NEW HAVEN – Tweed New Haven Airport has resumed flights after being closed for hours on Saturday due to a tanker spill.
The airport announced on Facebook that flights resumed at 8 p.m. A total of eight flights – four arrivals and four departures – were scheduled between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday, the airport said.
There will also be three flights arriving within seven to eight minutes of each other around 2:45 a.m. Sunday, depending on the airport.
“This is not a decision that was taken lightly, but the cancellation of these flights would have resulted in the stranding of hundreds of local Connecticut residents in three destinations for the next 48 hours,” the airport said in a statement. his message. “We apologize for the inconvenience caused by today’s accident to both our customers and our neighbours.”
The airport said the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection determined that only a small amount of fuel was spilled when a truck overturned near the facility. Saturday. According to DEEP, no fuel leaked into the wetlands or the waterway, the airport said.
Emergency Management Director Rick Fontana said the truck leaked fuel on the road and in the grass near the airport. He credited the New Haven Fire Department for quickly controlling the flow.
Fontana said the driver was injured in the accident.
The airport was originally scheduled to reopen at 5 p.m., but crews were still cleaning up the spill as of 7:15 p.m., Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesman Paul Copleman said.
About 50 gallons of fuel spilled from the truck, according to Copleman.
To remove the remaining fuel, DEEP personnel drilled a hole in the overturned truck’s fuel tank and used a separate vacuum truck to unload what was left in the tank, Copleman said.
“Think about 5,000 gallons of fuel in a tank truck lying on its side,” Fontana said. “The process of unloading fuel is quite tedious.”
New Haven Fire and Police Departments helped DEEP clean up, he added. The U.S. Coast Guard also responded to the incident, Fontana said.
On TwitterAvelo Airlines asked passengers to monitor the status of their flights using a link and to check email and SMS notifications regularly.