March 28--OGDEN -- Thanks to its new commercial jet service, the Ogden-Hinckley Airport has an impressive new piece of safety equipment. Whether that equipment will be able to continue performing the job it was designed for is still up in the air.
Ogden firefighters are currently conducting training on the airport's new Rosenbauer Panther fire truck. The truck is specially equipped to handle airport emergencies, namely larger commercial plane crashes and fires.
With complete off-road capabilities, the new truck is more than 12 feet tall, 11 feet wide and 33 feet long. Although it resembles a boar on wheels, it's remarkably fast, traveling from 0 to 55 mph in less than 18 seconds. It's capable of reaching top speeds of more than 80 mph.
"It's got to be able to get anywhere on the airport in less than two minutes, so it's fast for that reason," said Karlo Groeneweg, an aircraft rescue and firefighting specialist with Rosenbauer. "Then, it can go pretty much anywhere off-road because most plane crashes happen off of the runway."
The truck carries 1,500 gallons of water and 500 pounds of a dry-chemical agent called "Purple K." The truck can put out an 1,100-gallon jet fuel fire in 27 seconds.
The Ogden Fire Department responds to the airport, so it's the city's firefighters, along with some airport staff, who are training on the new machine.
"This is something we've needed at the airport for a while now," said Ogden firefighter Eddie Graham. "The (equipment) we've had up here before was pretty outdated. And now we've got commercial flights coming in and out of here, so this is exactly what we need."
The airport received the truck less than a week ago, and crews have been training on it since. The $550,000 truck and $130,000 in related equipment were paid for mostly by a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration. Ogden city paid for 2 percent of the total cost.
Airport Manager Royal Eccles said the airport never would have been able to acquire the truck if not for the commercial air service that began at the airport in September.
"The whole reason we were able to get this truck, and the reason we are able to get a lot of other grant money, is our commercial air service," he said.
But as the FAA moves forward with its sequestration plan to close Ogden-Hinckley's air control tower, along with 149 other towers across the country, including one in Provo, commercial jet service to Ogden could end, axing the very reason Ogden got the new fire truck in the first place.
"We still stand a chance of losing (commercial service) without our tower," Eccles said.
"Without our tower, safety becomes an issue. You've got F-16s from Hill Air Force Base flying right over the top of us all the time. Without our tower, everything we do becomes a lot more difficult."
Representatives from Allegiant Air, the company that provides commercial flight service to Ogden, could not be reached Wednesday but have said they are monitoring the tower closure situation and will decide how to proceed with each airport they serve on a case-by-case basis.
While not ready to offer specifics yet, Eccles said the airport is exploring options to keep the tower open.
"We need this tower to stay open. We are working on some things to do just that."
The FAA is scheduled to close Ogden's tower May 5. According to The Associated Press, funding for Provo's tower runs out the same day and officials there are exploring other funding sources to keep the tower open.
Copyright 2013 - Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah
