Giant Pothole Closes Runway at LaGuardia Airport

Megan Elliott

Friday, March 11, 2016 at 12:05 AM ET

Verified

An 8-by-2-foot pothole backed up air traffic at LaGuardia for over an hour Wednesday night. NBC 4 New York

Key Takeaways:

An 8x2 foot pothole appeared on Runway 13-31 at LaGuardia Airport yesterday, discovered around 3 p.m. by a departing pilot.
This damage left only one runway open, causing significant flight delays and bottlenecking air traffic for over five hours.
The pothole, suspected to be caused by a landing plane, led to widespread passenger frustration before the runway was repaved and reopened around 8:30 p.m.

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A pothole measuring 8 feet by 2 feet appeared on Runway 13-31 at LaGuardia Airport yesterday, leaving just one open runway and bottlenecking departing and arriving flights for over an hour.

Around 3 p.m., a pilot on a departing flight from LGA reported the damage. On air traffic control recordings, the pilot is heard telling the controller, “There’s a bunch of debris on the runway, just off the right side of the aircraft … It looks like a piece of concrete off the number three on the runway, the number completely blown off.”