Quote of the Week:  "It appears that the FAA is not only unable to bring flights in on time but can't even keep them apart," Sen. "Chuck" Schumer commenting on the several plane near collisions that have occurred in New York airspace this year

Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter #433................................................................................June 17,  2007 Past newsletters can be accessed at: http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm  The PASSUR airport flight tracking system at many major U.S. airports  http://www.passur.com/sites.htm (you must have Java installed to view it). If you want to get the newsletter sent to you every week, sign up to AviationWatch. Bill Mulcahy rockaway@prodigy.net

N.Y. City Skies Most Crowded In America!!!

As Bill Sees It: (Editorial): FAA "Fans" Planes Over Some Communities, While Concentrating On Others!!! I was in the town of Rockville Center in Long Island, New York this week and I noticed how bad the JFK Airport overflight traffic was since the last time I was there. Plane after plane came over, disturbing this once quiet community with constant plane noise. The only good thing about the one-a-minute overflights was that they appeared to be "fanned out." They went over a wide area instead of being concentrated on one unfortunate (usually poor and/or minority) area. I hope this indicates a change in policy by the FAA, but I doubt it. FAA Using Routing For Political Pressure? More likely, they are fanning out the planes in order to intimidate and coerce New York politicians like Senator Schumer, who are the first ones to get calls when some of their formerly "protected" communities suddenly get overflight noise. The FAA, which has been getting a lot of heat from Schumer for the numerous recent near collisions in the New York City area. I believe this is just a ploy on Schumer's part to influence FAA routing over some of his protected communities like Lawrence, Long Island. The public has seen this week how our corrupt federal government has actually caused the current illegal alien problem in the country by ignoring enforcement of the 1986 immigration law. This is just one example of how rotten things are in Washington, DC. The FAA's unscientific, politicized routing of planes, carefully avoiding some communities while concentrating overflights on others, is just another example of federal government corruption.  No Environmental Impact Study For New Helicopter Service For New York's Stewart Airport? I see in the news this week that a new helicopter service has started at Stewart Airport and will provide "helicopter transportation service from Stewart International Airport into Manhattan and other New York destinations." Apparently this is being done without any environmental impact study on the communities between Stewart Airport and Manhattan. It would seem that this is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which requires an Environmental Assessment (EA) and/or Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of such an action. New FAA Environmental "Order" Helps Polluters, Not The Public!!! There is a new FAA regulation, Order 5050.4B which "supplements" the old FAA Order 1050.1E. You can be sure this new FAA order, issued in April of 2006, further diminishes the public's quality-of-life by helping inflict more noise and air pollution on us. This new "environmental" order was not issued to improve environmental quality but to "to support airport development projects." This clearly shows that the Bush government and aviation industry bastards are looking to increase aviation pollution in America by redefining environmental regulations (NEPA) which the federal government once claimed were there to "foster and promote improving environmental quality."

N.Y. City Near Collisions: Senator Chuck Schumer Says FAA Needs "Top-To-Bottom Reorganization!!!" The Federal Aviation Administration needs "a top-to-bottom reorganization" in the wake of a spate of near-misses over New York City airspace, Sen. Chuck Schumer said yesterday. Reacting to an exclusive report in The Post on a shocking spike in midair near-collisions, New York's senior senator called for the FAA "to be turned inside out and upside down" with a renewed focus on passenger safety. "It appears that the FAA is not only unable to bring flights in on time but can't even keep them apart," he said. "The FAA has let the airspace over New York get so congested and tangled that flights literally have to do the slalom just to land." There have been seven near-collisions - defined as planes flying less than 500 feet apart - above local airports this year. Five occurred in May alone. Editor's Note: I suggest they start at the top with Marion Blakey. However, I'm sure her replacement would be just as bad, or worse. http://www.nypost.com/seven/06122007/news/regionalnews/overhaul_faa_for_close_calls__chuck_regionalnews_chuck_bennett.htm 

Washington Post Writer Says Noise Is "Sewage" For The Ears!!! You may say I'm thin-skinned, but I have science on my side. A growing body of evidence confirms that the chronic din of construction crews, road projects, jet traffic and, yes, those ubiquitous leaf blowers, is taking a toll on our health and happiness. "Everyday noise is under the radar, yet it affects everyone's life," said Louis Hagler, a retired physician in Oakland, Calif., and an advocate for quiet, who recently published in the Southern Medical Journal a review of studies linking noise exposures to health problems. "We don't say to people, 'You just have to learn to live with sewage in your water,' " Hagler said in an interview. "Why should we tolerate sewage coming into our ears?" More than 40 percent of Americans whose homes have any traffic noise at all classify that noise as "bothersome," according to the 2005 American Housing Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. One-third of those say the noise is so bothersome they want to move. All told, more than 100 million Americans are regularly exposed to noise levels in excess of the 55 decibels that federal agencies have recommended as a reasonable background intensity. Here in the Washington area, a battle over airport noise is posed to erupt this summer as the Senate considers adding as many as 20 new daily takeoffs and landings at Reagan National, a move opposed by neighbors already fed up with the steady roar of low-flying jets.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060401430.html 

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                                    Important Aviation News Stories This Week

The FAA's airspace redesign over North Jersey isn't intended just to reduce delays, it's intended to increase the number of flights at all of the region's airports.

THE JUST-UNVEILED regional airspace redesign reveals some of the Federal Aviation Administration's dirty little secrets.

The redesign is intended to reduce delays at crowded airports in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia by rerouting jets over 11 towns in the Pascack Valley. FAA officials claim the redesign will reduce departure delays at Newark Liberty International Airport by about four minutes per plane.

The FAA acknowledged that the redesign would not only increase noise on the ground in the "Pascack Funnel," but also actually double the noise in some towns. However, we were assured that the number of flights through the Funnel would not increase enough "to require additional noise mitigation."

The Record reported that David Plavin, former aviation director for the Port Authority, disagreed.

"Typically you don't get a long-lasting benefit of [reducing delays] in crowded airspace," said Plavin. "If you really do free up airspace, airplanes come in to fill it up."

That's the FAA's first dirty little secret.

The regional airspace redesign isn't intended just to reduce delays, it's intended to increase the number of flights at all of the region's airports. But notably absent in the airspace redesign is the region's most contentious and dangerous airport.

Violating impact statement

Exactly one year ago this week, I wrote to Steve Kelley, the FAA's manager of airspace redesign, about the noise -- and, more importantly, the danger -- associated with what has become Teterboro "International" Airport. I explained that the Instrument Landing System approach installed on Runway 19 violates the FAA's own environmental impact statement.

The ILS, which allows nighttime and bad weather landings, was allowed to be built eight years ago because an FAA report stated that it would have "no significant impact" in terms of noise. This conclusion was based on the prediction that annual aircraft takeoffs and landings would "remain under 170,000" until 2007 because the ILS was "not expected to increase traffic."

But in 1999, according to The Record, there were 180,000 annual operations at Teterboro, already a 6 percent increase over the FAA report's "no significant impact" projection for 2007.

The report also stated that "no hospitals are included" beneath the ILS flight path where noise is more than 65 decibels. But noise has been measured at more than 100 decibels over Hackensack University Medical Center since the ILS opened.

Worse than noise is the danger of the increasing number of jets flying into Teterboro. The FAA's report found "no significant impact" in terms of safety, stating that the ILS "moves the approach away from residential areas to the predominantly industrialized areas north of the airport."

100 feet over rooftops in Hackensack

In fact, jets are flying less than 100 feet over the rooftops of Hackensack's high-rise apartment buildings and the medical center. FAA regulations caution pilots to "avoid direct flight over" all hospitals. Yet, the ILS approach to Teterboro requires pilots to fly directly over the medical center.

The FAA is deaf to the noise and blind to the danger of jets flying over the Hackensack Heights, and now through the Pascack Funnel, apparently more concerned, as the FAA's Kelley said in 2005, with the "very large percentage of gross national product that comes from aviation."

Those of us in the Hackensack Heights and Pascack Funnel will live with increasing fear as more planes roar overhead into Newark and Teterboro airports. This fear will multiply as more mishaps occur around Teterboro Airport and we learn more about the FAA's dirty little secrets: Its interest in the gross national product instead of New Jerseyans' quality of life -- or their lives -- its concocted reports and its failure to enforce its own regulations.

Richard L. Bruno, a clinical psychophysiologist, lives in Hackensack Heights, directly under Teterboro Airport's Instrument Landing System flight path.