An Aerial Farewell Fit for a President
As America reflected on the life and legacy of former President George H.W. Bush in December, the FAA worked quickly behind the scenes to keep the funeral procession going — from the Houston area to the nation’s capital and back.
Bush, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, died Nov. 30 at age 94. The events in his honor began Dec. 3 with a flight to the Washington, D.C., area for services at the U.S. Capitol and Washington National Cathedral. Then his body was flown back to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base near Houston, where it was taken by Locomotive 4141 to the grounds of his presidential library for burial.
The aviation aspects of Bush’s funeral included: “Special Air Mission 41” between Texas and Joint Base Andrews in Maryland; a flyover of the presidential library by the plane carrying Bush’s body; and a 21-aircraft tribute at the library as part of the burial ceremony. The FAA coordinated all of those activities with the Air Force and the Navy.
Ryan Keenley, manager of the FAA’s National Capital Region Coordination Center, served as a liaison between the agency and the military. He started making the necessary connections the Friday Bush died and worked through the weekend.
The last presidential funeral was in 2006 for Gerald Ford, but the NCRCC regularly manages national special security events in the D.C. area. Evangelist Billy Graham’s funeral last year is a recent example.
“We’ve kind of got it down,” Keenley said. “We know what we have to do in terms of airspace restrictions, and then we accommodate the extras.”
One of his first calls for Bush’s funeral was with a commander in the Air Force’s 89th Airlift Wing, which transports presidents aboard one of two VC-25As, the military version of the Boeing 747. Dubbed Air Force One when the current president is aboard, the aircraft that carried Bush was called Special Air Mission 41 in recognition of his service as the 41st president.
Keenley worked with the Domestic Events Network at headquarters, Houston TRACON, Andrews Tower and en route centers along the route to make sure the mission was accomplished. “It was a timed event,” he said, “and even if they were off by 10 or 15 minutes, it could have thrown a wrench into the system.”
namesake of their ship with a flashlight vigil. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
When the last day of funeral events in Washington ran long, the FAA helped make up the time in the air by providing more direct routing on the return to Houston. “Everybody knew to make sure to get this airplane where it wanted to go when it wanted to get there,” Keenley said.
The VIP movements for Bush’s funeral were familiar territory for Andrews Tower, which facilitates air traffic for presidents, vice presidents, Cabinet members, foreign officials and other dignitaries daily. In this case, they had to handle not only Special Air Mission 41 but also the flights for former presidents, military brass and others arriving for the funeral.
“Most controllers wanted to be a part of it because they felt like it was an honor … to pay tribute to a former president, to a former U.S. veteran,” Operations Manager Cedric Super said of Bush, a Navy pilot whose aircraft was shot down in World War II.
In addition to working with Washington Center, Potomac TRACON and National Tower to stop arrivals and departures during funeral-related VIP movements, Andrews Tower arranged a special transponder code for Bush’s flight — 4141. “To make sure no other aircraft got assigned that code randomly, we actually reserved that code for the entire day,” Super said.
The team at Andrews also restricted ground movements on the entire airfield during the arrival, unloading and loading, and departure of the funeral flights. They took the same step and restricted airfield noise during the related military ceremonies that accompanied the arrival and departure motorcades in the funeral processions to and from the cathedral.
Houston TRACON oversaw the two flyover elements at the presidential library. The first, a low pass by Special Air Mission 41, occurred Dec. 5. Operations Manager Chris Simmonds fielded the request for that flight just three days before in a call from the Air Force.
Mike Geiger, a procedures support specialist at the TRACON, coordinated with the Air Force and Houston Center. The planned positioning of the aircraft at the point of the flyover was unusual, but center personnel never hesitated. Simmonds said their response was, “Just send us what you’re doing; we’ll make it happen.”
The same can-do attitude prevailed for the Navy’s 21-aircraft flyover. The Navy sent 30 F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets from Virginia to a staging area at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth.
Working with controllers at the base and Houston TRACON, the military did a two-aircraft test run two days before the funeral to check the assigned frequency at the assigned altitude range of 3,000–8,000 feet. Easterwood Airport is only about a half-mile from Bush’s presidential library, so Geiger also coordinated the frequency and flyover plans with the tower there.
in the 21-aircraft salute to Bush. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
“It was pretty neat to watch,” Simmonds said. “Everybody had a single-focus mission. They knew they were part of something special, something historic. … Nobody at any point was going to say no. Everybody was saying, ‘What can I do?’”
The Navy appreciated the effort. Capt. Peter Hagge, director of operations for Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic, said Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth and Houston TRACON “were absolutely crucial to the success of this event.” The TRACON ensured safe separation between the Navy jets and civilian aircraft in busy airspace and kept all 21 pilots on the same frequency.
Those arrangements reduced workload for the aircrews and ensured safe execution of the mission in challenging weather, Hagge said. “Quite simply, we could not have pulled off this history-making flyover without the close coordination and cooperation from Houston TRACON.”
This story originally appeared on the FAA’s internal website. It has been reprinted with permission.
