Ultimate Issue: The Connection Between Airports and God’s Acres

There are many places where runways share space with cemeteries.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024 at 09:07 AM ET

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Members of the Dodson family, Daniel Hueston and John Dotson, are buried alongside Runway 10 at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV). [Courtesy: Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport]

Key Takeaways:

Many airports, from major international hubs to smaller regional fields, are built on or have expanded into lands containing historic cemeteries, presenting unique challenges and solutions.
Airport expansion often necessitates the relocation of graves, sometimes by court order, as seen at O'Hare and Smith Reynolds airports, while others like Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson and Savannah/Hilton Head have incorporated existing cemeteries directly into their master plans, even allowing public access or maintaining graves under runways.
The article notes a legal and practical discussion around the duration of grave plot leases and the procedures for reinterment, varying by state and local practices.
A unique aviation shrine, the "Portal of the Folded Wings" at Hollywood Burbank Airport, serves as a dedicated final resting place and memorial for early aviators, pilots, and mechanics.

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Sitting in the Pioneer Cemetery on a knoll across the street from Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, I was thinking about cemeteries and airports (imagine that).

It is a lovely, peaceful spot set on a knoll, but most of the remains—people who went down the Ohio River and settled on the flat ground below in the late 1700s—were reinterred up here above the floodplain. That large, flat area, called the Turkey Bottoms, would become “Sunken Lunken” Airport in the early 1920s.

Martha Lunken

Martha Lunken is a lifelong pilot, former FAA inspector and defrocked pilot examiner. She flies a Cessna 180 and anything with a tailwheel, from Cubs to DC-3s.