In the early hours, the first light to touch Chongqing's Longxing General Airport creeps over the windowsill of the duty room, where Chen Guohui, a member of the airfield operations team, is already at his post. With Chongqing enduring a prolonged heatwave and forest fire risks remaining critically high, the entire airport is on high alert, as it hosts the Chongqing Aviation Emergency Rescue Team and several resident enterprises. The movements of their aircraft are unpredictable, making the airport's mission clear: to eliminate every potential risk before an engine even starts.
As the sky retains a greyish tint, Chen dons his reflective safety gear and initiates the first full-domain ground inspection of the day. The moment the engine roars to life, the patrol vehicle rolls onto the runway, methodically advancing along the taxiways, aprons, and grassed areas. Chen drives slowly, yet his eyes miss nothing—scanning for foreign object debris, assessing slope stability, checking drainage systems, and verifying the integrity of the perimeter fence. He bends, squats, and logs each finding, casually discarding a few stray twigs along the way.
An early-morning patrol serves as the crucial front-line checkpoint for daily operations, he explains, insisting that all hazards must be cleared before any flight commences. As the safety and emergency response teams arrive, routine equipment inspections proceed step by step, while personnel in the airfield's grassed zones strictly trim vegetation and remove debris that could attract birds. In their view, mitigating bird strike risks from the ground paves the way for smoother flight operations ahead.
As the sun climbs higher, flight planning takes precedence. Intelligence officer Chen Zhengwei unfolds the day's flight schedule, cross-checking aircraft details, takeoff and landing windows, and mission types. He then liaises with airfield operations, meteorological, and air traffic control departments, confirming each operational condition before syncing the information to the tower, field teams, and security units. This network may be compact, but no thread can afford to go slack, he remarks, aware that every line he drafts represents an aircraft and its crew.
Once pre-flight preparations are complete, general aviation aircraft conduct their engine-run checks at the parking stands. A controller's crisp "clear for start-up" heralds the official commencement of the day's operations. Inside the tower, controller Chen Fengjiao monitors the scene intently, issuing clear and decisive instructions to guide aircraft through taxiing, takeoff, and landing. Outside on the apron, security personnel maintain a constant presence, verifying identities and credentials at entry points, conducting vehicle and foot patrols at designated intervals, and keeping a watchful eye on the airport's periphery to deter unauthorized individuals and address security vulnerabilities.
During operational lulls, airfield operations staff weave in additional inspection laps, continuously monitoring runway and apron conditions to swiftly respond to any irregularities. Their commitment is unwavering: as long as operations continue, support never pauses. As dusk settles, the final aircraft touches down smoothly and taxis back to its stand. While the day's missions wind down, the safeguarding efforts persist. Chen Guohui launches another closing patrol—he likens the morning round to a mine sweep and this one to an audit. He re-verifies the runway and apron, clears away any leftover materials from the day's work, and ensures every facility is restored to its proper place.
Meanwhile, tower controllers compile flight data, review operational nuances, and complete their shift logs, while flight information personnel aggregate and cross-check the day's records, refining work ledgers to close the loop on daily activities. The consensus among Longxing's support staff is clear: today's hazard investigations must never be deferred to tomorrow. Nightfall signals the start of another watch. As office lights dim one by one, the airport's security force transitions into nighttime mode, with surveillance footage rotating around the clock and patrols intensifying along the perimeter, aprons, and critical infrastructure points.
The night is still, but the personnel remain alert, ready to respond at a moment's notice, their wakefulness guarding the airport's tranquility. Currently, Chongqing is conducting a citywide 100-day campaign aimed at enhancing grassroots emergency response capabilities and building a comprehensive defense system, designed to strengthen the final line of community-level risk prevention and disaster resilience. From midnight warnings and dawn patrols to each takeoff and landing, dusk reviews, and late-night lights, Longxing General Airport operates ceaselessly from dawn to dark, channeling its commitment to safety into every flight, every hazard removal, and every race against the weather. In the seamless normalcy that passengers and crews experience, it is these ordinary individuals in unremarkable roles who diligently intercept dangers before aircraft ever leave the ground.