Page:CAB Accident Report, Braniff Airways Flight 2.pdf/18



An extensive construction program had been under way at the Wichita Municipal Airport for a considerable period of time prior to the accident. The construction was part of a general expansion program, consisting of the building of additional concrete runways, and the leveling and seeding of areas outside the runways. This work necessitated the use of numerous temporary boundary lights around the areas under construction and, as the work progressed, the frequent moving of such temporary boundary lights. Each time a boundary light or line of boundary lights was moved the airport management notified the Civil Aeronautics Administration of such fact and worked out with Civil Aeronautics Administration employees an appropriate Notice to Airmen to be transmitted over the teletype and to be published in the Weekly Notice to Airmen. In addition, construction progress maps had been published weekly by the engineer in charge of construction and had been transmitted to the local station managers of the airlines operating at the airport. It appeared that Captain Powers and Captain Boqua had both received ample notice of the condition of the airport as it was on the night of May 31-June 1.

At the time of the accident there were available for use at the airport the paved 3500-foot north-south runway and the paved 2100-foot east-west runway, at the east end of which 400 feet of sod were also available. Approximately 1200 feet of the southeast end of the proposed 3500-foot northwest-southeast runway had been completed, but the northwest end of this runway and the northwest section of the