Hannibal Regional Airport in Missouri is a small place with a 4,400ft runway and apparently not much security. People have literally been driving in and using the runway as a private drag strip and the community is working with the local police to combat the practice that often happens late at night. According to people who are at the facility around the clock with a medical helicopter service, they often see and hear cars on the runway at all hours. It would seem like putting a gate up with someone standing at it 24 hours a day, seven days a week would pretty much handle the issue but apparently increased police patrols and other strategies have cut down the incidents of cars and motorcycles charging down the strip like it is their personal playground.
In the most recent story we could find about the matter, an FAA official met with the airport authority recently and they brought up the issue to said FAA guy and it seems like they were surprised by the fact that the FAA agent was non-plussed when they told him what was going on. They learned that this is a common problem/issue at small airports around the country. Color us a little surprised but it seems like it shouldn’t be as easy as it apparently is for people to drive into airports and streak up and down active runways. Places like Hannibal do not operate like a major metropolitan airport. Often these places do not have a tower and they often do not have 24-hour employees. It is actually interesting that they have that 24-hour medical chopper service that runs out of the property. If those people were not there to alert the airport and local police, chances are no one would know this was going on.
Along with the police patrols, the installation of a video security system is being debated. We’re still thinking that a fence is the best idea but that’s just us.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL STORY ON ILLEGAL AIRPORT DRAG RACING
Boys i live about a mile or two from the airport. Its use as a drag strip has been blown way way way out of proportion by a story hungry media that tried tontie this mess to street outlaws.
Oh dont get me wrong its being done by street bikes and wanna be fast and furious types.
But it is far from anything like street outlwas or organized.
Beleive me if it was like street outlaws over there id have been there watching…..
If the runway isn’t used frequently for air traffic, why not monetize this opportunity and charge the would-be racers for use of the strip??
Exactly, there’s a money making opportunity staring them right in the face.
Liability concerns probably. The insurance on the property doesn’t include drag racing I am sure.
how about safety… without an active tower when planes try to land in an emergency or as a stopover refueling spot they have no way of knowing if the runway is being used for other activities.. it puts both the people in the plane and the racers lives at risk…
Members only, have two lights on a pole. Red means its in land use, green means air, and someone has to be monitoring a radio.
Done.
I have to admit I think its kinda awesome! Certainly safer than doing it on the public streets. I recall in the early ’60’s a light plane trying to land at San Fernando dragstrip as a pair of cars were making a pass. So there…
Happened at Carlsbad a few times, too. My uncle was a flight instructor and said the newer pilots would get confused as it was on almost the exact vector for the Palomar runway.
We got told that the faa would revoke all the grants and funding if they used the runway for racing cause seriously its 4400 feet of perfect concrete thats alotnof shut down even for 1/4 mile races…
This is what we are told about the airport here. They will loose their FAA grants/funding if they were to use the airstrip for anything other than airplanes.
Airport or the streets
The way they keep shutting down tracks around here I’m not surprised. They could probably make up for the loss of grants but then it’d get shut down for “noise” too.
Several years ago after 911 the Feds offered matching funds to fence and secure these small airports with the feds putting up as much as 90% of the cost. It was my understanding that any community that that didn’t come up with the matching funds to secure their airport would no longer get anymore help from the feds until they secured their airport at 100% their own expense. Seems to that community dropped the ball and no longer has a reason to complain.
Not many small airports can afford to buy a couple miles of fencing.
My town has a 5000 foot airport. There are times when I’ve thought it would be nice to use it for a couple test runs. But the truth is that it’s a really bad idea. First of all, there is the liability issue. Second – IT’S AN AIRPORT! Airplanes landing do not need to have to deal with cars or other stuff (like wildlife) on the runway. Then there is the FAA thing.
So no I won’t use my local airport for testing. But I will use it for my airplane.
One more thing – most small airports have runways that really aren’t wide enough for two cars at speed.
They would not lose their grants or funding if they used it for racing. In Michigan, we have a couple of airports that shut down for a whole weekend and let people race their street cars on a runway. They just have to notify the FAA far enough in advance that the airport will be closed. Local car clubs actually run the events. They are eight mile and the club covers the insurance.
A lot of Bob Boudreau’s photos have appeared on Bangshift for Sanair and New England Dragway racing. He has a whole bunch of them on a F.B. group for Pennfield Dragway which operated from the 60’s to mid 90’s as an organized drag strip and regular not so legal racing. It is an abandoned WWII training site in New Brunswick Canada.
Keyword in your post.. Abandoned.. not active..
I live in Hannibal this is a big lie. Lol msybe some high school kids made a couple passes. We have our strips and they’re not at the airport. Nothing even close to street outlaws level around here.
If I was the owner of that air strip… I’d charge them, apparently they don’t have any where to race without getting busted.