Faulty sensor cancels flights

A faulty sensor in a weather-monitoring system was responsible for flights canceled out of Clovis Regional Airport on Sunday and Monday.

Airport Director Amanda Brungart said the glitch in the Automated Weather Observation System was providing inaccurate information to pilots, necessitating the shutdown.

Operations were back to normal on Tuesday.

Brungart said the weekend issues in Clovis were not related to the tech outage that canceled hundreds of flights and delayed thousands more across the nation’s major airports.

The cancellations following the AWOS outage in Clovis were precautionary. The system “reports the weather conditions,” said Carlos Ariaz, a local pilot who flew into the Clovis airport before the weekend troubles arose.

Said Brungart: Pilots could be “coming in and thinking that it’s zero visibility and snowing and blowing like crazy, but it’s a beautiful, clear day.”  

Brungart said what happened was a “pretty big deal” and carries a flurry of impacts. 

Topping the list is how it “impacts our annual (passenger) numbers, which does impact what we are able to get grant wise from the (Federal Aviation Administration),” Brungart said. Those grants play a crucial role in helping Clovis Regional Airport improve runways and operating systems, and “just make it overall safer for passengers.”

In all, six flights were canceled over the two days.

“It’s so infrequent that we have these issues. I would hope it wouldn’t deter anybody from flying out of Clovis,” Brungart said.

The Clovis Regional Airport saw about 13,000 passengers in 2022 and is projected to see 22,000 passengers annually by 2027, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. It provides daily direct flights to and from Dallas and Denver.

Brungart said the Clovis issues Sunday and Monday impacted “other airports as well, because they’re counting on those numbers of passengers coming from us, too.”

The outdated sensor would cost more than $1 million to replace, Brungart said. But since breakdowns happen “maybe once a year,” and in “sporadic” fashion, it’s highly unlikely a newer version is on the way.

“There are some other routes that we can go to get the backup systems. That might be something that we’re looking into,” said Brungart. “Again, no idea on cost or anything, that’s just something that we are going to start looking into at this point.”

Technicians from Lubbock and Amarillo ultimately made the two-hour trek to Clovis and repaired the sensor, Brungart said.

The Clovis airport was not impacted by the Microsoft Windows issues last week that canceled about 1,600 flights and delayed 8,500 more around the country.

According to CNN, “The issue extended beyond airports, with businesses, government agencies, health and emergency services, banks, schools and universities around the world grinding to a halt or seeing services disrupted due to a flawed software update for Microsoft Windows operating systems.”