Airports closed, Air Races in jeopardy

Tom Gardner

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001 | 5:17 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Normally noisy runways at the Las Vegas and Reno airports remained quiet Wednesday after the government put resumption of full schedules in limbo.

Also in limbo is this year's National Championship Air Races.

"The Reno-Tahoe International Airport remains closed in response to what's going on at the national level," spokesman Adam Mayberry said.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the government was committed to resuming commercial flights as soon as possible, "as soon as we can do so safely."

In the meantime, airlines were allowed to redeploy empty planes, and flights that were diverted to airports other than their destinations were allowed to return to the air Wednesday - but only after following strict new security guidelines.

Reno's only diverted plane was a United Airlines flight from Denver to San Francisco that was told to land in Reno when the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the skies after Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It remained on the ground late Wednesday.

In Las Vegas, McCarran International Airport spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said there were 74 aircraft on the tarmac, although she did not know how many had been diverted. Of those, 64 were commercial carriers and 10 air cargo carriers.

McCarran averages 900 daily flights and about 110,000 passengers per day. It's the seventh busiest airport in the country and 11th busiest in the world.

Reno, which averages 83 flights a day, has 20 planes on the ground, Mayberry said.

The standown comes at a poor time for the Elko Regional Airport, which had scheduled the grand opening of its terminal Sept. 19. It, like the Reno and Las Vegas facilities, is closed.

At the Reno Stead Airport north of Reno, the skies were empty again Wednesday as the scheduled final day of qualifying was scrubbed because of the federal grounding order.

Air Racing Association President Mike Houghton said it was only hoped the shutdown would be lifted on Thursday so qualifying could get under way.

The original schedule called for racing to begin on Thursday after three days of qualifying. Race officials were pursuing some sort of exemption similar to that granted firefighting aircraft.

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Associated Press reporter Lisa Snedeker contributed to this report.