Update: July 31, 2021
3 YEAR RECAP OF AIRCRAFT ISSUE
It has been three years since residents in communities south of Van Nuys Airport (VNY) literally woke up one morning to an onslaught of low-flying VNY aircraft over their homes and businesses day and night. On August 9, the FAA and LAWA will announce their latest solution to the problem. Click here for meeting information. This is a recap of what has transpired in the last three years:
THE ISSUE
(updated 8/23)
For 40+ years VNY aircraft had made their turns over the unpopulated Sepulveda Basin just south of VNY airport with very few noise complaints.
In 2017, FAA created the new FATKO waypoint as part of its Metroplex “NextGen” program, which was too close to the end of the runway and in violation of the airport’s no early turns policy. In response to 21 nearby resident complaints, the FAA moved turns back over the Basin.
Instead of keeping the departure procedures there or in its vicinity, it created a new PPRRY waypoint in the summer of 2018, a half mile south, resulting in turns over the foothills and high elevations of the Santa Monica Mountains, impacting over 100,000 residents. Although this area has over 20 protected (4f) parks, overlooks and open spaces with wildlife, the change was done without notice or an environmental assessment.
Even so, when the FAA does do environmental reviews, it deploys a flawed system of noise measurement using modeling and antiquated averages that do not measure the true adverse affects, particularly for mountainous terrain where noise reverberates and is quiet between noise events, a no-win situation.
Almost immediately, this abrupt change in flight paths caused an over 100,000% increase in noise complaints from residents in our communities, whose homes had never been in a flight path for 40+ years or had very few over flights.
These are residents who did not purchase their homes within a few miles of VNY. The runway was essentially moved over their homes that are 5 to 12 miles from the airport. In 2017, many of our residents had also started experiencing new FAA departure flight paths from Burbank Airport (BUR) in the opposite direction, 9 to 12 miles from Burbank. BUR knows about the issue yet is trying to expand their operations.
General aviation (corporate jets, planes, helicopters) has had a poor crash safety record for decades that remains unchanged, often resulting in fire upon impact. Yet, 90% of the populated foothills and mountain terrain where hundreds of aircraft are flying over daily and nightly is a CA-designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFSZ), creating a dangerous risk for a catastrophic crash and fire.
While VNY airport was transparent about what had happened after residents began complaining, that wasn’t the case for BUR. The FAA attempted to obfuscate - at first denying that there was a change in flight paths, then calling it a “Southerly shift” due to weather changes (our weather hasn’t fluctuated in decades) and other justifications.
THE FIX FOR VNY
In response to the complaints, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) which owns VNY, worked with the FAA on a “solution” presented to our communities in August 2019. Unacceptable new waypoints would have been created in nearly the exact location of proposed waypoints for BUR. In other words, the FAA was attempting to create another low-flying “superhighway” in each direction in the foothills. New flight paths, such as these, are happening not only in our communities, but across the United States, as part of the FAA’s extremely flawed NextGen program. The FAA is a “captured” agency run by ex-airline and aviation industry executives who are continuing to promote their flawed NextGen program - the root of the issue here and across the U.S.
In September 2019, the South San Fernando Valley Noise Task Force (TF) was convened in response to the growing complaints across our communities for VNY and BUR (currently over 1,000,000 complaints regarding both airports). The TF was comprised of 8 voting members: 2 from the City of Burbank, 1 each from Glendale and Pasadena, and 4 Los Angeles City Council members. Non-voting federal reps were: Congressmen Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Tony Cardenas and Ted Lieu, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.
In May 2020 the TF passed nearly every recommendation that we had advocated for. The gist of the VNY recommendation was for the FAA to return to departure procedures making turns over the Sepulveda Basin. In addition, in a letter to the FAA, Senators Feinstein and Harris reiterated the “urgent need to provide relief to the residents of the South San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica Mountains.”
In September 2020 the FAA rejected the recommendations claiming “not operationally feasible.” We believe that is not only unacceptable but inaccurate, and that the FAA can make acceptable changes to flight paths.
In response, in October 2020 LAWA submitted a formal request to return to the Sepulveda Basin as an interim solution, and to revisit the 2019 proposal.
In May 2021, LAWA and FAA convened a working group to revise the 2019 proposal.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
Updated (see latest update)
On August 9, LAWA and FAA will have a Virtual Briefing on this “Proposed Redesign of VNY Procedures.” We have seen only a preliminary one-slide presentation of the proposal and need more information from the briefing if it returns to the Sepulveda Basin (or proximity). Click here for meeting information.
When we have additional information, an update will be provided.
Please check back for additional details as the final report becomes available.