As some of you will know already, the John C. Tune airport at Nashville was entirely demolished in a tornado last week. Tune is one of the most intense non-towered operations I’ve flown from, a sort of single runway Van Nuys, all operating in perfect harmony. The sort of place that in europe would undoubtedly be required to have ATC.
I rent from Wings of Eagles at Nashville if visiting the East Coast and just received this mail, which I’m sure they won’t mind me passing on: (My heart goes out to them, but they are a strong operation and their base at Smyrna, about 15 mi S of Nashville, is operating normally. I’m sure they will recover).
Dear WOE Customers and Friends,
By now I am sure you are aware of the tragic tornado that ripped through Nashville in the early morning hours on Tuesday. You are also likely aware that John C Tune Airport (KJWN) was at the epicenter of this terrible storm and experienced substantial damage as a result. Most of the airports hangars, including Hangar 1 which housed the flight school, were destroyed. Unfortunately, all of our flight school aircraft were damaged beyond repair as well. This is of course a substantial blow and will require us to suspend operations until further notice. The airport currently remains closed and with no aircraft or facility we are regrettably not able to continue flying.
While all of the above is incredibly grim there are some significant silver linings I would like to try and keep in mind. First and most importantly no one at the airport was injured. While we, along with the rest of Nashville, mourn for those lives lost, we are thankful few people were at the airport and that despite the physical damage none of our employees or students were harmed. As one of our flight instructors succinctly put it “property insurance fixes things in a way life insurance cannot.” Which brings us to the next bit of good news; all of our aircraft were insured and we are already in the process of searching for replacements. I have been informed this morning that the fuel farm is operational and that Contour and MNAA are working together to get airport operations back up and running hopefully in the next week or so.
We absolutely have a long road ahead but we are confident that we can quickly replace our aircraft and get back to relatively normal operations shortly. In the interim, please do not stop flying and do not give up on your training! Our friends down in Smyrna at the other Wings of Eagles were fortunately spared and are still open for business. I have spoken to Kyle and Bill and they said they would be happy to fit you into the schedule whenever possible. To reach their offices please call 615-355-0033.
I hope you all are safe and if there is anything we can do during this challenging time please don’t hesitate to reach out. We hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Sam Wol
Aopa published some photos: See https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2020/march/03/tune-airport-devastated-as-tornado-strikes-nashville
Really sad for that nice place, I know a guy had his Mooney split into pieces while parked there on his visit, I was told not much was visible in the forecasts, all of it did come out of nowhere in middle of the night with met office sending warnings at 1am
