It's not every night.

It's not every night that you have a sandstorm at the airport. It's not every night that a temporary (jumper) electrical cable catches fire, blacking out your runway lights with aircraft in range. It's not every night that a fully loaded Airbus A320 lands in Burlington after the published hard closure of 2330. But tonight was no ordinary night.

Welcome to construction season at BTV. With Runway 15/33 being resurfaced this summer, BTV Night Operations has been a bit more interesting. Instead of delayed flights, the standard norm this time of the year, flights land promptly by 2330 due to the hard closure from 2330 to 0530 (or they don't land at all). No more listening to Boston Center until 0330, waiting for that straggling aircraft to enter our airspace, full of dreary, travel-beaten passengers, looking for an end to their long day. No more looking at the stars or noticing a wandering satellite floating across the horizon. Nope. None of that. Replace all that with dump trucks, light towers, paving and milling machines, excavators, rollers, escort vehicles and more dump trucks. The dump trucks never stop. Never.

And here we are, September 4th, 60 days into the asphalt portion of the resurfacing project, at Labor Day Weekend. Hurricane Earl has just passed to our north and east, a cold front has just moved through and the winds are out of the west, shifting to the south at 12-24 knots. Unfortunately, the winds, combined with our dry summer and sandy airport soil have created a sandstorm. Upon my arrival at 1700, I immediately noticed sand blowing across the runway toward the VTANG hangers. This warranted an airfield and runway inspection, just to verify that the sand wasn't drifting or pocketing, similar to the way snow tends to drift and pocket all winter long. The inspection revealed that sand was beginning to form on the runway surface and I subsequently called the project engineer to have him contact the appropriate contractors to clean up the mess and apply water on any open soil.

A few hours later, the contractor, George, arrived, eager to be earning his time and a half. John, a project engineer arrived too, looking rather solemn, ready to escort the contractor onto the airfield. At this point, the most reasonable way to proceed was to give John and George a quick tour of the runway, to let them assess the situation. After waiting for JetBlue 1148 to land, we proceeded from the north perimeter road onto Taxiway Golf, northbound. Exiting Taxiway Golf onto Taxiway Mike, we held short, switching to Tower frequency (118.3) requesting our clearance to proceed south on the runway. The worst part of the blowing and drifting sand was on the southern most part of the runway, from Taxiway Bravo south. Here, the sand was blowing and swirling across the runway, west to east. George, sitting in the back of Tango 21, chattered away, asking questions, giving his insight. Suddenly, George asked quizzically, "What's that on fire over there?" My head shot over to the east side of the runway where he was pointing, noticing something glowing in the darkness. Upon closer inspection, we identified a jumper cable that was being used to feed the temporary threshold lights for our shortened runway (due to construction) on fire. The fire was bright and intense, like a welding torch. I could hear the crackle of electricity popping and snapping through the cable.

Understanding that we would likely lose the runway lights due to this malfunctioning electrical cable, I quickly exited the runway and requested clearance back to the terminal to locate the runway project electrical contractor's phone number. Given the delicacy of the situation, I decided to call the tower on the Ops cell phone, rather than notify them of the situation over frequency. With the tower notified and watching the runway lights with elevated scrutiny, I called Mark, the electrical contractor, and Corey, the on-call airport electrician. Next, I quickly briefed the Director of Airport Operations of the situation over the phone.

At this point, there was little more to do than monitor the situation and wait for the electricians to arrive. I requested clearance from the terminal, crossed Taxiway Alpha, Runway 1/19 onto Taxiway Bravo. Tower cleared me back onto Runway 15 and we discovered not much had changed in the few minutes we were gone. We cleared onto Taxiway Bravo to wait for the electrician.

And then the runway lights went out, just like that.

Remarkably, Corey, who thankfully lives very locally, arrived less than a minute after the outage. I immediately called flight service and issued a NOTAM that read, "Runway 15/33 CLSD UFN." Within about a minute, the Ops phone began to ring. "Uh, this is Mesa dispatch, we just received word that the runway is closed. Is that true?" The calls were all about the same and my replies were truthful, yet evasive. I assured each caller that we were working on the problem and that it should be resolved within a reasonable amount of time, hopefully less than 30 minutes. No promises.

Corey's assessment was that the cable had been damaged by a construction vehicle. The power to that cable needed to be shut off and a splice needed to be made. Corey went to the vault, shut off the power to the runway and proceeded to retrieve the splice kit back at the shop. Like clockwork, the electrical contractor, Mark, arrived on the runway just as Corey arrived with the splice kit. Meanwhile, the Ops phone kept ringing...My patience was being tested a bit as everyone from Albany Airport Operations (who had received a diversion because of the situation) to local airline employees were calling to find out information. The splice work took about 10 minutes and when Corey, who had repositioned himself at the vault, turned on the power, the runway lights came back on immediately. George, still in the back seat of Tango 21, exclaimed his approval, “Alright!” Clearing the runway, I canceled the NOTAM and traffic began to land. I dropped John and George off by the water truck, where they would meet up with another contractor, Jack, to sweep the runway and apply water to the open parts of the infield and safety area.

Meanwhile, Jetblue 148, who had diverted to Albany (ALB) was getting fuel. It was only 2205 and the hard closure wouldn’t begin until 2330, so the 26 minute flight from Albany seemed like a piece of cake, as long as there weren't excessive taxi times at ALB. At 2250, Jetblue 148 still wasn't out of gate and I began to wonder what the delay was. And then the Ops phone rang. It was Rolando, a JetBlue dispatcher, calling.

"Ah, yeah, Rob. This is Rolando calling from JetBlue dispatch. We were wondering, ah, our aircraft is in Albany right now getting fuel and the fuel truck just broke down. Is there any possibility we can land after curfew? We're estimating an arrival of 2340." A dispatcher's goal is to get the plane to the final destination, no matter what. With that end, the passengers, crew, and airline checkbook are all happy. For the aforementioned folks, the alternative is not so pretty. However, during runway construction, every minute counts. The project has an end date marked on the calendar, enforced by snow season. That reality can lead to harsh, but necessary decisions.

But tonight, knowing only two folks were working in a containment and cleanup operation (opposed to 45 workers and 30 pieces of equipment with the goal of putting down 1200 tons of hot asphalt in five hours), I gave Rolondo a reluctant, "Yes." My reluctance, mostly an act, was to apply extra pressure on Rolondo to get that aircraft here, not any later than he was estimating. Of course, his estimation of a 2340 arrival was also in part, an act, as 2340 was more than likely a best, best, best case scenario. It’s a little game we play. Ultimately, the stakes tonight were relatively small, but we played our hands carefully, like the stakes were big. If it were a normal construction night, I'm pretty sure that plane would have been going back to Kennedy. We have to get this runway project done. This year.

In the end, JetBlue 148 landed at 2443, pretty close to Rolondo’s estimate. When the plane emptied out of Gate 15 and into the terminal, the relief and smiles from the passengers confirmed my belief that letting them land was the right decision to make. A passenger walked up to me in the main terminal, saying, “Tell whoever let us land, thanks! I said, "No problem. We were happy to see you get here." She replied, "Oh, was that you?" Not able to control the smile unfolding, I looked down, replying, "Yes." It's not every night that working the graveyard shift at the airport makes me smile. But on this night, it did.