Joliet Regional 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 ...

located four nautical miles (7 km) west 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 ...

of Joliet, a city in Will County,

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 owned by the Joliet Park District. The airport is also 37 miles (60 kilometers) southwest of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It opened in April 1930.

History

Joliet's first airport, Originally known as Joliet Municipal Airport, was proposed by Illinois Senator Richard Barr in the mid-1920s. It was operated by the Joliet Park District, the first airport in the country to be operated by such an authority. The land was purchased in September 1928, and the airport was built with assistance from the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bu ...

. The airport was dedicated in September 1930, with an aerobatics show and bomb-dropping. The Park District relocated their main office to the airport. Most operations were transferred to a new airfield in 1940. A transmitter is still functional at the old airport, and the

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1980.

Facilities and aircraft

Joliet Regional 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 581 feet (177 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

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s: 13/31 is 2,937 by 100 feet (895 x 30 m) with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

pavement and 4/22 is 2,746 by 150 feet (837 x 45m) with a turf surface. The airport has a

fixed-base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, ...

operated by the city. It offers line services like fuel and ground handling as well as a lounge, restroom, work stations, and a courtesy car. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2019, the airport had 25,000 aircraft operations, an average of 68 per day: 89%

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 ...

, 8%

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 ...

, and 3%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. At that time, there were 63 aircraft based at this airport, all airplanes: 62 single-engine and 1 multi-engine.

Accidents & Incidents

*On February 16, 1975, four lawyers were killed when their plane crashed at Joliet. *On July 1, 1976, a

Piper Twin Comanche The Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche is an American twin-engined cabin monoplane designed and built by Piper Aircraft. It was a twin-engined development of the PA-24 Comanche single-engined aircraft. A variant with counter-rotating propellers was ...

on a training flightcrashed while attempting a go-around at Joliet. The airplane exceeded its performance capabilities and entered a stall, eventually spinning into the ground. *On September 21, 2003, a Cessna 182 Skylane overran a runway at Joliet and impacted a ravine over the edge. The pilot made a statement that they started to lose electrical power 12 miles west of the airport and returned for an emergency landing. All electrical power was lost just under 10 miles from the airport. Further, the pilot reported that the engine did not respond to throttle inputs, and the pilot had to land without flaps. The pilot failed to obtain a proper touchdown point due to another plane taxiing onto the runway during his approach, and the probable cause of the accident was the pilot's decision not to perform a go-around and floating far down the runway. Contributing factors include an alternator failure, a complete loss of electrical power, and the ravine. *On May 25, 2005, a Temco GC-1B crashed while taking off from Joliet when the pilot's seat moved aft, causing the pilot to lose control on the runway. The probable cause of the accident was found to be a malfunction of the pilot seat positioning mechanism for unknown reasons, resulting in loss of control of the aircraft. *On January 1, 2009, a Lancair

kit plane Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

crashed after taking off from the airport. Two people on board were killed. The plane reportedly "took a hard left," flipped over, and crashed into a field. *On July 21, 2016, a plane crashed into an empty house after taking off from Joliet. The sole pilot on board was killed. Witnesses report the engine sounded normal and that the plane entered a very sharp turn before going down.

Ground transportation

Public transit service to the airport is provided by

Pace Pace or paces may refer to: Business *Pace (transit), a bus operator in the suburbs of Chicago, US * Pace Airlines, an American charter airline *Pace Foods, a maker of a popular brand of salsa sold in North America, owned by Campbell Soup Compan ...

References

External links