DeKalb, Illinois, Council Approves Gas Station Near Airport Runway

On September 24, the DeKalb City Council in Illinois passed a zoning resolution allowing construction of a gas station near the west end of the runway of DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport. The airport is located on the East end of town, just to the east of Peace Road and north of the tracks.

Given the relatively high rate of accidents for private aircraft versus large carriers in the United States, the location, near small, landing aircraft, raises safety concerns. Anyone driving on Peace Road on the overpass above the Union Pacific tracks to the south of this intersection, looking north, will pass within feet of the runway, on the right. The gas station, along with a restaurant and convenience store, will be built on the southeast corner of the intersection, relatively close to landing planes, where there once stood some old aircraft hangers that have been torn down.

The National Transportation Safety Board records at least one accident where a small plane landed in a parking lot next to a gas station within two miles of its destination airport in Sherman, Texas. Fortunately, there was only one minor injury.

More recently, the NTSB reports, an Airbus overshot the runway in Sao Paulo, Brasil, hitting a gas station and killing 186 people in the resulting fire, among them 18 people on the ground, 6 crew members and 162 passengers.

No planes as large as an Airbus use DeKalb's airport. Nevertheless, the proximity of the gas station to the runway causes concern. Residents of central DeKalb, Illinois, are used to seeing small planes make their slow descent towards the runway directly over town. It is not uncommon to see pilots circling town. What many residents do not know, however, is that many of the pilots in those planes are student pilots.