Gwinnett County Airport

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Coordinates: 33°58′41″N 083°57′45″W / 33.97806, -83.9625

Gwinnett County Airport
Briscoe Field
IATA: noneICAO: KLZU – FAA: LZU
Summary
Airport type Public
Owner/Operator Gwinnett County
Serves Lawrenceville, Georgia
Elevation AMSL 1,061 ft / 323 m
Website GwinnettCountyAirport.com
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
7/25 6,000 1,829 Asphalt
Statistics (2005)
Aircraft operations 108,485
Based aircraft 433
Source: Federal Aviation Administration[1]

Gwinnett County Airport (ICAO: KLZUFAA LID: LZU) at Briscoe Field is a municipal airport located about two miles (3km) northeast of Lawrenceville, Georgia, in the United States. It is owned and operated by the county government of Gwinnett County, in the northeastern part of metro Atlanta.[1]

It has a 6000-foot or 1852-meter runway, and is 1061 feet or 323 meters above mean sea level (AMSL). Student training is conducted at the airport by several different flight schools. Two FBOs, Landmark (north ramp) and Aircraft Specialists (south ramp), serve the field with facilities, passenger lounges, and fuel. Airport Minimum Standards for Operation were rewritten in 2006.

Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Gwinnett County Airport is assigned LZU by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.[2]

Contents

[edit] History

A small plane crashed on the evening of April 26, 2005, though both on board escaped safely before the aircraft caught fire.

Two of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta and sidekick Marwan Al-Shehhi, took practice flights at Briscoe Field airport. Half a year before terrorists crashed two jetliners into New York's World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 attacks, two men identified as among the hijackers rented a single engine Piper Cherokee Warrior at this small airport and took off for a one-hour "checkout" flight with an instructor.

Sources close to the investigation say flight school records list Mohamed Atta and sidekick Marwan Al-Shehhi, both named on the FBI list of terrorists aboard the planes that on Sept 11 were flown into the World Trade Center. Atta is thought to be a leader and organizer of the hijacking plot, al-Shehhi was a fellow student and apartment roommate.

Both had instrument ratings and were qualified to fly twin-engine planes. Each had to show his commercial pilot's license at Briscoe Field. A source said Atta used a credit card to rent the planes, $69 an hour, plus $32 an hour for an instructor the first time in late February.

Their names and FAA license numbers were entered in the school computer by a flight dispatcher. Each man flew a leg with the instructor. When they returned later to rent another plane, they were able to fly together since they had already qualified.

Another crash was on December 25,2006 around 8:40 P.M. This crash killed 3 members of the Mucha family of Davie, Florida.

[edit] Facilities and aircraft

Gwinnett County - Briscoe Field covers an area of 472 acres (191 ha) which contains one asphalt paved runway designated 7/25 which measures 6,000 x 100 ft. (1,829 x 30 m).[1]

For the 12-month period ending April 5, 2005, the airport had 108,485 aircraft operations, an average of 297 per day: 99.7% general aviation and 0.3% military. There are 433 aircraft based at this airport: 75% single-engine, 13% multi-engine, 8% jet and 4% helicopter.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d FAA Airport Master Record for LZU (Form 5010 PDF), effective 2007-10-25
  2. ^ Great Circle Mapper: KLZU - Lawrenceville, Georgia (Gwinnett County Airport)

[edit] External links


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