A small Ohio airport's flight rules change because a 1960s navigation beacon is gone

The Federal Aviation Administration proposes to update flight rules for New Lexington, Ohio. This change is needed because a decades-old radio navigation beacon in nearby Zanesville has been shut down.

For decades, air traffic control relied on a network of ground-based radio beacons called VORs. These beacons are slowly being decommissioned as part of a plan to modernize air navigation with GPS. Each time a VOR goes offline, the flight paths and airspace boundaries around it must be redrawn, affecting local airports and pilots.