Noise Curbs Causing Near-Misses, Pilots Say : Aviation: Flight maneuvers that reduc<i> e</i> sound are called hazardous. Reports criticize John Wayne Airport.

By DAN WEIKEL

March 12, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Complicated takeoff maneuvers required to lessen the impact of jet noise in Southern California and across the nation have been blamed by commercial airline pi- lots for causing near midair collisions and for creating other safety hazards, a Times survey of federal aviation safety records shows.

The most critical reports focus on John Wayne Airport in Orange County, which one pilot called “extremely hazardous” because of its mix of heavy air traffic and noise-limiting departure methods that hamper pilots’ ability to evade oncoming planes.

Complaints have also been aimed at Long Beach and Burbank airports because steep ascents to minimize noise make the jetliners less maneuverable even as they fly into airspace filled with small private planes, which some pilots call “the swarms.”

And around the country, flight crews and air-traffic controllers have filed hundreds of reports, warning that anti-noise procedures are compromising safety:

- At Minneapolis, on consecutive days in February, 1986, the control tower had been ordered to route landing and departing aircraft to runways 11-Left and 11-Right despite moderate tail winds gusting up to 11 knots. Aircraft should have landed from the opposite direction, but that was less desirable for minimizing noise over area neighborhoods.

At a meeting with traffic control supervisors and airport-management officials, a controller noted that “airplanes of all sizes” were having unnecessary trouble landing. Approach speeds were erratic and planes were using more runway than normal before getting on the ground.

“My personal opinion is . . . we were operating a potentially unsafe operation,” the controller wrote in an aviation safety report filed with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. That opinion was overruled.

Seven months later, a commuter plane was cleared to land on runway 11-Left. Crosswinds gusting to 26 knots complicated the approach. Later, the captain would say that runway 22 was preferred but that “pilots are intimidated not to request that runway for landing” because of aggressive noise-abatement efforts at the airport.

The commuter, a twin-engine turboprop, was unable to reverse thrust on one propeller and veered uncontrollably to the right, running off the runway. The plane suffered minor damage when bounding over a grassy area.

In the captain’s NASA report, there were echoes of the earlier traffic controller’s warnings. The pilot noted that assigning the noise-limiting runways even in the face of poor weather conditions “works as long as everything is normal but leaves no margin for error or mechanical problems.”

- At Newark, N.J., pilots reported a near in-air collision and a missed approach for landing because the crew was too busy “avoiding the noise-recording sites” on the ground.

- At Bakersfield, Calif., a pilot complained that jets were allowed to use only 5,700 feet of a 6,700-foot runway to minimize noise impact. “To operate a high-speed jet aircraft with more than 100 passengers on such a short runway when more is available is insane,” the pilot wrote.

- At Scranton, Pa., a pilot violated his departure route clearance for fear that bad weather conditions could cause his plane to drift into a mountain ridge. “It is evident that local political policies are taking priority over . . . safety procedures. Some day, some pilot . . . will fly into a mountain,” the pilot stated.

- And at San Francisco, where a jetliner twice cut in front of a commuter plane while apparently trying to avoid Foster City, where a noise-abatement forum had been held the day before, a near-miss resulted in a NASA report by the commuter captain.

“While I understand the need to cooperate within reason with our airport neighbors (I live in Foster City . . . myself), neither we nor they can countenance an occurrence such as the Cerritos (1986 in-air collision) with huge loss of life of both air travelers and neighborhood dwellers,” the pilot wrote.

The conflict between noise and safety concerns is spreading. Across the country, commercial airlines are expanding into community airports near residential neighborhoods, and many of those communities are looking to John Wayne Airport--with the strictest noise limits in the country--for help in designing their own abatement programs.

“It is the greatest single air-safety problem in the U.S.,” said Richard Deeds, a veteran commercial pilot and chairman of the noise-abatement committee of the national Air Line Pilots Assn. “Flying airplanes isn’t political compromise. It’s physics and safety . . . . Everyone who flies thinks these (noise abatement) techniques are crazy.”

The Federal Aviation Administration and local government officials dispute the pilots’ views that air safety has been reduced for the sake of quelling citizen complaints. Quieter, safer jets are steadily going into service, they say, and noise-limiting flight techniques, such as steep takeoffs using minimum power, have been deemed acceptable by the FAA after development by the airlines.

Similarly, the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aircraft disasters, says that noise-abatement procedures have not directly caused a plane crash, although they were listed as a factor in a crash that killed 150 people 3 1/2 years ago in Detroit.

“We have never had an accident here,” said Janice Mittermeier, manager of John Wayne Airport. “The FAA has assured our air safety. They tell me these procedures are safe, and I see no reason not to trust their judgment.”

But scores of reports filed by pilots who regularly fly the noise-abatement routes out of John Wayne and elsewhere tell a different story, according to a review of those documents by The Times.

The records are part of the Aviation Safety Reporting System data base that is maintained for the FAA by NASA. It is a collection of tens of thousands of reports filed voluntarily by pilots and air-traffic controllers about incidents in which they committed a vast range of procedural errors.

The Times obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal court. Names and other information that would identify pilots, controllers and airlines are removed from the data by NASA as an inducement for them to submit reports.

Several thousand safety reports filed between 1985 and 1990 were reviewed, including a sample of 200 specifically related to noise-abatement procedures at John Wayne Airport and other airfields across the country.

A consistent complaint is that local governments and the FAA, from Hawaii to Washington, D.C., have compromised air safety to protect the hearing and property values of those living adjacent to airports or under flight paths.

And despite assurances by the FAA, local governments and air carriers that everything is safe, pilots have written with haunting frequency that John Wayne and other airports are “accidents waiting to happen” and “a menace to safety.”

At John Wayne, which has six noise-monitoring stations at various distances along the departure route, large jets may not exceed 100.9 decibels and smaller passenger planes 90.4 decibels.

Pilots say that to comply with the requirements, they must violate the basic tenets of their flight training with an array of techniques that includes power cutbacks at low altitude, abrupt maneuvers and the use of minimum power to tiptoe over neighborhoods adjacent to the airfield.

“For a real thrill,” one pilot wrote in a near-miss report, “come ride (the cockpit) jump seat on a noise-abatement takeoff out of (John Wayne Airport). Seriously, this is an open invitation. Contact our dispatch.”

For such a departure, pilots use maximum power down the runway and enter the air at a steep angle of 24 to 28 degrees. Between an altitude of 500 and 1,000 feet, power is substantially reduced, the nose is pushed over and the plane abruptly levels off for the departure route, along which minimum thrust is maintained. The takeoff is complicated by a southerly turn.

Safety reports say that noise-abatement takeoffs require pilots to pay particularly close attention to their instruments and controls, making it difficult to watch for other aircraft out of the cockpit window. The high angle of takeoff further reduces cockpit vision, pilots have noted.

But even if they spotted another aircraft, the low airspeed and altitude can render large passenger jets virtually helpless to take evasive action.

“The plane wallows because you are close to stall speed,” said Don Miller, a retired military and commercial pilot who is vice president of the Orange County Airport Assn.

In broad daylight on a clear day in June, 1989, a twin-engine passenger jet and a small private plane, both taking off at the same time on separate John Wayne runways, missed each other by 50 feet, according to a safety report. The pilots said they were so close they could look into each other’s eyes.

“It could happen anywhere, but it is not surprising that it occurred in Orange County,” the airline pilot wrote. “The noise considerations require inappropriate instrument workload, considering the traffic congestion, coupled with cut-back power, reducing aircraft performance, and reduced forward visibility . . . . The bottom line of this incident is that the local politics are intolerable but will probably continue until a collision is not avoided.”

Pilots say power cutbacks at 500 feet are too severe and potentially hazardous if they should encounter unexpected weather conditions, including wind shear or severe temperature inversions, which can interfere with an aircraft’s ability to stay in the air.

Aggravating the potential risks, flight officers say, are noise abatement policies that allocate new commercial slots to airlines that best comply with the restrictions. Such criteria, pilots contend, will feed a dangerous trend toward “competitive flying” among air carriers that might lead to cutting corners on safety to dull the roar of their turbojets.

“Those who are quietest get slots,” said Deeds of the Air Line Pilots Assn. “Pilots are being asked to use less power and to do more and more tricks. There is subtle pressure on the pilot to keep the noise down.”

Noise-abatement rules at John Wayne Airport limit large commercial jets to 73 a day and restrict airport operations to between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., with a buffer of six minutes. Late arrivals or departures have been allowed on rare occasions.

Although there have not been any accidents at John Wayne attributed to the noise restrictions, the NTSB found that Northwest Airlines crew members in Detroit might have been rushing to meet the 11 p.m. noise curfew in Orange County when they forgot to set their flaps for takeoff. That 1987 oversight killed 150.

The NTSB did not blame the curfew for the accident but indicated in its final report that it might have been one of several “distracting” factors for the crew, whose plane was behind schedule.

Defenders of noise-abatement procedures say the flight techniques are not dangerous.

“Our policy has always been to make sure the procedures are safe and within the performance capabilities of the aircraft,” said Fred O’Donnell, an FAA spokesman in Los Angeles.

But Joann Sloane, an FAA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the FAA has some safety concerns about noise-abatement procedures and does not want the techniques to proliferate.

Walter S. Coleman, vice president of operations for the Air Transport Assn., agreed. “There is a mutual concern between the FAA and the industry,” said Coleman, whose organization represents 20 airline companies. “It might be OK at a couple of airports, but we don’t want these at more airports, and the FAA is not encouraging the use of exotic procedures.”

The debate over jet noise began almost 30 years ago in the skies over Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, which have paid out millions of dollars to settle the claims of property owners under flight paths. Over the last decade, however, an entirely new set of noise-abatement concerns has emerged.

Because of government deregulation, dramatic increases in air travel and a severe shortage of new airports, there has been an exodus of commercial carriers to community airfields, many already surrounded by residential and commercial development.

Soon, the din of fanjets in the historic roost of much quieter, smaller aircraft triggered local protests and spawned a host of citizen lobbies that have successfully sued for lost property values and fought for strict noise standards.

Nationwide, the number of airports with some kind of noise restrictions has doubled to 400 in the last five years, according to the National Business Aircraft Assn. The FAA estimates that as many as 7 million people now live near airports, more than 1 million of them in California.

“Today, we have more airplanes using the runway per hour than we ever had,” said Deeds of the Air Line Pilots Assn. “Rather than build new airports, we are maximizing noise abatement to add flights to existing facilities. It has created a national problem.”

Nowhere is this trend better exemplified than in Orange County, where the number of flights, both commercial and private, has doubled in a decade. The latest available statistics show that John Wayne handled 533,522 flight operations in 1989, of which 438,161 related to general aviation (all non-commercial aircraft). Today, more than 8.4 million passengers a year are expected to pass through the John Wayne terminal.

John Wayne, which has one of the smallest runways in commercial use, is adjacent to major commercial centers and wealthy residential areas, whose citizens and elected officials have been successful in controlling jet noise.

Their efforts culminated in a court settlement between the county and the city of Newport Beach in 1985. The terms restricted growth at the airport and helped develop some of the most stringent noise controls in the country.

“We have twice as many flights here as we used to 10 years ago,” Mittermeier said. “The people of Newport Beach have a right to expect some mitigation in the airport’s hours of operation and its procedures.”

Mittermeier said that commercial pilots have not been ignored in all this. Early last year, in an attempt to dispel concerns about taking off into congested airspace while trying to meet the noise requirements, the FAA revised a radar-controlled safety zone around John Wayne to stretch roughly 10 miles in all directions.

Pilots say the radar service area is an improvement considering the heavy air traffic around John Wayne, but aircraft straying into it can still go unnoticed by air traffic control. According to the NTSB, that was the case in 1986 when a private plane collided with an Aeromexico flight over Cerritos on approach to Los Angeles International Airport.

Another idea some pilots believe might further improve air safety at John Wayne is lengthening the north end of the runway by 400 to 500 feet. While the impact on noise is debatable, supporters say the takeoffs might not have to be as steep, and aircraft would have extra time to reach higher altitudes before reaching residential areas.

“If safety were the only concern, the county would extend the runway,” said Miller of the local airport association. “It would be quieter and safer and you could remove the power reduction.”

But officials for the county and Newport Beach say the benefits are unproven. Some city officials said they believe it is a ploy to accommodate larger aircraft--a stand some aviation experts say is ridiculous because the addition is too small.

Airport Operations Director Christine A. Edwards and Airport Commissioner Bob Cashman said the proposal might not be feasible, considering construction costs and the potential uproar from Newport Beach residents.

“It might not be worth the risk politically,” Cashman said. “Newport must be involved in any change, and they react so strongly. We just want to live within our agreement with the city.”

Nationally, Congress has passed some uniform airport-noise standards, and the FAA is currently holding hearings to address whether certain types of passenger jets should be modified or eliminated in the effort to control airport noise. The proposal calls for staged phase-outs over the next eight years of many common types of aircraft, including, 727s, 737-100s, DC-9s, some DC-10s, and 747-100s.

But more needs to be done. FAA Administrator James B. Busey IV has warned that new commercial airports are urgently needed nationwide to meet growing demand for air travel and relieve potentially dangerous congestion at major metropolitan airports.

On a more local level, a task force known as the Air Space Working Group in conjunction with the FAA is trying to reduce the risks of congestion--so-called “winglock”--by changing air traffic control procedures and redesigning the areas of the sky over Los Angeles and Orange counties where private and commercial aircraft can fly.

“We are trying to improve safety and efficiency,” said Edwards, who is a member of the group. “We are pleased at our progress in three years, but we are also still at a point where there is a tremendous amount of work to be done.”

This story was reported by Times staff writers Dan Weikel, Richard O’Reilly and William C. Rempel. It was written by Weikel.

THE DIFFICULT DEPARTURE FROM JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT

A) TAKEOFF

Aircraft lift off at a 24 to 28 degree angle--a much greater angle than normal. The idea is to get as much altitude as quickly as possible to noise control standards over nearby residential areas. Pilots claim that the sharp angle obstructs their vision at a crucial time.

B) LEVEL OFF

After climbing to between 500 and 1,000 feet, the pilot pushes the nose over and levels out. Power is cut to the minimum necessary to stay aloft. Pilots say reducing power at such a low altitude reduces their safety margin.

C) TURN

The demanding takeoff is complicated by a southerly turn that sends planes over Newport Bay. Preparing for this turn while watching out for other planes and monitoring engine speed makes takeoffs that much more difficult.

D) DEPARTURE

Using minimum power settings, passenger planes head out toward the coast, gradually climbing to altitudes of 3,000 feet or more depending on tower assignments.

DEPARTURE PATH FROM JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT

Here are the nois limits (in decibels) for Class A aircraft, the largest jets departing from John Wayne Airport:

STATION 1

Newport Beach Golf Course: 100.8 db

STATION 2

20152 S.W. Birch St., N.B.: 100.9 db

STATION 3

2139 Anniversary Lane, N.B.: 98.5 db

STATION 4

2601 Vista del Oro, N.B.: 98.5 db

STATION 5

1907 Tradewinds Lane, N.B.: 98.5 db