The Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill, owned by the University of North Carolina (UNC), closed May 15 due to operational costs and the $1 million in repairs necessary to keep the airport open.
UNC Hospital Air Care will continue using the airport until the hospital builds another helipad space. A solar energy project is expected to be built on the land in the second half of 2018.
The decision faces opposition from aviators and those who value the airport’s history. The airport had operated since the 1930s and has a long history. In an editorial for the News & Observer, frequent Horace Williams Airport flyer Stephen Schoenberger noted, “Twenty of the original Tuskegee Airmen called North Carolina home and most all did some training at [Horace Williams].”
UNC’s undergraduate senate voted to in favor of keeping the Horace Williams Airport open and passed a resolution February 13 that recommended ways in which the airport could be made profitable. A petition to save the airport has over 1,500 signatures as of June 2018.
