The Only One to Land at Meigs Field That Day

Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport was a single-runway airport situated on an artificial peninsula Northerly Island on Chicago’s lakefront. I have a story to tell. Just in case the statute of limitations are not expired, let’s just say it’s a story I heard someone tell and leave it at that.

But first, a little background on Meigs Field:

Merril C. Meigs Field was built to serve the demand for general aviation following the second world war. Its capacity was somewhat limited for many years due to its lack of an instrument approach. It was primarily a general aviation airport, but did serve regional commercial air travel with a number of small carriers offering service at various times throughout the years. With its proximity to downtown Chicago it soon became the busiest single-strip airport in the United States.

History

Construction

Almost immediately after World War II, in 1946, airport construction began, with the Illinois state legislature deeding 24 acres of adjacent lake bottom to the City of Chicago for additional landfill, making the property large enough for a suitable runway. The airport opened on December 10, 1948, as Northerly Island Airstrip.  

On June 30, 1950, the airport was officially renamed Merrill C. Meigs Field, in honor of Merrill C. Meigs, publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and an aviation supporter . A number of improvements took place over the years, including opening an air traffic control tower in 1952, a new terminal building in1961 (dedicated by Richard J. Daley) runway lengthening, and in the late 1990s the charting of two FAA-approved instrument approaches allowing landings in poor weather conditions.

Demolition and closure

Mayor Richard M. Daley announced plans in 1994 to close the airport and build a park in its place. Northerly Island, where the airport was located, was owned by the Chicago Park District, which refused to renew the airport lease in 1996.

The City of Chicago briefly closed the airport following the expiration of the lease in October 1996 through February 1997 but reopened the airport due to pressure from the Illinois state legislature.

Then … On the night of March 30, 2003, Mayor Daley directed city crews to render the runway unusable by bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface in the middle of the night, resulting in several aircraft being stranded on the ground at the airport. These airplanes, some worth millions of dollars, were later allowed to depart using the 3,000-foot taxiway.

During a news conference on March 31 Mayor Daley claimed "To do this any other way would have been needlessly contentious," defending his actions by asserting it would save the City of Chicago the effort of further court battles before the airport could close. He further claimed that the closure was due to safety concerns, in particular the post- 9/11 risk of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront near Meigs Field.

Interest groups attempted to use the courts to reopen Meigs Field over the following months, but due to the fact that the airport was owned by the City of Chicago and had paid back its federal aviation grants, the courts ruled that the City of Chicago was within its rights to close the field.

 

Northerly Island

By August 2003, construction crews had finished the demolition of Meigs Field. Northerly Island is now a park that features prairie grasses, strolling paths and a giant pond. In 2005, the 7,500 seat Huntington Bank Pavilion, which is used to host music concerts during summer months, opened on the site. The island also has a small beach named 12th Street Beach.

And now, for the story

The story, as told to me by another pilot whose name I can’t seem to recall, goes like this:

I was flying on an instrument flight plan from an airport in southern Illinois to Chicago Meigs Field one morning. This was years before they were granted approval for instrument approaches. With its proximity to downtown Chicago and all its tall buildings, you had to be VFR (Visual Flight Rules) in order to see well enough to safely land on the airstrip that hugged the Lake Michigan shoreline.  

Typically, pilots intending to land at Meigs would file IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plans, listing Midway as the intended destination. Chicago Center would hand you off to Approach Control, who would vector you for the approach and then turn you over to Midway Tower. At that point, the tower would clear you to land at Midway, or, if you were out of the clouds and able to proceed visually with legal VFR minimums, you could cancel IFR and proceed to Meigs visually. Of course, you would get the latest weather report at Meigs to make sure they were at or above VFR minimums prior to doing this. If Meigs was IFR, you would continue the approach and land at Midway. Your passengers could then take a much longer cab ride to their meeting.

I had learned through personal experience that filing Midway would require approach control to vector me well out to the west to put me in line with other aircraft going into Midway, resulting in considerably more flight time. So I came up with another plan.

I would check the weather prior to filing my flight plan and departing our small southern Illinois airport. If it was bad, I would just file Midway and deal with it. If it was currently and forecast to be adequate in terms of ceilings and visibility, I would file IFR to Chicago Hammond airport, with Midway listed as my alternate. Just as the pilots who were approaching Midway, cancelling VFR and going to Meigs, I would begin the approach to Hammond, break out a couple thousand feet above the ground, cancel IFR and then dip down below the TCA, flying northbound. I would use my weather radar to map the shoreline while maintaining VFR. I had done it several times before. It was safe and resulted in much less flying time.

On this particular flight, everything was going according to plan. I broke out of the clouds at a safe altitude to proceed VFR, cancelled my IFR flight plan and turned north.

Then, problems began to develop. The ceiling began to drop, getting lower and lower the closer I got to the shoreline. I still wasn’t worried. As long as I stayed below the clouds I could still see just fine. I contacted Meigs Tower and was given the current weather – they were still reporting VFR ceiling and visibility.  They told me to report the downwind leg for a landing to the south.

With Meigs reporting good ceiling and visibility, I had every reason to believe that conditions would soon be improving.

But … they didn’t.

The ceiling kept dropping and dropping. Meigs weather report was way off. The ceiling was probably more like 400’, well below VFR minimums. And there I am, about a mile offshore, using my weather radar to help determine where I was in relation to the airport.

What I WANTED to do was call Chicago Approach and ask for an IFR clearance to Midway, but I knew from past experience that Chicago Approach would not have been willing to help me under those circumstances unless I declared an emergency. They were simply too busy – or thought they were – to be issuing ad hoc IFR clearances.

As I said, I could have declared an emergency, but I didn’t want to do that. But that was what I was going to have to … Then I saw it. Meigs Field was off my left wing. I reported on downwind leg, was cleared to land, and made an otherwise uneventful landing.

I was the only one to land at Meigs that day. Once again digging into my bag of luck to make a withdrawal.

And from then on, I filed Midway and stuck with the plan, no matter how much more flying time it required.