Cornelia Fort Airpark
| Cornelia Fort Airpark | |||||||||||
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| IATA: none – ICAO: none – FAA LID: M88 | |||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
| Owner | Colemill Enterprises | ||||||||||
| Serves | Nashville, Tennessee | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 418 ft / 127 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 36°11′25″N 086°41′59″W / 36.19028°N 86.69972°W | ||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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| Statistics (2009) | |||||||||||
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Cornelia Fort Airpark (FAA LID: M88) was a privately owned, public-use airport located five nautical miles (9 km) northeast of the central business district of Nashville, in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States.[1]
The 141-acre airport was located on part of a plot of land granted to early Nashvillian Ephraim McLean for service in the Revolutionary War,[2] near what is still known as McLean's Bend in the Cumberland River in East Nashville. The airport operated from 1944 until 2011, when the city of Nashville acquired it to include it as non-aviation part of Shelby Park.
History
The airport was established in 1944 by the Colemill Flying Service and was named for World War II aviator Cornelia Fort.
On March 5, 1963, Patsy Cline was flying to the airport from Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, Kansas with a stopover at Dyersburg when her Piper Comanche crashed 90 miles from the airport near Camden, Tennessee.[3]
In the early 1950s Ernest W. Colbert bought out his partner to become sole owner and continued in that capacity (operating it as Colemill Enterprises) until selling it in 2011.[4] Colbert had been seeking a buyer after defaulting on loans of $1 million in 2005 and the second for $1.4 million in 2010 (after it was inundated in the 2010 Tennessee floods.[5][6][7]
With the 2011 purchase, the Shelby Park/Shelby Bottoms/Cornelia Fort area has more than 1,300 acres—the fourth largest public greenspace in Nashville (trailing Beaman, Bells Bend and Warner).[8][9] After the sale, the property would no longer be serving small private planes.[10]
Russell W. Brothers, Jr., a Nashville businessman, was familiar with Cornelia Fort Airpark and at one time lived there.[11] On the night of April 20, 2012, Brothers—age 75, was piloting a private plane solo from Miami, Florida to Dickson, Tennessee (near Nashville). After mechanical trouble, he crash-landed his 1961 vintage twin-engine Beechcraft airplane at the closed Cornelia Fort Airpark on a grassy area without landing gear.[12][13] The belly-landing was soft enough that the plane's automatic crash locator which would have alerted authorities was not triggered. Uninjured, Brothers left the scene and did not notify any authorities. His wife picked him up, and the plane was left as a mystery for the police to solve. A maintenance worker saw the plane, but did not alert authorities until it was still there the following morning.[14] The police traced the plane to Brothers and six days later searched his home. They found 16 firearms, including handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Due to his conviction as a felon 24 years prior, it was unlawful for him to possess firearms. He was later convicted of unlawful possession of firearms and obstruction of justice.[11] Brothers pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to the weapons charge and also to obstruction of a federal investigation, receiving a 15-month jail sentence.[12]
Facilities and aircraft
Cornelia Fort Airpark covered an area of 300 acres (121 ha) at an elevation of 418 feet (127 m) above mean sea level. It had one runway designated 4/22 with an asphalt surface measuring 3,500 by 50 feet (1,067 x 15 m). For the 12-month period ending March 6, 2009, the airport had 30,110 aircraft operations, an average of 82 per day: 95% general aviation and 5% air taxi. At that time there were 27 aircraft based at this airport: 74% single-engine and 26% multi-engine.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 "M88 - Cornelia Fort Airpark - FAA information effective September 23, 2010". FAA data republished by AirNav. Archived from the original on October 23, 2010.
- ↑ Drake, Doug, with Jack Masters and Bill Puryear. Founding of the Cumberland Settlements: The First Atlas, 1779 - 1804. Sponsored by Sumner County, TN Historical Society and published by Warioto Press, 2009, p. D8.
- ↑ "Cornelia Fort Airport - Historical Commission of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County". Waymarking.com. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ "Tennessee Aviation Network". Tn-aviation.org. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ Mitchell, Mike (September 11, 2011). "Cornelia Fort Airpark Has New Owner". AvStop.com. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ Williams III, G. Chambers (May 5, 2010). "Cornelia Fort Airpark, airplanes, inundated by floodwaters". The Tennessean. Retrieved May 7, 2012.
- ↑ Pew, Glenn (May 6, 2010). "Tennessee Airpark Ravaged By Flood". AVweb.com. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ "Help The Land Trust for Tennessee Protect the Cornelia Fort Airpark". LandTrustTN.org. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ Garrison, Joey (March 31, 2011). "Shelby Bottoms could expand with purchase of 132-acre airpark". Nashville City Paper. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ↑ Garrison, Joey (April 5, 2011). "Park Board Approves $1.2M Purchase of Cornelia Fort Airpark". The City Paper. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
- 1 2 "Drug-Smuggler Russell W. Brothers Jr. Headed Back to Prison After Plea to Weapons Charges". wdkn.com. R & F Communications. October 27, 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
- 1 2 Gonzales, Tony (October 24, 2014). "Notorious drug smuggling pilot, 77, guilty on gun charges". tennessean.com. Gannett Corp. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- ↑ "Russell Brothers Indicted on Federal Weapons, Obstruction Charges". nashvillecitypaper.com. Southcomm. March 6, 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
- ↑ "Noted ex-drug smuggler crash-landed plane into closed airpark". nashvillecitypaper.com. SouthComm Communications. April 23, 2012. Retrieved 30 November 2015.