Fog Shuts Down San
José Airport. Again.
Once again the problems
with the approaching
landing lights, or
better the lack of, at
the Juan Santamaría (San
José) international
airport last caused a
half dozen flights
delayed or diverted to
other airports and
thousands of people
affected.
At 8:00pm, the beginning
of the peak hour at
night, the Santamaría
was fogged in. No
flights were allowed to
land or take off.
At first flights like
Continental's from
Newark circled the
airport several times
but eventually was
diverted to Liberia.
Between 8:00pm and
11:30pm, only two
flights were able to
land, all the others
were kept on hold until
finally were cancelled.
Continental's 1796 for
instance was ready to
fly to San José but
returned to gate at
Liberia several times
before it was decided to
cancel the flight.
Normally fog is a
problem in the months of
October and November.
However, due to changing
climatic conditions, it
is more often.
The problem, of course,
is not the weather
alone, but the
government's dragging
its feet on installing
an approach lighting
system, or ALS.
The ALS allows the pilot
to visually identify the
runway environment once
he or she has arrived at
a prescribed point on an
approach.
"The approach lights are
a big help and used to
line up the airplane
with the landing strip,
without them the
approach distance is
minimal", said Juan
Carlos Barquero, TACA
operations manager.
According to the pilots
the responsibility of
the consequences of an
accident is on their
shoulders and many,
especially for the
foreign airline pilots,
prefer not to land in
foul weather without the
approach lights.
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