Opposition is rising as Horry eyes closing Twin City Airport
When he’s not teaching future pilots, John Stephenson restores aircraft in his hanger at Twin City Airport. (Deuce Niven, TLT)
By DEUCE NIVEN
tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com
Twin City Airport’s future is again in doubt, with a growing chorus of support spearheaded by one of its newer operators.
John Stephenson purchased a hanger on the edge of the county owned airport property five years ago and operates Attitude Aviators, a flight school on the property. He and other hanger owners were notified of a decision by the Horry County Department of Airports to close the facility in a June 29 letter from Horry County Deputy Attorney H. Randolph Haldi.
Haidi wrote that the department “has made the difficult decision to initiate discussions with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to close the runway and remove Loris-Twin Cities Airport from the NAS (National Airspace System).
That decision, a statement from the Department of Airports said, followed “a lengthy evaluation of the airport’s activity levels, financial sustainability, future infrastructure needs, and long-term viability.”
That “lengthy evaluation” did not appear to include stakeholders at the airport, including Stephenson and others with hangers and/or businesses adjacent to the airport property.
“That letter was the first I’d heard of it,” Stephenson said. “I don’t know anyone else who knew.”
In the weeks since receiving the letter Stephenson has begun to reach out to community leaders, government officials, and to citizens. A private group Facebook page has already generated 250 members and counting as of Tuesday. Members include fixed base operators, pilots, student pilots, and even an ultralight pilot who posted that no other nearby airport would accommodate his flying.
Getting educated on the airport, its place in the county system, and the decision making process that has brought him and others to this point, has been difficult but necessary, Stephenson said. Conflict is not his goal, resolution is.
“I want to find a solution,” Stephenson said.
Not the first time
Established in 1962, previous Tribune reporting shows, Twin City Airport involved civic and political leaders from both sides of the state line, including Loris where Loris Community Hospital saw the need for a nearby airport, and across the state line in Tabor City where an airport was seen as a key to economic development efforts.
By 1990 a report on all of Horry County’s airports contained recommendations for improvements to the airport, known by pilots as 5J9. Carl Ellington, then the Director of the Myrtle Beach Jetport, said then that significant improvements were expected in the next 20 years, by 2010, to include land acquisition, runway improvements and expansion, new taxiways and ramp areas and lights, and perhaps a terminal and fixed base operator. He said the cost, then estimated at $2.1 million, would likely be covered by state and federal funds.
Just five years later, in July 1995, airport supporters from Tabor City and Loris jammed Loris City Hall to hear discussions on the future of the airport, and “seemed to walk away with renewed hope for the 32 year old facility,” Tribune reporting showed.
Pete Winters, then the Horry County Department of Airports Director, and Deputy Director for General Aviation Services Walt Whittier, told the crowd that the airport was safe, and they were looking for funding to make sure it stayed that way. The condition of the asphalt, in use since the early 1970, was deteriorating, they said.
Funding to patch cracks in the runway were allocated by Horry County Council in July of 1995.
Nine years later, in 2004, an airport master plan was approved by the Horry County Airport Advisory Board and Loris City Council that was to put $1.5 million in improvements to the airport. Those expenses, a consultant said, would be largely covered by the FAA and SC Department of Airports, with about $78,350 required from local governments.
Improvements, then Horry County Director of Airports Robert Kemp said, would include security fencing within two years and more.
“The airport is going to stay,” Kemp said of the master plan. “This is it. That’s our plan.”
No easily visible improvements have been made at the airport in more than two decades.
For more on this story see this week’s Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.
