EAST BOSTON — Travelers at Logan Airport may have run into delays caused by runway construction, but the work underway on Runway 9-27 is centered on a major safety upgrade.
Logan Airport’s third EMAS — an Engineered Material Arresting System — is close to complete, with construction in its final stages. Two other systems are already finished at the ends of separate runways.
The roughly football-field-sized system is designed to stop an aircraft if it overruns a runway. Bob Lynch, director of aviation, operations and security at Massport, described it as blocks of crushable, porous concrete-like material that compress under the weight of an aircraft.
“It would slow and stop it so it would prevent it from going in the water,” Lynch said.
The FAA standard is to have 1,000 feet of buffer space after a runway, but Logan does not have that room because the airport is pushed up against the harbor. Lynch said the EMAS is designed to stop a plane traveling up to 80 knots, or 92 mph, without damaging the aircraft.
“The intent by the middle of it, you know, this aircraft is stuck,” he said.
Sarah Dennechuk, deputy director of airfield project for Massport’s capital program, said the manufacturer runs modeling to determine the necessary bed length and block heights to arrest the majority of aircraft. Dennechuk has been working on the technology for six years and said crews have worked around the clock during two 75-day windows over two years to finish the project.
“We want to get done as fast and as safely as possible for this very important safety project,” Dennechuk said.
The work has had an impact on passengers. Logan has six runways and needs three operating to handle roughly 50 to 60 flights an hour without delays. The final leg of the project has suspended Runway 9-27, condensing the number of flights that can land in an hour into the 40s. Logan handles about 1,200 to 1,300 flights a day.
Lynch said the temporary disruption is outweighed by the long-term safety benefit.
“That’s our number one priority, safety and security,” Lynch said. “So we’re going to do whatever we can. We will look to minimize as much impacts as possible, but at the end of the day it’s to save an aircraft and save lives.”
Construction is expected to wrap up in the next few weeks, with an ideal completion date before Thanksgiving. After that, Logan Airport is expected to assess its next project, including potentially adding EMAS to other runways that do not have enough buffer space.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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