Feelings Running High as Small Planes Catch Flak

The near-collision over Newport Beach between a small plane and a Continental Airlines jet carrying 132 passengers on June 30 was Edwin C. Hall’s call to battle.

An air traffic controller in the tower at John Wayne Airport had told the pilot of the Beechcraft Bonanza to turn left after taking off. The pilot turned right instead, crossing within 100 feet of the Boeing 737, which had taken off just after the Beechcraft. Quick evasive action by the Continental pilot prevented what Airport Manager George Rebella describes as “my worst nightmare.”

The outspoken Hall, a former general aviation pilot who lives under the John Wayne flight path and who complains frequently about airport noise, quickly turned his neighborhood newsletter into an anti-aircraft weapon. Small planes are “self-serving, extravagant assault toys” that “operate over our communities in a life-threatening manner,” he said. “Unless they reshuffle the deck out there, the Board of Supervisors has a responsibility to ultimately disallow all general-aviation-type aircraft from John Wayne Airport.”

‘Accident Waiting to Happen’

Hall is not alone in his opinion. “It’s just an accident waiting to happen,” said Carlyle H. Levinson of the Bluff Homeowners Assn. in Newport Beach, referring to the mix of small planes and big jets flying into and out of John Wayne.

Concerns about the threat to homeowners’ safety increased recently after a Fullerton-based single-engine Cessna 152 with an instructor and student pilot aboard crashed into a Buena Park residential area, prompting that city’s mayor to demand restrictions at Fullerton Municipal Airport.

Despite the fears and the criticism, however, county officials have no plans to ban small aircraft at John Wayne. In fact, the Orange County Board of Supervisors has hired the consulting firm of Kennedy/Jencks/Chilton Inc. of Irvine to prepare a master plan, due in April, for the continued use of general aviation there for at least the next two decades.

John Wayne has a higher percentage of general aviation traffic than any other major airport that serves at least as many passengers per year. General aviation constitutes 83.4% of the traffic at John Wayne. One experienced air traffic controller calls the job at John Wayne the most demanding he has seen, and an airline pilot says the skies over the airport push the limits of safety.

Despite such concerns, aviation experts cite the lack of a “reliever” airport for general aviation in Orange County, the clout of private pilots and the airfield’s colorful history as home to some of the famous early barnstormers and movie stunt fliers.

‘People Are Human’

Said Rebella, John Wayne Airport’s manager: “Some (general aviation) people are a pain . . . but you find those everywhere. Yes, somebody is going to be somewhere where they’re not supposed to be, and there will be a major crash. People are human and they make mistakes. . . . But I don’t go out every day and say to those folks (homeowners) that it didn’t happen, so they must be wrong.”

Just because there might be a crash on the freeway, Rebella added, “you don’t close the freeway down.”

The latest fatal air crash at John Wayne occurred in March, when five members of a Canadian family died when their Piper Aerostar crashed in Newport Beach shortly after takeoff.

“If the federal government has invested funds in a public aviation facility, by law that facility must be open to all types of aircraft,” said James J. Wiggins, manager of the Federal Aviation Administration’s regional planning and programs branch in Los Angeles. “They all help pay for the facilities. . . .”

John Wayne Airport would lose several million dollars a year in federal funding if it discouraged any type of aircraft, Wiggins said, because discrimination is a violation of federal regulations.

Between 1983 and 1988, the airport received $5.8 million in federal grants. In the 1988-89 fiscal year alone, the airport received slightly more than $8 million, mostly because of the current airport expansion project.

747 General Aviation Planes

There are currently 747 general aviation planes at John Wayne, and they range from the smallest Cessna to the large Gulfstream corporate jets. In fact, the airfield is so popular with aircraft owners that there is a five-year waiting list for tie-down space.

Through aircraft tie-down fees, hangar leases, wash-and-wax and fueling charges, general aviation accounted for $2.03 million, or 9.18% of John Wayne Airport’s 1988 operating revenue of $22.1 million.

“It’s not a high percentage of our revenue,” Rebella said. “The problem with general aviation is that if you allow it to run the test of the free marketplace, it couldn’t survive at any of the major airports because the commercial air carriers have so much money . . . that they could basically price general aviation out” and buy up all the ground and hangar leases.

“That’s why the Board of Supervisors has protected general aviation,” Rebella said.

Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley agreed, citing a commitment the board made to small plane owners when plans were formulated for the $50-million passenger terminal now under construction.

General aviation has declined drastically at other major airports. At Los Angeles International and others, the decline was because, in part, commercial air carriers outbid all others for leases.

Other Factors

But there have been other factors contributing to the decline of general aviation at LAX and at other airports. One is small aircraft pilots’ wish to avoid the congestion known as “stacking,” in which planes are lined up to land or take off.

“The small plane driver doesn’t want to get mixed in with that mess,” the FAA’s Wiggins said, “so they moved to smaller airports in the area.”

Some airports, including National in Washington, discourage private aircraft operators by requiring minimum 24-hour advance reservations for instrument-aided landings, a practice imposed by the FAA despite its anti-discrimination policies.

FAA officials say such “flow control” measures are adopted only rarely, when an airport is completely “saturated” with air traffic and cannot handle any more. John Wayne Airport has never approached its theoretical capacity for takeoffs and landings, even though there are morning and late afternoon periods of severe congestion.

Gary Proctor, a Santa Ana lawyer and county airport commissioner who keeps a Cessna at John Wayne, said that, because of what has happened elsewhere, he would like to see the new master plan for general aviation be something that would protect general aviation.

“If you look at the history of major airports, the disappearance of (general aviation) just happens, slowly,” he said. “It happens because nobody’s paying attention, and they let it happen. It creeps up on you.”

Proctor said that the ultimate solution would be for aircraft owners to band together and raise the money necessary to build a small alternative airfield, but he quickly added: “I’m a very small voice in the woods on that issue.”

Rebella said the safety problems are greatly exaggerated in the news media and that people such as Ed Hall often make irresponsible, baseless accusations.

What’s more, Rebella added, “the FAA has been cracking down” on pilots who make mistakes.

But the FAA’s own figures tell a different story. So far this year, there have been fewer disciplinary actions taken against errant pilots than at this time last year, and the total number dropped to 4,212 in 1988 from 4,437 in 1987. In addition, the number of suspensions--the FAA’s toughest sanction--has fallen to a scant 133 so far this year. The number for all of 1988 was 1,082, and for all of 1987 it was 1,697.

Federal officials say they do not know the reason behind the drop.

‘Mixed Feelings’

Commercial pilots such as United Airlines’ Dick Russell say they take extra precautions around John Wayne Airport because of general aviation. “The issue is that there is a disaster there just waiting to happen. Right now, it’s bordering on the edge of not being safe. But we have mixed feelings on the issue, because many of us, like myself, are also general aviation pilots.”

Russell, a Los Angeles member of the Air Line Pilots Assn. air safety committee, flies in and out of John Wayne continually. Russell owns several small planes, but they are based at Van Nuys Airport, which does not serve commercial airlines.

“The mix of small planes and airliners at John Wayne is unusual for an airport as busy as John Wayne, but you have to remember that it was always a general-aviation airport. It should never have been made a commercial airport. . . . There isn’t enough space out there to adequately handle commercial airline needs, so the small airplanes do get in the way. But they were there first.”

Some jetliners take off at such a steep angle, Russell said, that pilots cannot see small airplanes directly in front of them. Those pilots, Russell said, must rely on radar and air traffic controllers to protect them and their passengers.

The FAA’s Tom Rea, who was manager of the John Wayne air traffic control tower from April, 1988, to April, 1989, said the high number of small aircraft is “a major problem at John Wayne Airport because we have only two runways.”

‘Tight Quarters’

“We try to isolate the two,” Rea said of general aviation and commercial craft, “but it’s extremely tight quarters out there. The aircraft of one type must cross the runway of the opposing traffic. From an air traffic control point of view, it’s one of the most demanding situations I’ve encountered anywhere.”

Rea, currently the deputy air traffic control manager at the Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control Center, the FAA’s regional facility in El Toro, added: “You have many pilots in smaller aircraft who are not only student fliers but also low flight-time pilots. When you have an air carrier pilot with thousands of hours and a general aviation pilot with just a hundred hours, there’s a big difference in experience levels.

“That comparison meets a lot of opposition from the (general-aviation) community. And John Wayne has one of the most cohesive general-aviation communities I’ve ever seen. The problem is that Orange County is Custer’s Last Stand for general aviation.”

Indeed, two years ago local pilots formed the Orange County Airport Assn. to “counter” the “growing countywide trend of hostility and intolerance toward general aviation,” according to the membership-recruitment brochure for the organization.

Don Miller, vice president of the group, said the public--and government--simply misunderstand general aviation. “We are not all recreational fliers,” he said. “We contribute to the community, and we pay our own way.”

To promote general aviation, the Orange County Airport Assn. brought John L. Baker, president of the 300,000-member Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn., which is based in Maryland, to Orange County for a major speech on June 16.

The cries to close various airports to general aviation are “clearly a manifestation of the ‘don’t just sit there, do something--even if it’s wrong’ syndrome,” Baker told several hundred pilots at a luncheon in Irvine. “General aviation provides air service from over 14,000 airports in the country while flying five times as many hours annually as the airlines.”

Baker said general aviation provides on-demand air taxis, crop dusting, emergency medical and so-called mercy flights, small-parcel and canceled-check deliveries, search and rescue, aerial pipeline safety inspections and other services.

The underlying problem, Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn. officials say, is that the number of non-private landing strips has shrunk 20% since 1969 and that airports such as John Wayne--once considered a “reliever” airport for Los Angeles International--now need their own “relievers.”

There isn’t anyplace else to go that’s convenient, Rebella said. Meadowlark Airport in Huntington Beach closed this month, eliminating 150 aircraft tie-down spaces. And although Fullerton has spaces available, people who live near it are seeking to shut it down.

In January, FAA officials say, a new air safety zone will be created around John Wayne Airport that will require general-aviation pilots to be in contact with air traffic controllers when they are within certain altitude ranges and distances from the airfield.

That action, along with the installation of collision-avoidance systems by the airlines during the next few years, will make the skies safer, Rebella said.

But Rebella acknowledges that these things will not, altogether, assure 100% safety. Someday, he said, a major midair collision near John Wayne Airport will occur, and people will be second-guessing him.

And what will he tell homeowners such as Ed Hall?

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” Rebella said. “You just try to operate as safely as you can.”

“Nobody should have to be kicked out of anyplace, but this is a problem that people have to wake up to,” Hall said.