Alaska aviation experts and air carriers pushed state and federal officials to improve and maintain existing weather stations — rather than focusing on building new infrastructure — at an aviation safety summit hosted in Anchorage on Friday.
Several dozen representatives from air carriers and associations from across Alaska participated in the summit.
Sen. Dan Sullivan led the roundtable and pointed to the state’s high rate of plane crashes and related fatalities. He said weather stations that report current conditions are crucial in Alaska, and while the state plans to build more than 150 new weather stations, local air carriers are frustrated they often can’t use the ones the state already has…