The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has dispatched a portable, temporary control tower to Haiti today to help assist with aircraft operations at Port-au-Prince International Airport. The tower is being transported aboard a chartered freighter and the FAA said its technicians will install and prepare it for service which will take about 48 hours once it arrives in Port-au-Prince.

The portable tower is about 13 metres long, 4 metres high and 2.5 metres wide, and weighs about 11.4 tonnes. It comes with two diesel-powered generators and supporting fuel tanks, plus tools and other support equipment for installation and maintenance. The FAA uses portable towers to support airports where existing towers are out of service after a disaster, like a major hurricane.

Controllers providing terminal air traffic control services in earthquakestricken Haiti have worked outside at a folding table, using military radios to handle about 160 flights a day after the airport’s control tower was rendered unusable by the 12 January earthquake. Besides air traffic employees, the FAA has an airports division team on the ground to inspect and evaluate the physical condition of the runway as it handles a high volume of heavy military transport and cargo aircraft.