Today’s Washington Post says National Airport will be closed “indefinitely” due to its proximitry to the Pentagon, Capitol &c.
This sounds like they’re envisioning shutting it down permanently.
If so, that’s a shame; I just came back on Monday from a vacation in Toronto, and DCA is one of the best airports in North America in terms of convenience, ease of use and lack of crowding.
Is National to become yet another casualty of this incident?
There’s no way, imo, that “indefinitely” = “permanently” in this case.
The tone on the news last night about it sure made indefinately sound like permanently to me. It is typically my airport of choice since I live in the District. Let’s hope when things get back to normal that it will re-open.
HUGS!
Sqrl
If they close National permanently, the DC area will need another airport.
Hell, the way the area’s growing, it’ll probably need another airport eventually anyway. (Southern PG County still has enough more-or-less open country that an airport there and not too far from DC would be possible, if they started planning now. Whatever sort of airport/transportation authority MD has should be thinking about this, and perhaps another major airport somewhere to the north of Baltimore. But if they are, I haven’t heard a peep.)
But the fact is, DC and Baltimore keep three airports awfully busy already. Shutting down one would put an extremely heavy load on the other two.
And bless you, Neidhart, for your choice of nomenclature. 
FWIW, I’ve been in favour of closing National long before Tuesday’s tragedies. The runway is too short, and the flight pattern goes directly over the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, thus ruining what should be quiet, pensive places.
Yes, it’s convenient, but it’s very dangerous. Close it down and expand the Metro to Dulles and the problems are solved.
I’d have to disagree, Montfort. I’ve flown out of Dulles; it’s become a very crowded airport. By shifting the traffic there, all you’re doing is solving one problem by exacerbating another.
Latest news states that the airport will remain closed for some time. According to a Cox News Service budget line: “Some experts say it may need to be reconfigured before it is opened again since it provides too easy access to possible terrorism targets.”
More to come when it happens.
heh. I refuse to call it “Reagan”; it already had a perfectly good name and there was no reason to change it.
I’m with Montfort. This airport should be closed because of the safety and security reasons. I don’t really think terrorists are any worse of a threat at National than any other airport; after all, the flight that hit the Pentagon flew out of Dulles. However the airport is so close dozens of structures where the results of a simple airplane crash could be devastating. Check out this map of the crash that happened several years ago at Washington National. There’s a runway pointing right at the Pentagon. I realize that the flight that crashed wouldn’t have taken exactly the same path but it could have easily crashed into the Pentagon had it taken another runway.
While posting on the same subject on Fathom, a potential solution to the dilemma occurred to me: a National-for-Andrews swap.
Andrews AFB is located just outside the Beltway, just off both Pennsylvania Ave./MD 4, the Suitland Parkway, and Branch Avenue (which is a 6-lane limited access highway along that stretch), so while it’s not quite as close to DC as National is, it’s way closer than either BWI or Dulles, and it’s well served by major roadways - better served, actually, than National.
It’s close enough to serve as the home base of Air Force One. I expect it stands ready to play a role in the air defense of Washington, if need be. Could those tasks not be handled equally well out of National, which is closer to the heart of the Capital? (That’s not a rhetorical question; it’s a military aviation question. While my intuition says it probably can, that intuition isn’t backed by much practical knowledge. Can any of our flyboys provide some useful input?)
Any military functions of Andrews that aren’t related to AF1 and the air defense of the capital would have to be moved elsewhere, in all likelihood. But there’s no reason not to do that, anyway.
Meanwhile, Andrews is close enough to serve as a major DC airport, and big enough (and in a more sparsely populated side of the area) that it could probably handle a great deal more traffic than National. Since it isn’t right on top of the White House, Pentagon, Capitol, etc., the reasons for closing National don’t apply nearly as strongly to a commercial airport at Andrews. And the Green Line would only have to be extended about two miles from its present terminus at Branch Avenue to reach Andrews, so it can easily be connected to public transportation - much more easily than with Dulles.
Seems like a win-win scenario to me, at first glance.
It’s spooky. I’ve never heard it more quiet here on a Saturday. Ever.
I like your idea, RTF. National would serve as an ideal platform for launching and maintaining remotely piloted drones. I bet we’ll be seeing more of those real soon.
That would make such a swap less taxing from a military perspective than I anticipated - they wouldn’t be losing any functionality of that sort that they already have and rely on.
I disagree with Sen. Warner’s comments in the linked article that switching the roles of the two facilities would be ‘conceding’ anything to the terrorists. It appears that this made perfect sense from any number of vantage points before Tuesday, but was politically impossible. That may well have changed, and if so, it makes sense to take advantage of the moment.
Know what would be a good name for it? Name the place after its actual location: Arlington County National Airport. I kind of like that.
Dulles has been planning to build another terminal for a while now; it’s a shame one was just opened at National. I think a new terminal would be able to easily handle the traffic that is diverted there from National.
I also like your idea to swap National and Andrews AFB. I haven’t a clue how to do that, it sounds like a policy nightmare (one is a quasi-governmental airport, the other is an Air Force Base). But, it would help our friends in southern Maryland and in P.G. county get to the airport.
My main gripe with National is the short runway. A few years ago, when certain [sub]western Republican[/sub] members of Congress were attempting to expand the 1,000 mile radius I knew that it would be a recipe for disaster, as a long-haul plane needs a longer runway than a shorter-haul jet does. National’s runway is barely long enough, and it ends rather close to the river; too close for my comfort. I was once on a plane that had to slam on the brakes while taking off from National, and we came awfully close to the end of the runway and the Potomac. Imagine a 747 attempting to land on an icy day, with bad weather in the air.
Or taking off. It’s been nearly 20 years, but I remember Air Florida 90’s unscheduled stop at the 14th Street Bridge.
I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but I just heard a jet coming in at National, one of the very quiet ones. 9:05 pm by my watch.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has stated that the National Security Council, not the FAA, will decide when National will reopen - and that, when it does, all takeoffs and landings must leave/return from the south. So when service resumes, it looks like DCA will only be half the airport it used to be.
I rolled my eyes when I saw that, RTFirefly. Airplanes take off and land into the wind. How often does Washington get wind from the south?
Hardly ever.
:rolleyes:
