Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport serving

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the List of United States cities by populat ...

. Located in

Clay County Clay County is the name of 18 counties in the United States. Most are named for Henry Clay, U.S. Senator and statesman: * Clay County, Alabama * Clay County, Arkansas (named for John Clayton, and originally named Clayton County) * Clay County, Flo ...

, this facility is included in the

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 ...

, 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 ...

reliever airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporary basis. Reliever a ...

History

This airport replaced Richards Field as Kansas City's main airport. It was dedicated as ''New Richards Field'' in 1927 by

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

and was soon renamed Kansas City Municipal Airport. Its prominent tenant was

Trans World Airlines Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...

( TWA), which was headquartered in Kansas City. The airport was built in the Missouri River bottoms next to the rail tracks at the

Hannibal Bridge The First Hannibal Bridge was the first permanent rail crossing of the Missouri River and helped establish Kansas City, Missouri as a major city and rail center. The increased train traffic resulting from its construction also contributed to th ...

. At the time air travel was considered to be handled in conjunction with rail traffic. The airport had limited area for expansion (

Fairfax Airport Fairfax Municipal Airport (known as Fairfax Field during World War II) was a Kansas City, Kansas airfield from 1921 that was used during 1935–1949 by the military. Federal land adjacent to the airfield included a WWII B-25 Mitchell plant and ...

across the Missouri River in

Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, abbreviated as "KCK", is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As of ...

covered a larger area). Airplanes had to avoid the Quality Hill and the

Downtown Kansas City Downtown Kansas City is the central business district (CBD) of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; and from the Kansas–Missouri state line east ...

skyline south of the south end of the main runway. In the early 1960s, an FAA memo called it "the most dangerous major airport in the country" and urged that no further federal funds be spent on it. A new airport was then constructed to serve Kansas City, being the

Kansas City International Airport Kansas City International Airport (originally Mid-Continent International Airport) is a public airport in Kansas City, Missouri located northwest of Downtown Kansas City in Platte County, Missouri., effective December 30, 2021. The airport ...

(MCI) which was opened in 1972 with all scheduled passenger airline flights being moved from MKC to MCI at that time. The April 1957

Official Airline Guide OAG is a global travel data provider with headquarters in the UK. The company was founded in 1929 and operates in the USA, Singapore, Japan, Lithuania and China. It has a large network of flight information data including schedules, flight st ...

(OAG) listed the following weekday departures from MKC: *

Braniff International Airways Braniff Airways, Inc., operated as Braniff International Airways from 1948 until 1965, and then Braniff International from 1965 until air operations ceased, was an airline in the United States that once flew air carrier operations from 1928 un ...

- 40 *

(TWA) - 39 *

Continental Airlines Continental Airlines, simply known as Continental, was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continental started ...

- 9 *

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

- 4 *

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline, along ...

- 2 * Ozark Airlines - 2 * Central Airlines - 2 The downtown airport has been renamed for Charles Wheeler who was mayor when Kansas City International opened. Richards Road, which serves the airport, is named for John Francisco Richards II, a Kansas City airman killed in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

(and whose name was also applied to Richards Field and Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base). Despite concerns about the airport being unsafe,

Air Force One Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and us ...

frequently uses it during Presidential visits. Today the airport is used for corporate and recreational aviation. The terminal building today houses VML, a global advertising and marketing agency headquartered in Kansas City. Its location near downtown has excellent highway access. It is home to the National Airline History Museum. Though this museum primarily contains artifacts from TWA (due to the fact that most of its volunteers are local retired TWA employees), it is dedicated to airline history in general. A second museum, The TWA Museum, is housed in the original terminal that it was founded in at 10 Richards Road and is dedicated to the history of TWA. The airport also hosts the Aviation Expo (Air Show), most years, usually in August.

Facilities

The airport covers 700

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

s (283 ha) 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 § ...

of 757 feet (231 m). 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 ...

s: 1/19 is 6,827 by 150 feet (2,081 x 46 m) concrete with an EMAS at both ends. 3/21 is 5,050 by 100 feet (1,539 x 30 m) asphalt. Construction on runway 1-19 is complete and both runways are in use to their full length. Taxiway H was at one time part of runway 17/35, which was closed after an FAA decision on the required separation between terminal buildings and the runway. The airport is on the north side of the confluence of the

Kansas River The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River dr ...

and Missouri River. Levees protected the airport relatively well during the

Great Flood of 1951 In mid-July 1951, heavy rains led to a great rise of water in the Kansas River, Missouri River, and other surrounding areas of the Central United States. Flooding occurred in the Kansas, Neosho, Marais Des Cygnes, and Verdigris river basins. ...

and the Great Flood of 1993 although there was standing water. The 1951 flood devastated the Fairfax airport and caused Kansas City to build what would become

away from the river to keep the TWA overhaul base in the area after it had been destroyed in the flood at Fairfax. Kansas City, MO Aviation Department announced plans on October 17, 2006 to build a $20 million aircraft

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 ...

complex at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport including: 122 T-hangars, 13 box hangars, a terminal building with offices, a pilots' lounge, meeting rooms and a destination restaurant. In the year ending September 30, 2011 the airport had 67,793 aircraft operations, average 185 per day: 71.5%

, 26%

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) ...

, 2.2% military, and 0.3% airline. 189 aircraft were then based at the airport: 47.6% single-engine, 28.6% multi-engine, 22.2% jet, and 1.6%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

Cargo

Accidents and incidents

* On March 31, 1931, Notre Dame Coach

Knute Rockne Knut ( Norwegian and Swedish), Knud ( Danish), or Knútur (Icelandic) is a Scandinavian, German, and Dutch first name, of which the anglicised form is Canute. In Germany both "Knut" and "Knud" are used. In Spanish and Portuguese Canuto is used ...

was killed on a Transcontinental & Western Air flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles when the

Fokker F-10 The Fokker F-10 was an enlarged development of the Fokker F.VII airliner, built in the late 1920s by the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America. It carried 12 passengers, four more than the F.VII, and had a larger wing and more powerful engines ...

trimotor broke up in a storm over

Bazaar, Kansas Bazaar is an unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most ...

. The crash resulted in the grounding of all of the wooden wing Fokker airliners nationwide due to wood rot. It also nearly bankrupted TWA and forced them (and others) to replace their fleet with newer all-metal aircraft. * On June 30, 1956,

flight 2, a Lockheed Super Constellation, was bound for Kansas City Downtown Airport when it collided with a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 over the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

. All 128 aboard both aircraft were killed. * On May 22, 1962, Continental Airlines Flight 11

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December 2 ...

en route from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Loop busines ...

to Kansas City Downtown Airport exploded over Unionville, Missouri. All 45 on board were killed. * On July 1, 1965,

Continental Airlines Flight 12 On July 1, 1965 Continental Airlines Flight 12 overran the runway while attempting to land at Kansas City Municipal Airport. No one was killed or seriously injured, but the accident forced discussions about runway safety in Kansas City and re ...

from

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the ...

landed in heavy rain and was unable to stop due to hydroplaning. It impacted a blast mound and broke into 3 pieces, but all 66 on board survived. * On August 6, 1966,

Braniff Airways Flight 250 Braniff International Airways Flight 250 crashed near Falls City, Nebraska, on August 6, 1966, en route to Omaha from Kansas City, Missouri. Thirty-eight passengers and four crew members were killed in the crash, which occurred in a farm field ...

BAC One-Eleven The BAC One-Eleven (or BAC-111/BAC 1-11) was an early jet airliner produced by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Originally conceived by Hunting Aircraft as a 30-seat jet, before its merger into BAC in 1960, it was launched as an 80-se ...

left Kansas City Downtown Airport headed for Omaha and crashed near

Falls City, Nebraska Falls City is a city and county seat of Richardson County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 4,133 at the 2020 census, down from 4,325 in 2010 and 4,671 in 2000. History Falls City was founded in the summer of 1857 by James Lane, Jo ...

, killing all 42 on board. * On January 12, 1970, the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

' charter flight returning from

New Orleans International Airport Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport ( French: ''Aéroport international Louis Armstrong de La Nouvelle-Orléans'') is an international airport under Class B airspace in Kenner, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is o ...

following their

Super Bowl IV Super Bowl IV was an American football game played on January 11, 1970 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the fourth and final AFL–NFL World Championship Game in professional football prior to the AFL–NFL merger taking e ...

victory over the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...

was diverted to the then-unfinished Kansas City International Airport (MCI) due to a runway incursion by fans hoping to greet the Chiefs upon landing at the Downtown airport. * On August 20, 2011, pilot Bryan Jensen was killed when his Vertical Unlimited 12 (a modified Pitts 12) crashed during the Kansas City Air Expo. * On August 5, 2013, a construction contractor working on a taxiway near runway 1 discovered human remains buried in the ground.

References

External links

Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport
official site
Aerial image as of February 2002
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, ...

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 ...