Business View Magazine | October 2020

137 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 MCKELLAR–S I PES REGIONAL A I RPORT until about 1950, because of all of the different airplanes that were sold at auction here at McKellar Field. The Airport was given to the city by the U.S. government around 1958, at which time an airport commission was formed and the City of Jackson and Madison County, Tennessee took over ownership.” In the early 1960s, the Airport’s current terminal was built, runways were repaved, and air service by Ozark Airlines began. In the 1970s, the Airport’s name was changed to McKellar–Sipes Regional Airport to honor Major Robert Ray “Buster” Sipes, a United States Air Force test pilot from Jackson, who was killed in 1969 when his RF-101 Voodoo jet fighter crashed after takeoff from RAF Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, England. Today, McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport covers over 800 acres. It has two asphalt paved runways: 2/20 is 6,006 by 150 feet, and 11/29 is 3,538 by 100 feet. It is owned by the City of Jackson and Madison County and is administered by the Jackson-Madison County Airport Authority, whose five-member board is comprised of five members who are appointed by the city and county governments. It is served by Air Choice One, which offers two daily flights to St. Louis and one flight a day to Atlanta. A military presence remains at the Airport, with the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 1/230th Cavalry Squadron having an extensive support facility there, equipped with UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. The Airport also leases space to several other government entities. “Because we are part of the Tennessee Response of the New Madrid Fault Zone, we felt that having the Madison County Emergency Management Agency here on the field was a good fit for us,” says Smith. (The New Madrid Fault Zone is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri. Earthquakes that occur in the New Madrid Fault Zone potentially threaten parts