Pilots who fly near Springfield, Mo., should draw an X through Airpark South (2K2) on their sectionals. The airport was closed Jan. 1 because it was determined that the 2,800-foot runway is unsafe.
Unimproved since the 1950s, the runway is uneven and has cracks in the asphalt.
“It is a liability issue,” said Gary Cyr, director of the Springfield-Branson Airport Board, which oversees Airpark South. “It is a privately-owned public use airport and we couldn’t allow just the nine guys with their airplanes based there to use it and no one else, so we closed it.”
Repairs were not an option because of plans to rebuild Airpark South into a reliever field for Springfield-Branson National Airport (SGF). The board put up $1.5 million and received an additional $3.5 million from the Missouri Department of Transportation for land acquisition. It began buying up land near the airport. However, the land acquisition costs proved to be greater than the cost of the entire project. That has officials rethinking the project.
If the project is dropped, the property will be sold so that the state can be reimbursed, Cyr said.