Cherry Capital Airport

Cherry Capital Airport, is a public airport located two miles (3 km) south of the central business district of Traverse City, in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, United States. It is owned by Grand Traverse and Leelanau Counties.

In the fall of 2004, Cherry Capital opened a new terminal. Since then, Cherry Capital Airport has continued to grow with various carriers adding seasonal service and destinations.

Soon, the airport will implement the first biometric access systems in the country. The airport is the ninth to implement the advanced security measures suggested after the September 11, 2001 attacks. This terminal is able to comply better with security regulations and supports a greater number of flights and passengers.

Cherry Capital Airport covers an area of 1,026 acres (415 ha) which contains two asphalt paved runways: 10/28 measuring 6,501 x 150 ft (1,982 x 46 m) and 18/36 measuring 5,379 x 150 ft (1,640 x 46 m).

For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2009, the airport had 76,464 aircraft operations (down from 92,483 in 2008), an average of 209 per day: 74% general aviation, 13% military, 12% scheduled commercial and 1% air taxi. At that time there were 97 aircraft based at this airport: 72% single-engine, 18% multi-engine, 4% jet and 6% helicopter.

Pinnacle Airlines Flight 4712 was a Bombardier CRJ200 from Traverse City, Michigan "which overran the runway while landing at TVC during a snowstorm on April 12, 2007. The aircraft received substantial damage, but the 52 people on board were not injured. The Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was the pilots’ decision to land at TVC without performing a landing distance assessment, which was required by company policy. This poor decision-making likely reflected the effects of fatigue produced by a long, demanding duty day, and, for the captain, the duties associated with check airman functions. Contributing to the accident were 1) the Federal Aviation Administration pilot flight and duty time regulations that permitted the pilots’ long, demanding duty day and 2) the TVC operations supervisor’s use of ambiguous and unspecific radio phraseology in providing runway braking information. Four safety recommendations were issued to the FAA addressing timely post accident drug testing, training on landing distance assessment performance, ground operations personnel communications, and criteria for runway closures in snow and ice conditions. The NTSB adopted the report on June 10, 2008.