NEW HAVEN — Neighbors of Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, many of whom oppose airport expansion, have turned up the heat after a number of Avelo Airlines flights over the weekend were diverted because of fog, with several sent to an airport in Delaware, 206 miles away.
Lori Foster, who lives just about 500 feet from Tweed’s runway on Uriah Street in New Haven’s Morris Cove section, said that beginning around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, only one plane was able to land, with all others aborting.
“They were coming in fast and low and overrunning the runway,” Foster said. “The sound was loud and unfamiliarly ominous.” The problems continued Monday, Foster said.
“I’m looking out my window” and can see that it’s foggy, said Lorena Venegas, an East Haven resident who opposes expansion at Tweed.
She wondered aloud why Avelo, which offers flights to 15 destinations from Tweed and will soon add a 16th and 17th in Daytona Beach, Fla. and Melbourne, Fla., has had several flights since Saturday make multiple attempts to land before heading off to land at Wilmington Airport in New Castle County, Del.
With the type of airplane Avelo primarily uses, a Boeing 737-800, “you need 6,000 (feet) in dry conditions, Venegas said.
Tweed’s runway, which it is seeking to expand as part of a proposed expansion project that also would include a new six-gate terminal on the East Haven side of the airport, is 5,600 feet.
Tweed expansion opponents, at a time when a draft Environment Assessment for Tweed’s expansion plan is being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration, have been urging their allies to complain about problems at Tweed. They were doing to even before this weekend’s diversions.
“Right now, we have a flight from Orlando and they can’t land,” Venegas, who tracks the flights on an online website, said Monday afternoon. “Right now, they’re going to Wilmington, Del.”
When planes try to land and then pull up and continue on, “that noise is horrific,” Venegas said. “… It’s been over 18 times in three days.”
Avelo spokesman Jim Olson said there were a total of seven diverted flights Saturday and Sunday, including four Saturday and three Sunday. (At least one additional flight appeared to have been diverted Monday, after he spoke.)
On Saturday, all four were sent to Wilmington. On Sunday, two went to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks and one went to Wilmington.
