It is home to the Athens Jet Center which sells aircraft services and aviation and
jet fuels.
Facilities and aircraft
Athens Municipal Airport has one
asphalt paved
runway: 18/36 measuring 3,988 by 60 feet (1,216 x 18 m)[1]
For the 12-month period ending 7 September 2023, the airport had 11,725 aircraft operations, an average of 32 per day: 74% local
general aviation, 25% transient general aviation, 1% military, and less than 1%
air taxi. At that time there were 27 aircraft based at this airport: 19 single-
engine, 4 multi-engine, and 4
jet.[1]
Incidents and accidents
11 July 2000: a
Cessna T210J,
aircraft registrationN2244R, was destroyed after a steep nose-up climb and subsequent left-wing-low descent and crash immediately on takeoff from Athens Municipal. The pilot, who was the sole aircraft occupant, was killed. The
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributed the accident to the pilot's inadvertent
stall during the takeoff climb.[2]
26 July 2008: a
Cessna 172, registration N6257E, was badly damaged in a descent and collision with trees immediately after takeoff. The pilot suffered minor injuries, while one passenger suffered serious injuries, and the second passenger suffered minor injuries. The pilot said that the engine had a history of losing power but seemed to be running well after the
preflight inspection, and that it had lost engine power during the accident flight; the engine problems could not be duplicated in post-accident testing. Investigators found that the pilot did not hold a valid
private pilot certificate nor a valid
medical certificate. The NTSB attributed the accident to a partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, leading to an uncontrolled descent, and the pilot's improper decision to initiate flight in an aircraft with suspected engine problems.[3]
4 March 2009: A man who did not hold a pilot's certificate took off in a
Beechcraft Bonanza A36, N5470V, and crashed in a wooded area about 2 mi (3.2 km) from the airport, suffering minor injuries and severely damaging the aircraft. A ground witness saw the man enter the aircraft; believing the entry was not authorized, he telephoned the aircraft owner, who notified police. The accident pilot was in turn arrested by police when he returned to the airport to retrieve his car. The NTSB attributed the accident to the non-certificated pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control.[4]
13 September 2014: a parked
Cessna Citation I was destroyed in a mysterious nighttime ramp fire. Surveillance footage showed a man entering the jet before it erupted in flames; he was identified by a
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) investigator as Raymond Fosdick, who owned a Beechcraft Bonanza seen at the airport on two earlier occasions. Fosdick had seemed unwilling to divulge the reason for one of his earlier visits, arousing the suspicion of a local aircraft shop owner. The Cessna was owned by a corporation controlled by Theodore Robert (T.R.) Wright III, who had flown the aircraft to the airport; the ATF linked Wright to Fosdick through their highly publicized
ditching of Wright's
Beechcraft Baron in the Gulf of Mexico in 2012, which could not be conclusively investigated because the aircraft was not recovered from the deep water. The ATF found that both aircraft had been insured for substantially more than their recent purchase prices, and a federal court deemed both the crash and fire to be part of a complex
insurance fraud scheme organized by Wright. The two men and two associates were convicted in 2017 of conspiracy to commit arson and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In 2018, Wright was sentenced to 65 months of in federal prison and ordered to pay $988,554.83 in restitution and to forfeit a
Learjet he owned, while Fosdick was sentenced to 39 months in federal prison.[5][6][7]