Airplanes and alligators mix at remote Everglades airport

Image by fingermouse via Flickr

By Ken Kaye, Sun Sentinel

5:53 p.m. EST, February 27, 2010


The runway is long enough to handle the biggest airliners, even a space shuttle. But at this airport, blue herons swoop in far more frequently than JetBlue.

This is Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which sees more animals than airplanes. Squatting in the middle of the Everglades, it is home to alligators, snakes, deer, wading birds, buzzards, bobcats and bears.

The airfield is so remote, the nearest McDonald's is 33 miles away. Other than pilots, airboat operators, all-terrain vehicle riders and hunters, few people know it's there.

At one time, it was supposed to be a gigantic jetport with 10 terminals and high-speed rail connections to all parts of the state.

Then environmental forces stymied it. Now, it's used so little that critters sometimes slink onto the runway to sun themselves.

"You can shoo a gator off. But you can't shoo a snake off. You have to pick them up," said Chris McArthur, the airport manager, adding that those snakes are sometimes boa constrictors and rattlers.

Situated halfway between Miami and Naples, the airport covers 35 square miles of pine and marshland off the Tamiami Trail and within the Big Cypress National Preserve. Only 400 acres are fenced in, to protect the 10,500-foot runway.

Pilots use the airport mainly to practice landings, rarely stopping to stretch. It has no control tower, no restaurants, no aviation companies to provide fuel and no parked aircraft. The only building on the field is a double-wide trailer.

Although most of the runway lies in Collier County, the Miami-Dade County Aviation Department owns the airfield, which this year is running on a $258,877 budget. The funding comes from airport user fees.

For the four employees who maintain it, Dade-Collier is a peaceful — and occasionally spooky — place to work, said Manuel Tamara, who handles the radio and mows the grass with a farm tractor.

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