Edgar County Airport is a public use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Edgar County Edgar County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 16,866. Its county seat is Paris. History Edgar County was formed out of Clark County in 1823. It was named for John Edgar ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is located five nautical miles (5.8 mi, 9.3 km) north of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Paris, Illinois Paris is a city in Edgar County, Illinois, south of Chicago and west of Indianapolis. The population was 8,291 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat and largest city of Edgar County. History Paris was established in 1826 on land donated by ...

. The airport is included in the FAA's

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2017–2021, which categorized it as a ''

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

'' facility. Although many U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programm ...

for the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

, this facility is assigned PRG by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA (which assigned PRG to Ruzyne International Airport in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

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Facilities and aircraft

Edgar County Airport covers an area of at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of 654 feet (199 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has two

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runways: 9/27 has a surface measuring 4,501 by 75 feet (1,372 x 23 m). The second intersecting runway, designated 18/36, has a surface measuring 3,200 by 75 feet (975 x 23 m). For the 12-month period ending August 31, 2019, the airport had 6,900 aircraft operations, an average of 19 per day: 99%

and 1%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

. For the same time, there were 13 aircraft based at this airport: 11 single-engine, 1 multi-engine and 1

ultralight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with ailer ...

Airport Controversy

On August 27, 2013 pilot Rusty Bogue was involved in a fatal crash during takeoff from the Edgar County Airport. He was flying a

Cessna 421 The Cessna 421 Golden Eagle is an American six or seven seat twin-engined light transport aircraft, developed in the 1960s by Cessna as a pressurized version of the earlier Cessna 411. Development The Cessna 421 was first produced in May 196 ...

, dual-engine six seat aircraft. The aircraft experienced apparent engine trouble and struck a tree a mile from the end of the runway. Bogue had been the victim of several issues instigated by the Edgar County Board, the Edgar County Airport Board, and the Airport Manager. There are numerous allegations of fraud, illegal contracts, and other abuses of power, including accusations involving the propriety of a concrete contract to extend the runway. This contract was placed with the concrete company owned by a now-former chair of the airport advisory board. On November 19, 2013, two aircraft, owned by the same owner as the Cessna 421 in which Bogue was killed, were damaged by incendiary devices placed on them. The planes had been spray painted with a threatening message to Bogue's father, Rob. The FAA and IDOT-Division of Aeronautics has stopped an airport improvement grant for three consecutive years due to alleged fraud in grant applications submitted by the former airport manager, Jimmy Wells, and the Edgar County Board.

Accidents & Incidents

*On August 27, 2013, a Cessna 421C crashed just after takeoff. The aircraft had engine issues on takeoff and impacted a tree a mile after takeoff. Witnesses reported that the aircraft's takeoff run appeared slower than normal, and the aircraft was found to have used the entire runway and traveled through two different 300-foot fields. *On November 19, 2013, two aircraft were destroyed by firebombs placed anonymously.

References

External links

Aerial photo as of 12 April 1998
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to prov ...

'' * {{US-airport-ga, PRG, - Airports in Illinois Buildings and structures in Edgar County, Illinois