Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport

Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport
IATA: MKC ICAO: KMKC FAA LID: MKC
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner/Operator	Kansas City Aviation Department
Serves	Kansas City, Missouri
Elevation  AMSL	757 ft / 231 m
Coordinates	39°07′23″N094°35′34″W / 39.12306°N 94.59278°W / 39.12306; -94.59278
Website	www.FlyMKC.com
Map
MKC Location Show map of Missouri MKC MKC (the United States) Show map of the United States
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 1/19 6,827 2,081 Concrete 3/21 5,050 1,539 Asphalt
Statistics (2022)
Aircraft operations 114,975 Based aircraft 176
Source: Federal Aviation Administration [1]

Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport( IATA : MKC ^[2] , ICAO : KMKC, FAA LID : MKC) is a city-owned, public-use airport serving Kansas City, Missouri, United States. ^[1] Located in Clay County, ^[1] this facility is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, which categorized it as a general aviation reliever airport. ^[3]

History

The city considered calling the airport "Peninsula Field" because of the sharp bend in the Missouri River around the airport.

The airport from Quality Hill. The Buck O'Neil Bridge is on the right. The Fairfax Assembly plant (the former Fairfax Airport) is the big building across the Missouri River on the left.

This airport replaced the old Richards Field, located near Raytown, Missouri, as Kansas City's main airport. It was dedicated as New Richards Field in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh and was soon renamed Kansas City Municipal Airport. Its prominent tenant was Trans World Airlines (TWA), which was headquartered in Kansas City. The airport was built in the Missouri River bottoms next to the rail tracks at the Hannibal Bridge. At the time, air travel was considered to be handled in conjunction with rail traffic.

The airport had limited area for expansion (Fairfax Airport across the Missouri River in Kansas City, Kansas, covered a larger area). Airplanes had to avoid the 200-foot (60 m) Quality Hill and the Downtown Kansas City skyline south of the south end of the main runway. In the early 1960s, an FAA memo called it "the most dangerous major airport in the country" and urged that no further federal funds be spent on it. A new airport was then constructed to serve Kansas City, being the Kansas City International Airport (MCI) which was opened in 1972 with all scheduled passenger airline flights being moved from MKC to MCI at that time.

The April 1957 Official Airline Guide (OAG) listed the following weekday departures from MKC:

• Braniff International Airways - 40
• Trans World Airlines (TWA) - 39
• Continental Airlines - 9
• United Airlines - 4
• Delta Air Lines - 2
• Ozark Airlines - 2
• Central Airlines - 2

The downtown airport has been renamed for Charles Wheeler who was mayor when Kansas City International opened. Richards Road, which serves the airport, is named for John Francisco Richards II, a Kansas City airman killed in World War I (and whose name was also applied to Richards Field and Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base).

Today the airport is used for corporate and recreational aviation. The terminal building today houses VML, a global advertising and marketing agency headquartered in Kansas City. Its location near downtown has excellent highway access.

It is home to the National Airline History Museum. Though this museum primarily contains artifacts from TWA (due to the fact that most of its volunteers are local retired TWA employees), it is dedicated to airline history in general. A second museum, The TWA Museum, is housed in the original terminal that it was founded in at 10 Richards Road and is dedicated to the history of TWA. The airport also hosts the Aviation Expo (Air Show), most years, usually in August.

Facilities and aircraft

The airport covers 700 acres (283 ha) at an elevation of 757 feet (231 m). ^[1] It has two runways. Runway 1/19 is 6,827 by 150 feet (2,081 x 46 m) concrete ^[1] with an EMAS at both ends. ^[4] Runway 3/21 is 5,050 by 100 feet (1,539 x 30 m) asphalt. ^{[1] [5]}

Construction on runway 1-19 is complete and both runways are in use to their full length.

Taxiway H was at one time part of runway 17/35, which was closed after an FAA decision on the required separation between terminal buildings and the runway.

The airport is on the north side of the confluence of the Kansas River and Missouri River. Levees protected the airport relatively well during the Great Flood of 1951 and the Great Flood of 1993 although there was standing water. The 1951 flood devastated the Fairfax airport and caused Kansas City to build what would become Kansas City International Airport away from the river to keep the TWA overhaul base in the area after it had been destroyed in the flood at Fairfax.

On October 17, 2006, the Kansas City, Missouri, Aviation Department announced plans to build a $20 million aircraft hangar complex at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport including: 122 T-hangars, 13 box hangars, a 40,000-square-foot (4,000 m²) terminal building with offices, a pilots' lounge, meeting rooms and a destination restaurant.

In the year ending September 30, 2022, the airport had 114,975 aircraft operations, average 315 per day: 77% general aviation, 21% air taxi, 2.2% military, and <1% commercial. 176 aircraft were then based at the airport: 76 single-engine and 23 multi-engine airplanes, 66 jet airplanes, and 11 helicopters. ^{[1] [5]}

Cargo

Airlines	Destinations
AirNet Express	Columbus-Rickenbacker

Accidents and incidents

• On March 31, 1931, Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne was killed on a Transcontinental & Western Air (later TWA) flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles when the Fokker F-10 trimotor broke up in a storm over Bazaar, Kansas. The crash resulted in the grounding of all of the wooden wing Fokker airliners nationwide due to wood rot. It also nearly bankrupted TWA and forced them (and others) to replace their fleet with newer all-metal aircraft.
• On July 12, 1955, a Trans World Airlines Douglas DC-3 on a training flight collided with a Cessna 140 on approach to a touch-and-go at nearby Fairfax Municipal Airport, now defunct. The Cessna crashed and killed both occupants but the DC-3 landed safely at Fairfax Airport. The DC-3 was substantially damaged but later repaired and placed back into service. ^[6]
• On May 22, 1962, Continental Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 707 en route from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Kansas City Downtown Airport exploded over Unionville, Missouri. All 45 on board were killed.
• On January 29, 1963, Continental Airlines Flight 290, a Vickers Viscount, crashed on approach at the end of runway 18 because of accretion of ice on the horizontal stabilizer causing a loss of pitch control. All 3 crew and 5 passengers were killed. ^[7]
• On July 1, 1965, Continental Airlines Flight 12, a Boeing 707 from Los Angeles International Airport landed in heavy rain and was unable to stop due to hydroplaning. It impacted a blast mound and broke into 3 pieces, but all 66 on board survived.
• On August 6, 1966, Braniff Airways Flight 250 BAC One-Eleven left Kansas City Downtown Airport headed for Omaha and crashed near Falls City, Nebraska, killing all 42 on board.
• On January 9, 1985, a Lockheed L-188 Electra operated by TPI International Airways , a cargo flight, crashed after missing a missed approach at MKC. The aircraft climbed to 3,100 feet, then stalled and crashed into a public water treatment plant 5km NW of Wheeler Airport. All 3 occupants were killed. ^[8]
• On August 20, 2011, pilot Bryan Jensen was killed when his Vertical Unlimited 12 (a modified Pitts 12) crashed during the Kansas City Air Expo. ^[9]
• On August 5, 2013, a construction contractor working on a taxiway near runway 1 discovered human remains buried in the ground. ^[10]

See also

• List of airports in Missouri
• Missouri World War II Army Airfields

References

1. FAA Airport Form 5010 for MKC PDF . Federal Aviation Administration. Effective July 11, 2024.
2. "Airline and Airport Code Search (MKC: Kansas City / Downtown)". International Air Transport Association (IATA). Retrieved March 14, 2014.
3. "2011–2015 NPIAS Report, Appendix A" (PDF). faa.gov. Federal Aviation Administration. October 4, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF, 2.03 MB) on 2012-09-27.
4. "Downtown airport boasts a new runway safety system". KansasCity.com. November 6, 2009.
5. "AirNav: KMKC - Charles B Wheeler Downtown Airport". www.airnav.com. Retrieved 2023-02-01.
6. "Accident description for N51167 at Aviation Safety Network". aviationsafetynetwork.org. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
7. Accident descriptionfor N242V at the Aviation Safety Network . Retrieved on July 31, 2023.
8. "Accident description for N357Q at Aviation Safety Network". aviationsafetynetwork.org. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
9. "Pilot Dies In KC Air Show". KMBC. August 20, 2011. Archived from the original on March 22, 2012. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
10. "Human remains found at KC downtown airport". KCTV. August 5, 2013. Archived from the original on August 8, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

External links

• Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, official site
• Aerial image as of February 2002 Archived 2014-03-15 at the Wayback Machine from USGS The National Map
• Airport diagram as of 1956
• FAA Airport Diagram  (PDF), effective August 8, 2024
• FAA Terminal Procedures for MKC , effective August 8, 2024

• Resources for this airport:
  • FAA airport information for MKC
  • AirNav airport information for KMKC
  • ASN accident history for MKC
  • FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker
  • NOAA/NWS weather observations: current, past three days
  • SkyVector aeronautical chart, Terminal Procedures