Two fatalities resulted from the Convair 440 crash near Toledo Express airport on 11 September. Preliminary US FAA incident data lists the aircraft as having a single crew member and a single passenger on board. It confirms the aircraft as N24DR, which unverified data indicates is a 1957 airframe originally delivered to Scandinavian operator SAS. The aircraft is owned by Barker Aeromotive, a business located in Laredo, Texas, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. This is consistent with FAA records indicating the aircraft was privately held by a Laredo citizen, whose name matches that of one of the two individuals who had been on board at the time. Highway patrol officers were notified of vehicles on fire, as a result of the crash, at 02:44. The aircraft came down at the site of a trucking business, about 1km from the threshold of Toledo Express airport's runway 25. "No other injuries on the ground have been reported," says the law enforcement agency. It says the twin-engined aircraft was loaded with automotive parts. The type of approach being carried out at the time has yet to be clarified. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are carrying out assessment work at the scene. The board has not confirmed whether the cargo aircraft had a flight-data or cockpit-voice recorder on board.

Source: FlightGlobal

Details are still emerging from the Convair freighter crash outside Toledo Express airport but the impact site appears to be about 1,000m from the threshold of runway 25. The aircraft – provisionally identified, but yet to be confirmed, as a Convair 440 registered N24DR – came down apparently after a flight from Millington, just north of Memphis. Images from the scene indicate the aircraft has been completely destroyed, but there is no confirmed information on the crew. The aircraft was reportedly transporting automotive parts and came down in a diesel vehicle repair facility, which is situated some 1,000m ahead of runway 25, and is said to have struck at least two large trucks before being consumed by fire. Weather conditions at the time of the accident, which occurred in darkness at around 03:00, indicate winds from 230-240°, which would suggest approaches would have been conducted to runway 25.

Source: FlightGlobal

More than 1,100 flights have been delayed or cancelled at San Francisco International airport since the airport closed its busiest and second-longest runway, 28L, to construct a new base layer below the runway surface. The closure, which began on 7 September and is due to last until 27 September, has frustrated thousands of travelers and caused chaos at one of the busiest airports on the West Coast. In a statement, the airport says airlines have tried to alleviate some of the pain in advance by implementing voluntary schedule adjustments. This resulted in total flights being reduced by 13% during the 20 days of the Runway 28L closure.
Airlines have also re-timed certain flights to reduce demand during peak times. Still, thousands of passengers have suffered through the disruption as construction crews reconstruct the runway which had been repaved just two years ago. During the project at that time, engineers discovered “the base layer was showing signs of fatigue cracking due to a large amount of aircraft activity in this area”, the airport says in a statement. They were not able to address the issue at that time, so further repairs had to wait until this month.

Source: FlightGlobal