Aiport News & Press Releases

Sequester Could Impact Thunder Over the Valley The Santa Maria Public Airport air traffic control tower is not among the more than 200 towers targeted for closure by the Federal Aviation Administration due to the $85 billion in automatic federal budget cuts known as sequestration. The F.A.A. released the list of airports that would be …

Board Moves to Make Airport More Competitive The Santa Maria Public Airport District Board of Directors likes having the U.S. Forest Service’s air tanker base here and showed it Thursday when it cut the tanker landing fees in half. The board amended its contract with the Central Coast Jet Center to include collection of landing …

Helicopter and Plane Will Serve Central Coast, Elsewhere in State 2013-01-26T00:10:00Z CalSTAR debutes new air ambulancesBy Samantha Yale Scroggin / Staff Writer / sscroggin@santamariatimes.com Santa Maria Times Central Coast residents had the opportunity Friday night to check out two new air ambulances that recently started serving the area and have the capability to whisk them …

Santa Maria, North County and all of California were hit hard by the Great Recession. Some places responded with hand-wringing, worrying and sheep-like bleating to elected officials for a government program of one sort or another.  There is no renewed prosperity on that path. Perhaps we have been guilty of some fretting ourselves. Perhaps Santa …

Buellton-Based Civil Engineer One of Four Honored Doug Pike, of MNS Engineers in Buellton, is a behind-the-scenes kind of guy like most engineers.   So to be named Engineer of the Year by the Santa Barbara County Chapter of the California Special Districts Association was totally unexpected.  “I very much appreciate the recognition,” he said.  A …

Santa Maria Airport General Manager One of Four Honored Being selected for the General Manager of the Year Award wasn’t exactly a total surprise to Chris Hastert of the Santa Maria Public Airport, but he still considers it an honor. Hastert was one of four county professionals honored recently by the Santa Barbara County chapter …

Project under way to Improve Emergency Response to Runways Although it’s not yet apparent, work has begun to improve firefighting and emergency response at Santa Maria Public Airport. The first amendment to a contract that will make those changes is among many items the Board of Directors will discuss when it meets at 7:00 p.m. …

A C-17 Globemaster landed at the Santa Maria Public Airport on Thursday afternoon for a private military appreciation day organized by military aviation enthusiast Mike Whitford. The schedule also calls for two F/A-18s to arrive about 10:30 a.m. today. The event, which is not open to the public, is designed to show appreciation to the …

At times over the past eight years Dominic Annecchini wondered if he would ever see Santa Maria again.  A staff sergeant with the Army’s 1st Ranger Battalion, he has spent most of the last decade in war zones — four tours in Iraq and six in Afghanistan.  But on Tuesday, when the plane carrying Annecchini …