For all those who have stopped at Corona Airport (AJO) for the cheap fuel and Meta’s cooking, please check out www.kcal9.com and click on Video on the left. Scroll down, hit MORE VIDEOS and continue doing this for a few pages until you come to January 11, “Rising Waters Engulf Corona Airport.” Sit back and be amazed. We are now nearly three weeks post-flood and still digging out from the mud. The Corona Airport remains closed, except to departing traffic from 1-4 daily, runway 25, using only 2600′ of the available 3200 foot runway (due to water table being directly under the asphalt on the far west end). Winds are currently favoring runway 7, but in the event of an aborted takeoff, the only place to go is into the fence, hence no takeoffs in that direction until the entire runway is available.
We have been advised by our mayor to “come back after the rainy season.” All the businesses on the field, aviation related, are devastated. The west end of the field was 12 foot under water. Business owners (who coincidentally have the ability and tools to tow aircraft) helped move aircraft to the city streets (again, view the video) and didn’t get their equipment out. As one old-timer business put it at a city open-mike meeting regarding the Prado Dam, “whatever is in the water eats right through steel.”
We had no water, sewer or electricity for two weeks, and one half of the airport is entering its fourth week with no electricity. If you care to donate to our businesses, tax-deductible, send any amount (even a few bucks times lots of folks adds up) to Corona Pilots’ Association, PO Box 1212, Corona, CA 92878-1212.
I will send you a tax deductible receipt for your files. Pass the word to any folks you know who have a few extra dollars and want to help the airport stay afloat. Believe me, with the machinery and equipment, not to mention all the parts and supplies normally found in cylinder shops and avionics places, we could use it.
Susan Brunner
Corona Pilots’ Association
