The opening of Sea-Tac’s third runway has inspired a lot of discussion, both good and bad, and our sister site The B-Town Blog is commemorating something that happened on the original runway 61 years ago today (Nov. 30, 1947) – a tragic airplane crash that killed nine and injured 17.

Read the full story here.

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A bus carrying the football team from Bellevue High School overturned on I-5 in SeaTac Friday morning (Nov. 28th) , injuring some of the 38 players on board and causing a major traffic jam.

The bus was driving south near South 188th Street around 11:15am when a swerving car caused it to careen and flip on its side. .

Some of the football players suffered minor injuries, including Bellevue High head coach Butch Goncharoff.

The Bellevue High Wolverines, the state’s top rated 3A football team, was en route to playing against Olympia’s Capital High at 3pm in the Tacoma Dome.

The game has been postponed until 7pm Monday night.

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On Thursday afternoon (Nov. 20th) you may have witnessed lotsa hullabaloo around Sea-Tac Airport, like helicopters, media vans, VIPs and such.

Don’t worry, it wasn’t the end of the world as we know it, it’s just proof that the third runway at Sea-Tac Airport opened with a PR-stunt bigshot landing.

Here’s a snippet from the Port of Seattle of what went down :

The Port of Seattle will formally open Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s third runway with an invitation-only celebration Thursday, November 20 between 3 and 5 p.m. at the Gina Marie Lindsey Arrivals Hall.

The event will include a live video look at the first commercial operation of the third runway plus dignataries scheduled to include U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters, Acting FAA Administrator Robert A. “Bobby” Sturgell, Governor Chris Gregoire, Port of Seattle Commissioners, POS CEO Tay Yoshitani, Alaska Airlines CEO Bill Ayer and other local political and community leaders.

Sea-Tac’s third runway will be one of three new runways scheduled to open that day across the country. The Transportation Secretary and FAA Administrator are scheduled to travel to each new runway beginning at Dulles (Washington, D.C.), then to O’Hare (Chicago) and finally to Sea-Tac. Potential program delays could occur based on their travel time.

Speaking of third runways, if you didn’t hear this excellent piece on KUOW recently, we highly recommend you listen to it, as it includes an eye-opening interview with longtime local resident Brett Fish, who says that all the PR we hear lately from the Port about the renewing of MIller (and Walker) Creeks may not be so true after all – according to Brett, salmon are not returning like they used to.

In fact, during the taping of the KUOW piece, not one salmon was found where the Port folks said they would be:

KUOW story here (includes transcript and audio recording).

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Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s controversial third runway is scheduled to begin operating on Thursday, Nov. 20th, with hopes that bad-weather delays could be trimmed by 25 percent.

Airport Manager Mark Reis is enthusiastic about how Sea-Tac’s third runway will improve airline operations. Its chief benefit, Reis said, is “to allow two streams of traffic in all weather conditions.”

“This will bring a substantial reduction in delays, and, in the process, will not only bring customers a better customer experience, but also will bring airlines substantial savings in fuel not wasted from circling, and will reduce greenhouse gases,” he said.

The third runway opens Nov. 20, eight years later than originally planned, and at a cost of $1 billion, far higher than originally envisioned.

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