she was tragically killed in a plane crash Wednesday morning.
Chelsea Brittney Infanger, 30, of Salmon was the pilot of a single-engine Cessna 208B plane registered to Gem Air. It crashed into the Gem State Processing Plant in Heyburn around 8:35 a.m. Details of the crash are still being investigated, but Jim Bob Infanger, the pilot’s dad, tells EastIdahoNews.com Brittney, as she was known to friends and family, was delivering packages for UPS when the crash occurred.
“The company she worked for has a contract with UPS,” Jim Bob says. “They’ve got quite a few pilots and they fly six or eight of these routes every day and she was one of their main pilots flying a UPS route for them.”
Brittney had been flying for 11 years and was a “well-respected pilot way beyond her years,” according to her dad.
Jim Bob explains the Burley Municipal Airport is on the bank of the Snake River and on the opposite side is the processing plant his daughter collided with. He says Brittney flew to this airport all the time and was well aware of any obstacles.
“There’s a 60-foot chimney sticking out of the top of the food processing plant — no lights on it, dead center — straight across the runway. So whenever you come in, you have to fly over the top of this and drop down,” he says.
Jim Bob doesn’t officially know what happened but suggests she might have hit a bird on the way down and the coroner thinks the wing may have hit the chimney, causing the plane to flip. The Minidoka County Coroner is expected to release more information about what happened Thursday or Friday, according to the Heyburn Police Department....
In the years 2004 through 2009 I flew a lot primarily on the East Coast. It was with Delta airlines and there were brush burn incidents along the way whereby the pilots had to divert their direction and it was ususally straight up and I found myself pulling Gs.
Some small airports are in percarious places and the approaches can be difficult, one in particular was in Juneau, Alaska (Alaskan Air) where one of the runways have an approach between two mountains. On a cloudy day pilots sometimes have problems with coming in too close to the mountains, hence, the upward climb only to come in over the wetlands. So, to wonder about the approach of some small airports is appropriate.
However, in all the many years since my focus has been more intense regarding the climate, there is also a problem with small, light planes. The number per year that crash can be a bit unbelievable. They usually end in death to most adults in those planes. Sometimes a child will be alive, interestingly enough.
The problem as I see it is wind. I know private plane pilots and they tell some harrowing tales about their flights. Many of these pilots are well trained with significant time in the air, so their observations are interesting. There is such a reporting of a very similar set of circumstances and unless one is a pilot the idea that wind could cause these deaths and incidents would not necessarily occur to the average person. It may be some of these airports do need nearby buildings to be lit up and/or doppler radar to detect unexpected changes in wind.
One such tale was imparted to me regarding an approach of an airport in New Jersey called "Kupper Airport." The pilot had made plans and was flying alone coming into his destination airport when suddenly what seems out of nowhere a huge blast of wind literally took control of the airplane. He pushed the acceleration of the plane into high and pulled the nose up. It was all the right moves, but, the plane was now sideways in the air and he believed he was going to crash. The wind had literally held the plane in the path of the wind due to the aerodynamics of a plane now sideways and providing a large surface area. The pilot remembers seeing the wind sock go from gently blowing as expected to standing straight out with a turn in the opposite direction. As he climbed he could feel the aircraft coming back into control and he was now over the hanger where he should have crashed if the plane was not recovered. He was able to rise above the wind and it released the plane so he could circle around and inform the people on the ground he was going to approach a different airport. In about 30 minutes he landed safely, but, not without realizing his hands were shaking as he shutdown the engine.
One of the projects I always wanted to approach was a survey of commercial and small private plane pilots to determine if wind is a problem, how much of a problem and were their changes in normal patterns since 2003 when the chronic Midlatitude Vortexes came into dominance over the Jet Stream. I was never able to get that funding, but, the surveys still need to be done.
The FAA needs to add to these crashes and incidents whereby unexpected wind issues become near fatal, could be caused by the climate crisis. I have to wonder if this very competent UPS pilot met her death due to unexpected wind gusts. We have seen mulitude of YouTube videos of commercial airliners. struggling to land in strong winds with some very large jets even turning at angles before touching down only to have the pilots land safely. I think there is a real need for this research and the FAA should sponsor it if pilot unions do not. If nothing else it can create graphs that indicate the frequency of these incidents and the number of fatalities involved. There are probably more small planes in the air these days than two decades ago, but, the percentages should reveal where concern lies and find a quest to solve these problems.
My sincerest sympathies for the family of this wonderful woman pilot, Chelsea Brittney Infanger. I hope the investigation into her death shows the cause and a path can be laid to correct that danger.
