Airport tower gear 'takes off'

Riëtte Olivier, Die Burger Port Elizabeth - Radio and transmitting equipment that stood on a 30m-high tower at the airport here was stolen at the weekend by suspected scrap-metal thieves. One of eight transmission towers at the airport was pulled over on Sunday to reach the equipment that contains a lot of copper. The thieves escaped in an airport tractor. The transmission towers, which are within a 4km radius from the airport, help incoming aircraft to land safely on one of the two runways by sending radio signals from the airport to the aircraft. Airport traffic has not been affected by the theft said Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) spokesperson Colin Naidoo. Roger Thomas, a pilot from Port Elizabeth, said he and his colleagues had not been aware on Monday that one of the towers was out of order. Naidoo was unable to... [read full story]