A cracked runway caused the shutdown of an entire airport

While common fears such as the plane missing the runway or running out of fuel keep many from flying, few think of a cracked runway as their nightmare scenario — even if, in the case of a plane, this can seriously imperil it from landing safely.

A number of runway cracks kept Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport on Hawaii’s Big Island closed for more than 24 hours. The large crack caused by a few days of heavy rains led to an airport emergency closure, a number canceled flights and over a thousand stranded people over Jan. 15 and 16.

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“Cracks had developed and the runway pavement degradation had accelerated due to the recent rains,” Hawaii’s Transportation Department said in a statement.

Airport thrown into chaos by runway cracks, later reopens

The 11,000-foot main runway was already showing signs of age and had been slated for a total reconstruction later in 2024. After authorities discovered cracks in the runway on Monday morning after a series of heavy rains, they called in contractors for an emergency resurfacing of the area.

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The transportation department said that it was “measuring the usable runway length and will provide the information to airline operators to determine how to reopen the runway while restricting planes from the damaged area.”

Hawaiian Airlines  (HA) - Get Free Report ended up canceling all remaining flights for the day — five flights between different Hawaiian islands and one from Kona to Los Angeles.

While the airport had reopened by Tuesday afternoon, there are still delays as airport and airline authorities work to restart the flying schedule after the disruption. Many of the flights scheduled for Tuesday morning or early afternoon have been rescheduled for the late afternoon and evening.

Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz has also been in contact with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with updates on the situation.

‘Airlines today will be catching up,’ transportation director says

Contractors performed emergency repairs on the cracked runway section that affected takeoffs and landings while another section of the runway not used for commercial flights will be repaired during the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday (Kona International is a small airport that, while open 24 hours, does not have many flights during the night hours.)

“The airlines today will be catching up,” Hawaii Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen told a news outlet. “They’re not only running their regular Tuesday schedule but they’re also catching up on all the delays from yesterday.”

While emergency repairs helped prevent a longer cancelation, the emergency situation also drew attention to the need to reconstruct the new runway fast to prevent a repeat in the future.

The Hawaii Department of Transportation reiterated that it will “reconstruct the entire 11,000-foot runway this year” even if some of the passengers on the affected flights have been unimpressed by the situation.

“It was cracks on the runway and from what I heard they didn’t just show up overnight so maybe heads up before we were right over the runway or a little more maintenance,” Kona resident Kai Gonzalez, who was supposed to fly home from Denver but ended up stranded, told a local news station in answer to a question on what should have been done. “I get stuff happens but something like this could have been avoided.”