At the whims of weather reporting: How village travel is affected when crucial FAA equipment goes down

At the whims of weather reporting: How village travel is affected when crucial FAA equipment goes down

By Diana Haecker Rural Alaskans know the drill. Bad weather can ground flights and interfere with one’s travel plans. Or, if it’s not the weather, flights may get grounded when the FAA’s weather reporting system does not work and commercial aircraft can’t fly between communities. That’s more than an inconvenience for over 80 percent of Alaskans who live in communities only accessible by aircraft. Recently, Shishmaref’s FAA Automated Weather Obs…