City Moves to Banish Jets From Airport Cites Dangers

Reeve T. Schley
Mirror staff writer

   City officials came a step closer to eliminating large non-commercial jets from the Santa Monica airport, Tuesday, December 10, when the City Council unanimously voted to go forward with a new Aircraft Conformance Program (ACP) that is designed to increase airport safety.
   Noting the major increase in jet traffic over the last few years, some people have dubbed the airport a playground for the rich and famous, and since a sea of residential houses and corporate offices surrounds the airport, many speculate that if a jet were to crash, it would be disastrous.
   Even though the FAA requires airports with C-II and D-II jets to have at least 1,000 feet of runway safety area (RSA) on either end of landing strips, there are none in Santa Monica.
   Airport neighbors say the jets pose a serious safety threat and create pollution.
   “This is not some great community service happening at this airport. We have to suffer air and noise pollution, and our safety is endangered for these incredibly rich people who use this airport as a playground,” said Nina Menkes -- a neighbor of the airport -- at the Council meeting. “I think this is an outrage.”
   There were 148,000 operations (each take-off or landing counts as an operation) at the Santa Monica Airport last year. Of those, 6,000 were smaller jets and 6,000 were larger C-II and D-II classified jets. Currently, 450 aircraft are based at the airport, which is theee times the national average for an airport of its size.
   With increased traffic and no safety areas, City officials and residents worry that a prop plane or jet could skid out of control and barrel down on a residential neighborhood. Some houses are just 250 feet from the raised edges of the runway.
   City officials cited an accident on October 29 in Prospect Heights, Illinois, in which a Lear Jet 25 skidded out of control while landing and came to rest 500 feet from the runway, and a fatal crash at the Santa Monica Airport earlier this year when a pilot flying a Cessna 340 attempted to abort a takeoff, failed, and skidded off of the runway, killing himself and his passenger.
   “When there is a low-flying plane, I have to stop talking on the phone, and you sometimes wonder if it is going to come into the house,” said Elizabeth Hanna, who lives in close proximity to the runway. “You do worry that one of these times an accident will happen.”
   Due to improvements in jet technology and increased usage, the airport has grown out of its current design, which dates back to 1984 and was made for smaller propeller driven planes. According to a November 7 report issued by City attorney Marsha Moutrie, there were only 1,556 jet plane operations in 1984 compared to 13,252 last year.
   “It was never conceived of back then that there would be this kind of advancement in aviation technology. Only a handful of C-II and D-II aircraft could operate at this airport in 1984. But since then technology has changed dramatically, especially in the corporate jet world,” said Bob Trimborn, the airport manager.
   If the airport were designed today, it would be required to safely accommodate the heaviest airplane to use the airport – the Gulfstream IV or G-IV, which conducts 950 operations a year. Without fuel, the plane weighs 42,500 pounds. With 17,500 gallons of fuel, the plane still falls under the airport’s current weight limit of 60,000 pounds.
   City officials have been talking with the FAA since May about making the runways meet federal standards. But, according to Trimborn, unlike other smaller airports across the country that have faced similar problems, the airport can’t lengthen its runways, as it’s surrounded by houses.
   “There are many small airports across the country that have confronted the same problems we have. Other airports can change, add, and create runway safety areas, but most airports aren’t set in highly urbanized settings like Santa Monica,” Trimborn said.
   Building RSA for G-IV and other C-II and D-II jets would require the purchase and razing of multiple residential units, which Coffman and Associates, a leading airport design firm, estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $245 million.
   After subsequent conversations with the FAA, Airport officials developed an Airport Conformance Plan (ACP), which would create 300-foot RSAs at either end of the runway, which would accommodate B-II airplanes, but not C-II or D-II jets.
   The FAA opposes the plan, serving the City with a Notice of Investigation (NOI) back in October, claiming that it would be unlawful to discontinue C-II and D-II jets from landing at the airport, even though the safety areas at the airport are inadequate.
   There is some speculation that the FAA is reluctant to discontinue jet use in Santa Monica as it relies on smaller airports in the Los Angeles area to absorb much of the private plane traffic.
   “Airports like ours relieve the larger airports from this type of activity. That is why they want the airport to handle these types of aircraft,” Trimborn said. “But safety should trump everything. That is the main concern.”
   Having met with the FAA to discuss possible changes, the City argued that the NOI is premature, saying that if changes are not made at the airport, the City will be held accountable if there is a disaster.
   “Federal law recognizes cities’ power to protect themselves from liability arising from airport proprietorship through reasonable measures even if the measures would indirectly exclude some aircraft,” wrote Moutrie in her rebuttal to the NOI.
   After listening to citizens and airport officials, the City Council voted unanumously to move forward with the ACP.
   “I think there is no question that we want safety above all other things,” said Councilman Herb Katz.