Fog cancels a few flights

4 free views left!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Wenatchee

Heavy fog canceled at least two flights from Pangborn Memorial Airport to Seattle last week, but the weather looks good for flights early this week.

A 10:30 a.m. flight was canceled Saturday and one other earlier in the week due to heavy fog, said Trent Moyers, Pangborn Airport manager. Far fewer flights have been canceled due to fog since instrument landing equipment was installed at the airport in 2006, but they still do occur.

Flights can be canceled when visibility drops below a quarter of a mile. Horizon Air’s minimum requirements for arrivals and departures is a ceiling of 300 feet and visibility of one mile.

“Some things are out of our control,” Moyers said this morning. “Right now, it looks good, but the crystal ball to see into the future is somewhat foggy.” Travelers are advised to call Alaska Airlines for flight information, 800-252-7522 .

The National Weather Service is forecasting mostly cloudy weather with a slight chance of rain early in the week for the Wenatchee Valley, with the chance of rain, freezing rain or snow increasing through Thursday. Higher elevations are likely to get freezing rain or snow. Low temperatures will be in the upper 20s, with highs near 40 through the week.

— Rick Steigmeyer, World staff

» Recommend this story.

» 6 comments on this story

Want to comment on this story? All Wenatchee World members are invited to comment on stories, by using the form below. Please know that we at wenatcheeworld.com hope our site is useful, entertaining and civil. So we'll delete comments that are obscene, abusive or way off topic. We appreciate it when readers use the "suggest removal" button to flag inappropriate comments. For more about interacting with the site, see our Use Policy.

grbadave 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Pangborn: why haven't you install equipment used at other airports which renders fog irrelevant?

lonedog3 4 months, 2 weeks ago

they are a primarily VFR airport due the local and proximity Badger mountain. with fog visibility under 500 feet you will never get planes in here. A lot more flights fail to leave or arrive than indicated. Moses Lake on the other hand, has little if any problem accepting both ifr and vfr landings and takeoffs.

grbadave 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Thanks. But isn't there technology that can address this? I mean, the mtn doesn't move and a computer and a fancy radar could handle it, right? I've been on flights at other airports where I couldn't see a thing until we we're practically landed. Is it something about the limited power of the prop planes AK Air flies, or is the eqiupment just more expensive than Pangborn wants to invest? I don't understand why a (very expensive) runway extension is a priority under these circumstances.

lonedog3 4 months, 2 weeks ago

it is the rather large egos at the port of Chelan that feels the need to spend our tax money on the runway, which the planes leaving now barley use 1/2 as it is, rather than a new IFR system.

loves2travel 4 months, 2 weeks ago

I was waiting for someone a few weeks ago at SeaTac, and they couldn't land because of the fog there.

grbadave 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Fair enough; some flights will be cancelled from time to time. I'm not sure what the conditions were at SeaTac when you had this problem. Once in a while I'm willing to give any airport a bad weather pass. At Pangborn this is not a rare event. That needs to change. Without reliable service, this airport will never be able to compete with driving over to the W side. I used to say to myself, well sometimes the snowy roads are closed, which is true, but I've been burned too many times at Pangborn to trust it anymore. Fog banks overhead in the winter at that location are like hot sunny days in the summer. We need an airport that can function under both of of our prevailing weather patterns.