Sinkhole shuts down runway at LaGuardia airport ahead of busy Memorial Day travel weekend
Emergency crews scrambled to repair the hole by opening, but it remained closed as of 6 a.m.
NEW YORK -- A sinkhole shut down one of the runways at LaGuardia International Airport in New York City Wednesday, prompting cancellations and delays, according to officials.
Emergency crews scrambled to repair the hole by opening on Thursday, but it remained closed as of 6 a.m. Departing flights were directed to use the second runway.
There were some flights already showing delays and cancellations for Thursday morning.
Crews found the sinkhole around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, while conducting a daily morning inspection of the airport's airfield, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The sinkhole was located near Runway 4/22, one of the airport's two runways, according to the Port Authority.
Runway 4/22 was "immediately" shut down, and emergency construction and engineering crews are on site to make repairs, the Port Authority said.
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that it is slowing flights into LaGuardia "due to weather and a sinkhole on Runway 4/22."
A pilot and ground controller could be heard talking about the sinkhole as crews apparently responded, with the pilot asking "what happened" to the runway, according to audio on ATC.com.
"There's a sinkhole," the ground controller responded, noting that it "looks like they got equipment out there now."
A large illuminated X marked the closed runway, signaling to pilots that it was unusable.
Our sister station WABC says this is the same runway that had the deadly Air Canada crash in March.
(WABC contributed to this report.)
