Dear AM,
It appears that your newspaper, like the Atencion, has also received “the official untruths” and misinformation from someone about the status of the San Miguel airport.
The Amigos de la Aviacion de San Miguel, AC have worked since 2006, under a Comodato issued to them by the SMA ayuntamiento in 2009, to operate, maintain, and improve the airport.
We took that Comodato authority to the DGAC in Mexico City and after two years of work, were able to gain a 5 year operating permit for the airport, effective November 24, 2011. That DGAC Permiso, and the Comodato we received from the City required us to maintain a high quality of construction whenever any im- provements were built.
The Amigos have also worked with the State of Guanajuato Tourism since 2009 to solicit funds for paving the runway and in December 2011 the Governor of the State iof Guanajuato announced that he would fund the 7.4 million pesos requested by the Amigos to pave the runway. We had also coordinated a donation from PEMEX for 355 liquid tons of asphalt cement, the “glue” that holds the rocks together in asphalt paving.
Shortly thereafter, we learned that CCESMA, Ricardo Garrido and Juan Jose Alvarez, had intercepted the funds. We provided a list of items in April, 2012 of items that needed to be completed prior to commencing work on the runway. Primary among those items was an engineered construction plan to level out the profile and sections because of the surface undulations that existed after a 2011 project.
In October, 2012, after learning that CCESMA had received 3.5 million pesos from the State, was ready to go to work on the runway, and was refusing to prepare construction plans, I was invited to a meeting with the Secretary of the Ayuntamiento, Ramon Medellin. I informed the Secretary that the airport might be closed if high standards of construction were not maintained. I was guaranteed by Sr. Medellin that high standards of quality would be maintained. During the meeting, It seemed that CCESMA was trying to encourage the Secretary to revoke the Amigos Comodato if the Amigos continued to be “obstacles”.
We were finally able to obtain a set of construction plans from CCESMA that satisfied us that the necessary leveling and grading of the runway would be ac- complished before paving and we signed the plans, forwarded them to DGAC, and agreed to close the airport for construction in mid November 2012.
CCESMA had hired a contrac- tor friend without plans, specifications, and without competition (SDC of Queretaro) and, when we immediately observed that SDC had NO intention of preparing the surface of the runway before paving, we began a strong effort (very well documented) to convince CCESMA and SDC to construct the runway in ac- cordance with the plans.
The DGAC airport comandante from Celaya, who is responsible for the administration of the SMA airport, visited the project during construction in early December 2012 and interviewed the contractor’s superintendent. SDC’s superintendent informed the DGAC representative that he had been directed to ignore the construction plans and to pave the runway surface without surface preparation or leveling (December 6, 2012 letter).
The Amigos delivered a separate letter to the Municipio and to the State of Guanajuato two weeks later advising the City and State that we were not able to convince CCESMA of the importance of following the construction plans and assigned the responsibility for the quality of the airport construction to the City and the State.
The contractor continued paving the un-prepared surface and it was no surprise when federal officials visited the runway and closed it because of the poor surface condition and the fact that the approved plans had been ignored. The airport has now been closed for over 15 months.
When you say in your article that more “informed experts” are becoming involved, you obviously have not been told the actual sad story of this project. It did not take an “expert” to build the project correctly, it only took a commitment to quality, something totally lacking by CCESMA and their contractor.
As a Civil Engineer with 30 years experience of building airports, highways, and major infrastructure projects, I remain amazed at the lack of embassas- ment shown by the principals and officials involved in the waste of millions of pesos provided by the State and a significant asphalt donation by PEMEX made with the intent of promoting tourism in SMA.
If you contact the DGAC in Celaya, you will learn that NO efforts have been made by the CCESMA or the Citytore-opentherunwayandthey know nothing about commercial air service to SMA.
I have made numerous attempts to meet with the Mayor and our comandante honorario has been ignored in hIs efforts to meet with the Secretary of the Ayuntamiento to discuss the steps required to reopen the airport.
Our organization IS working on a plan to have the airport reopened by asking the DGAC to allow the temporary usage of the runway in its current condition but, ultimately, the runway will require many millions of pesos to repair what could have been easily and cheaply constructed in 2012.
The Amigos, for which I am the Treasurer, have received and approved no applications to base any commercial operations at the airport.
It sounds like youare not receiving correct and factual information. This information is NOT intended to be the basis of any news story without my permission. It will be interesting however to see what becomes of the airport, another important public project that has fallen victim to “the way things are done in Mexico”.
Russell K. Henson
Airline Transport Pilot Registered Professional Civil Engineer
