Engineering Firms Pay Settlement For Pangborn Airport Design Flaw

A settlement has been reached between the Chelan Douglas Port Authority and its contractors over problems accommodating the jet aircraft that now fly into Pangborn Airport. 

The electricity receptacles were supposed to be upgraded when the airport terminal apron was rebuilt in 2022, but a design error left electricity insufficient for the new aircraft.  

Port economic development and capital projects director Stacie de Mestre says the electricity is needed to keep the airplane functional. 

"It's to power the aircraft while it's on the ground, run the air conditioning, the lighting, and also start the engines," said de Mestre.  

She said they came up with a quick fix to keep jet airline service in place, however. 

"There was a workaround," de Mestre said. "We were able to provide enough power. It's just that if we had two of them on the apron at the same time or a 737, there wouldn't have been enough power, or enough plugins, for them to fully function the way they're supposed to." 

The $11.6 million apron rebuild is now a success with the electricity supply problem having been fixed. 

The settlement between the Port and T-O Engineers Inc., now part of Ardurra Group Inc., and Mead and Hunt Inc. calls for the two contractors to pay the Port $111,000. 

That sum covers the out-of-pocket expense the Port was left with at the end. 

The Port entered an agreement in June 2017 with T-O Engineers Inc. of Spokane for the company to be the engineer of record for the airport and design all of the airport projects for a five-year period. 

Plans to rebuild the aging terminal apron were started in November 2020. 

The Port entered an agreement to have T-O Engineers Inc. and Mead and Hunt Inc. of Wisconsin work on the apron project in January 2021. 

The design error with the electrical receptacles was subsequently discovered after the project was finished.  

In August of 2022, the contractors determined two changes costing $53,126.40 and $550,022.67 were needed to fix the electric receptacle issue. 

The Port then authorized the change orders to make the fixes in April of 2023, with the completion last November 

As with the entire apron rebuild project, 90 percent of the costs were covered with money from the Federal Aviation Administration. 

T-O Engineers Inc. (now Ardurra) and Mead and Hunt Inc. covered the remaining $111,000 outstanding, with $81,000.00 from Mead and Hunt Inc. and $30,000 from T-O Engineers Inc.  

The Port's out-of-pocket expense for the entire $11,638,376 terminal apron rebuild was $261,015. The Port used $372,991 in Passenger Facility Charges it collects on airline tickets ($4.00-$5.00 per ticket) to cover the rest of its portion of the cost. 

The Port Authority owns and operates Pangborn Airport.