Bob Rypma, left, and Jim Tiviotdale, former and current Kitimat Flying Club presidents, respectively, standing on the moss-covered runway at the Kitimat Air Park, which will be redone in the coming year thanks to a grant approved by the BC Airports Access Program. (Clare Rayment photo)

Bob Rypma, left, and Jim Tiviotdale, former and current Kitimat Flying Club presidents, respectively, standing on the moss-covered runway at the Kitimat Air Park, which will be redone in the coming year thanks to a grant approved by the BC Airports Access Program. (Clare Rayment photo)

Kitimat Air Park to get major refurbishment, helipad

The club has been in the process of applying for the grant for two years, including two applications

  • Oct. 27, 2020 12:00 a.m.

The District of Kitimat and the Kitimat Flying Club have been approved for a grant by the BC Airports Access Program to help them do a major refurbishment of the Kitimat Air Park.

The refurbishment will include asphalting the runway and taxiway, as well as the construction of a helipad, something that’s been needed for a while now, after the one at Rio Tinto shut down last year due to LNG Canada construction of Terminal A.

“We had to convince the membership for three or four years that it was a venture worth following,” Jim Tiviotdale, President of the Kitimat Flying Club, said. “So then we finally got everybody on side with it and then we started.”

READ MORE: UPDATED: Rio Tinto BC Works shuts down its helipad

READ MORE: Health ministry mulling over helipad for new Mills Memorial Hospital

Construction will likely happen in Spring or early summer 2021 and currently Kentron Construction has the bid for the project.

For more about this grant and the helipad construction, read the November 5 edition of the Kitimat Northern Sentinel.


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Kitimat Northern Sentinel