The West Virginia International Yeager Airport comprises 767 acres and is a joint-use civil aviation/Air National Guard airport located three miles east of downtown Charleston in Kanawha County, West Virginia. The Airport has a single runway (Runway 5-23) along with a passenger terminal, general aviation facilities, the Marshall University Bill Noe Flight School, and West Virginia Air National Guard (WVANG) facilities home to the WVANG 130th Airlift Wing and the Air Mobility Command unit.
The Airport opened for service in 1947, originally as the Kanawha Airport, following the closure of Wertz Field during World War II. The construction of the Airport took over three years and involved moving over nine million cubic yards of earth and rock. Construction of the central core of the existing terminal facility was completed in 1950. In 1985, the Airport was renamed Yeager Airport, after Brigadier General Chuck Yeager and his contributions to the aviation industry. With the construction and opening of a US Customs & Border Protection Facility in 2022, the Airport was renamed to the West Virginia International Yeager Airport. In addition to the name changes over the years, the Airport has also gone through several expansions and improvements, including: construction of Concourses A, B, and C; an addition to the baggage claim area; and major renovations to the terminal complex.
The Airport originally operated two active runways, Runway 5-23 and 14-32 (later renamed 15-33). In 2003, the Airport Authority conducted a Runway Safety Area (RSA) Study in conjunction with the FAA in response to Public Law 109-115 as CRW did not meet modern FAA RSA design standards. The study recommended construction of an Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) (440-foot by 175-foot) off the end of Runway 5 and implementation of declared distances for Runway 23, both of which became operational in 2007. These projects improved the Runway 5-23 RSAs but did not completely bring them up to FAA design standards. Additionally, based on the shorter length of Runway 15-33 and the costs of making the runway compliant with revised FAA design standards, Runway 15-33 was decommissioned as a runway and converted to a taxiway in 2008, leaving Runway 5-23 as the only active runway.
Eight years later, on March 12, 2015, a slope failure occurred under the Runway 5 RSA and EMAS. The slope failure resulted in the loss of the usable RSA and EMAS. In order to establish an equivalent level of Airport safety, the following airfield modifications were implemented:
- displacement of the Runway 5 landing threshold
- shortening of the usable lengths of Runway 5-23 by up to 500 feet in both directions
- elimination of the vertical guidance for landing on Runway 5 (glideslope system rendered unusable)
To resolve these issues, the Airport Authority conducted various studies, including: an interim RSA study (2018 Interim RSA Study), final RSA study (2019 RSA Study), and the 2020 Master Plan. A new 352-foot by 150-foot EMAS bed and retaining wall were constructed on the Runway 5 end in 2019 (RSA Restoration Project); however, these improvements did not address reduced runway length and do not provide for a standard RSA or a standard EMAS. The previous Airport Authority studies are available here.