Regarding your follow-up to the letter by Mr. Morrow regarding the closure of Chapel Hill’s Horace Williams Airport (A better use for Horace Williams Airport land? May 5 issue), you stated that “We can only wonder at the basis for the statement that ‘most of us as residents of Chapel Hill regard the airport as dangerous…’ In conversations with those on both sides of the issue, the only suggestions of ‘danger’ have come from university administrators who want to close the airport.”
You might be interested to know that, in the last 25 years, there have been several crashes and at least 12 fatalities that were a direct result of takeoffs or landings at the airport. Thank God that no one on the ground has been injured yet, but with five public schools within a mile of the runway, many of us in Chapel Hill believe it’s only a matter of time before an even worse disaster strikes if the airport were to remain open.
Next time, you might want to do a little more research before responding to someone who obviously has a much better grasp of the subject.
Jim Birch
via email
Editor’s Note: Mr. Burch’s figures and those of the NTSB disagree. According to the NTSB database, there have been 11 accidents/incidents resulting in seven fatalities out of Horace Williams since 1970. One wonders how many takeoffs and landings there have been in that same time frame, and how many fatal automobile accidents have been generated by UNC faculty and students during those years.