Wildfires, mudslides and a nationwide jet fuel shortage have combined in recent weeks to create an unpredictable climate for the availability of jet fuel at Aspen’s airport, an official said.
The Aspen-Pitkin County airport has twice had to meter fuel to both commercial and general aviation aircraft in recent weeks, said Dan Bartholomew, airport director.
“It will be on-going,” he said late last week of the threat of possible fuel shortages in the future. “We’ll keep our attention on it and we will be slowing the spigot when we need to. But we’re fortunate we’re not affected like other airports.”
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The Aspen-Pitkin County airport sits at a pivotal and seminal point in its existence.
A new, modern terminal seems likely to be built in the coming decade, though its exact outline remains hazy and just beyond the horizon. A reconfigured airfield plan finally took shape in December after nearly four years of community debate, but the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to comment on it, which could mean a years-long process is just beginning.
In short, it’s a daunting time to take over as airport director.
“I’m not intimidated,” Dan Bartholomew said Friday from his new office in a portable building tucked next to the arrivals terminal. “I’m excited about it actually. I’m looking forward to digging in and finding solutions and making everybody as happy as they can be.”
Two men from New York died in a plane crash east of Aspen on Saturday afternoon, officials confirmed Sunday night.
Searchers located the wreckage and the remains of two passengers near Midway Pass, about 9 miles east of Aspen near the Continental Divide, north of the Lost Man campgrounds, at 5:34 p.m. Sunday evening, according to a news release from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office.
Pitkin County Chief Deputy Coroner Audra Keith presumably identified the plane’s occupants as Ruben Cohen of New York and David Zara of New York, pending results from further post-mortem examination of the remains.
The Pitkin County Regional Emergency Dispatch Center received a phone call midmorning Sunday from a person reporting her friend and his aircraft had departed Aspen in late Saturday afternoon and were overdue in arriving at their destination, an airport in Des Moines, Iowa, the release states.
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