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Old Jun 10, 2012, 5:18 pm
  #1123  
WHBM
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
Programs: BA
Posts: 8,476
One of the runways at Sumburgh crosses the main Shetland road. Here's a shot of the actual crossing point

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=59.8808...,36.33,,0,6.42

As you can see, to be precise the road does not actually cross the calibrated runway, but the paved overrun area. Here are the road vehicle lights

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=59.8796...10.92,,0,14.86

which are an adaptation of standard UK spec railway crossing signals, although there are hand-worked gates as well and an attendant is sent to each end for aircraft movements.

Sumburgh is very exposed to Atlantic gales, at 60 degrees north it's further north than Helsinki in Finland (I know S2A won't be too impressed, though, but many don't realise the UK gets that far north), and still has multiple directional paved runways used dependent on the wind, so the road crossing is not always in use.

I recall the BV234 accident in late 1986 only too well, being in my house with the radio on when the first news started to be flashed through. They were owned by British Airways and as much in their livery as any of the Heathrow fleet, along with much other helicopter stock. The aircraft was lost because the transmission shaft between the two rotors failed, not the only such occurence to the big Boeing. BA decided that the risk of this was too great and disposed of the remaining fleet, and somewhat later their entire helicopter operation. Sumburgh still sees quite an operation of chartered aircraft, large turboprops and BAe146 jets, shuttling oil crews from Aberdeen to connect with the helicopters out to the rigs, on some days well exceeding the scheduled traffic.
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