Coastal Georgia airport reopens under close watch from nuclear sub base

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Posted 7:27PM on Saturday, January 26, 2002

ST. MARYS - Mike Helton tries to look at the bright side not many pilots can say there's a state trooper guarding their plane 24 hours a day. The Georgia trooper's patrol car idles in the shade beside two large fuel tanks at St. Marys Aviation, the small airport in this coastal city. At the runway, a new sign warns pilots to turn sharply after takeoff ``To Avoid Flight Violation.'' Closed for nearly three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the airport has reopened with some of the tightest security of any small airport in the nation to satisfy its next-door neighbor the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay. The Navy base, home to 10 Trident nuclear submarines and a large stockpile of nuclear missiles, sits less than two miles from the small airport. Now the Georgia State Patrol asks all pilots for permission to search their planes before they take off. And new airspace restrictions around the base come within a half mile of the airport's longest runway. ``When all this first happened, we were all a little apprehensive,'' said Helton, who flies for fun and to look for construction sites for his roofing business. ``Overall it's a good thing. But I don't know what it's achieving.'' Still, for a quiet airport that caters to pleasure flyers, student pilots and the occasional corporate jet, the security presence has created the greatest stir since actor Harrison Ford stopped here to refuel last year. As of mid-January, 14 out of 80 pilots refused to submit to searches, said Sgt. Robert Phillips, commander of the State Patrol post in Brunswick. In those cases, troopers radio Kings Bay with the plane's tail number so the base can monitor its departure. ``Most see it as an acceptable intrusion into their everday life,'' Phillips said. ``It doesn't take but a couple of minutes. Everything's wide open in an aircraft. You can pretty well stick your head in the door and see everything.'' As the nation's commercial airports have added measures such as screening carry-on baggage, smaller airports have also stepped up security by adding police patrols, fences and gates to control runway access. However, St. Marys may be the only small airport where police search planes for weapons, said Warren Morningstar, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. ``That is much tighter than what is happening at most other general aviation airports,'' even those close to military bases, Morningstar said. ``Although it's not going to remain unique.'' Compartment searches will likely be a condition of reopening three airports near Washington that remain closed, Morningstar said. And searches will be required of all private planes taking off and landing near Salt Lake City during next month's Winter Olympics. The decision to ban flying under 3,000 feet within a 2-mile radius of Kings Bay is also unusual, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Only a handful of no-fly zones announced since Sept. 11 are still in place over downtown areas of New York, Washington, Boston and Chicago. Air space restrictions over the president's retreat at Camp David, Md., were also expanded, said FAA spokesman William Shumann. Lt. Doug Gabos, a spokesman for Kings Bay, said any doubts that more security is needed at small airports should have been erased after a teen-age pilot in Tampa, Fla., crashed a small plane into a skyscraper Jan. 5. ``Our feeling is the threat has not diminished,'' Gabos said. ``Our concern remains that the St. Marys airport is only two miles away. It's right over the perimeter of the base. It's a commonsense thing.'' While there are several airports within 30 miles of Kings Bay, from Brunswick on the Georgia coast to Jacksonville, Fla., no planes are being searched there. Gabos said the St. Marys requires more security because the Navy base would have less time to respond to an attack from the airport. He declined to say how the base might defend itself. The airport, established in Georgia's southeast corner in the 1940s, has come under scrutiny from the military almost since the Navy base was built in 1978. The Navy studied in 1985 whether the airport posed a threat, and determined there wasn't enough of a security risk to close it. Sept. 11 changed that. Jeff Stanford, who signed a 25-year lease last year to run the airport, said Navy officials told him after the attacks that the airport was closed indefinitely. Stanford laid off his staff and told the 27 pilots who rent hangar space or tie down their planes at the airport that they would have to go elsewhere. The airport was allowed to reopen only after St. Marys officials went to Washington, enlisting the help of Georgia's congressional delegation to put pressure on the Navy. As part of a compromise, Gov. Roy Barnes agreed to post state troopers as airport guards for three months, costing Georgia taxpayers about $34,000. ``The Navy was absolutely adamant in not wanting to reopen,'' said state Rep. Charlie Smith, a St. Marys Democrat who is close to the governor. ``And in the reopening they were adamant we provide some sort of security.'' There was a small stir in early January when Stanford, the airport manager, told the Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that he was refusing to allow his own plane to be searched. Stanford declined to comment to The Associated Press other than to say, ``There is security in place that might be a little overboard, but it's all we've got. Business is off compared to what it was before Sept. 11. But maybe it'll come back.''