Peter Murray : An Airline Pilot Discusses Safety at John Wayne Airport

COSTA MESA —  Orange County’s John Wayne Airport has been dogged by noise and safety controversies since 1967, when homeowners near the postage-stamp-size airfield protested the start-up of two jetliner departures daily.

In a decision that ended years of court battles, a Superior Court judge in 1985 approved a settlement that led to a $310-million airport expansion project. In exchange, Newport Beach officials and homeowner groups won several concessions, among them a strict noise abatement program that is now the focus of a national debate.

In the meantime, the airlines wrote and the Federal Aviation Administration approved controversial strategies designed to help some jets meet John Wayne Airport’s noise limits--the nation’s toughest. They are:

* A takeoff at a 23-degree angle, contrasted with one of 15 degrees at other airports, in order to keep as much noise as possible within airport boundaries.

* A sharp power reduction at an altitude of 500 feet, to be maintained until the craft reaches the coastline.

In a recent Los Angeles Times series on air safety, pilots cited John Wayne’s takeoff procedure as an “accident waiting to happen.” And under pressure from the Air Line Pilots Assn. and air carriers, the FAA recently proposed a nationwide ban on power cuts below 800 feet.

Orange County officials contend that John Wayne Airport is being unfairly singled out under the guise of uniformity, since theirs is the only facility to require power cuts below 800 feet. County officials also contend that the FAA’s proposal is part of a backdoor bid to undo John Wayne Airport’s restrictions and thus open the airfield to flocks of older, noisier jets now banned there. ABC-TV’s weekly “20/20” news show recently stirred passions further by quoting a survey of pilots that counts Wayne among the nation’s five most dangerous airports.

Who is right? Should the traveling public be concerned? Veteran airline pilot Peter Murray, 50, agreed to an interview on the safety issue on the condition that the airline he has worked for since 1966, one of the nation’s biggest, not be named. Murray served two tours of duty as a U.S. Navy flier aboard aircraft carriers during the Vietnam War. He has a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Cal State Long Beach, and he also attended Orange Coast College and Santa Ana High School. Murray now is captain on Boeing 767s out of Los Angeles International Airport and 757s out of John Wayne. He and his wife, Patty, also own and fly a Piper Aero and a Cessna 310, based at John Wayne. Their son Michael, 20, is a commercial pilot and flight instructor at John Wayne.

Question: Do you agree with the recent survey of pilots that ranks John Wayne Airport as one of the nation’s five most dangerous?

Answer: No. In my opinion, O.C. airport isn’t a dangerous airport. I believe a couple of procedures should be changed. I wouldn’t call the airport unsafe or the procedures that are in effect unsafe. However, I would classify them in my mind as uncomfortable for both the passengers and the pilots.

Q: When you say the takeoff procedures at John Wayne are uncomfortable, what does that mean? Would you hesitate to put your wife or kids on a flight leaving from John Wayne Airport?

A: I think I can speak for most airline pilots in saying that I personally would not do anything that I knew to be unsafe in a small plane or an airliner. If it’s unsafe to me, I won’t go. . . . By uncomfortable I mean that airline passengers pay for and expect a smooth, comfortable ride; they don’t want any surprises or abrupt maneuvers. They also want a smooth landing and a rollout that doesn’t slam them into the seats in front of them. I think that that is what they expect of their pilots. Takeoffs and landings at John Wayne Airport don’t necessarily allow all of the above.

Q: The Air Line Pilots Assn. and the Federal Aviation Administration would like to change some of the takeoff procedures that result from the airport’s noise abatement program. Currently, noisier jetliners are supposed to reduce power at an altitude of 500 feet in order to protect homes near the runway. The proposal is to change the cutbacks to 800 feet for safety reasons. Is 500 feet unsafe?

A: At the present time, I’m flying the Boeing 757 out of Orange County. The takeoff procedures for the 757 may be a little unique to that airplane in that we cut back our power considerably at 800 feet, not at 500 feet. . . . However, our (McDonnell Douglas) Super 80s do reduce their power at 500 feet . . . . What this in effect does is make the aircraft just coast over the city of Newport Beach, and we’re not climbing as quickly as we normally would climb. It does give you a minimum margin between safe flying speed and what’s required in the noise abatement procedure. You would--in planes other than the 757--possibly have your hands full if you did blow an engine at the time you reduced power . . . . Any pilot wants to have options. He wants to have as much airspeed as he can; he wants to have as much altitude as he can. If I was allowed to make a normal climb out of Orange County, as we do at every other airport in the country, I would guess that I could be another 1,500 feet to 2,000 feet higher (and less noisy) over Newport Beach than I am now.

Q: Would that mean less noise for people who live along the coast?

A: I personally think so. . . . However there are other things that could be done at John Wayne Airport to put us even higher over Newport Beach.

Q: Some airline pilots say John Wayne Airport’s departure is unsafe because there is not enough time or distance between the plane and the ground to recover from an engine failure or other sudden calamity. If they are correct, then why did the FAA approve those procedures several years ago? Why didn’t airline pilots object publicly when those decisions were made?

A: I would like to see all of us allowed to fly a normal takeoff procedure out of Orange County, as we do out of every other airport. Why the FAA and the airlines went for this is not my department--that’s politics.

Q: You mentioned politics. John Wayne Airport officials say the takeoff procedures were written by the airlines ... and not the airport staff and that the airport staff does not enforce them. But airline officials say that they adopted the procedures only to make sure that their planes would meet the airport’s strict noise limits. Who is right?

A: Again, I can’t say that the procedure is unsafe. . . . (But) again, it’s politics. I think the thrust of the recent television and magazine interviews has been more in the lack of visibility because of the high nose attitude and the possible danger involved.

Q: Should we as members of the public be concerned when we see a jetliner do a very steep takeoff?

A: There’s a climb attitude of approximately 23 degrees up. That’s not normal. A normal takeoff in a jet airplane would be somewhere in the range of 15 degrees. . . . I’d say that we have less visibility and more chance of meeting a small airplane between the airport and the beach because of the high nose attitude. . . . These noise-abatement procedures were mandated by people that I don’t believe really had a handle on flying airplanes as they should. We rely to a great extent on the controllers--the tower controllers at John Wayne and the radar at Coast Departure Control--to make sure that we don’t have any opposing traffic, because we can’t see as well as we would like below us during this climb.

Q: We hear people say: “Get the small planes out--they only get in the way of the big jets.” Should the public be concerned about the mix?

A: There is, in my opinion, no safety problem involved with the small and large plane mix. . . . The air traffic controllers are excellent. I feel that small airplane pilots have as much a right to be involved at John Wayne Airport as the airliners.

Q: What other changes would you like to see?

A: . . . There are two parallel runways at John Wayne. I would like to see, when I am within 2 miles of landing . . . that no airplane be allowed to be alongside me. . . . The problem is that the two runways are very close together, and it’s disconcerting to me when I am in an airliner landing . . . or, say, within 2 miles--to have a small plane just to the left of me. I don’t know that person’s experience level. It could be a student pilot in a small plane, and we’re possibly within 100 feet of each other at some point. . . .

Q: A new passenger terminal opened last year, which has given the flying public more choices of flights and destinations. But the expansion was based on a court settlement between the county and homeowners’ groups. Is there a trade-off between safety risks and the ability of air carriers to access the airfield at all?

A: That’s politics, and that is not my department. . . . Whatever has been negotiated between the airlines and the FAA and the county and politicians is not my business. There are major improvements now. . . . And it is one of the nicest terminals in the country. But the county should be spending money on other improvements to make the facility safer.

Q: Are there ways to modify the airport’s layout, either to improve safety or reduce noise?

A: We desperately need center-line lights. All they have to do is put lights right down the middle of the runway as they have at almost any other major airline airports in the country. The reason for this is at night, without center-line lights, it’s really--I want to say a black hole. We need this for guidance. . . . The next item they should do is extend the pavement at the south (Bristol Street) end of the main runway. We’ve already had more than one airliner land long for whatever reason and not be able to stop on the runway itself and end up going into what overrun they have now, which is just basically (weak) asphalt. There is grass growing through it. The only thing we have if we have to abort a takeoff and have a hard time stopping . . . is a very narrow taxiway at about a 20-degree angle off to the right at the end of the runway. We have to try and swerve and get onto that. . . .

Q: What about moving the runway’s threshold back several hundred feet to a blast fence along the San Diego Freeway?

A: The problem I think you have here again is politics.. . . Some people believe that if the runway is extended, that’s going to mean larger airplanes, more people and more noise. I don’t look at it that way. If there are larger airplanes or whatever, that’s another decision. . . . All I am looking for is safety. . . . The most important thing to me--if they want to cut down the noise in Newport Beach--they should extend the runway north to the San Diego Freeway. They can put in blast fences at the freeway just as they have at San Diego and Los Angeles. . . . This would give us at least another 1,000 feet of takeoff distance, not for landing. They’d have a displaced threshold. In other words the landing point would be the very same as it is now. We’d have arrows on the runway pointing to that landing point. . . . By having this extra 1,000 to 1,500 feet of pavement to the San Diego Freeway--that’s where we could take off from . . . I could be another 2,000 feet to 3,000 feet higher than I am now over Newport Beach. And if I was given another 1,500 feet of runway to take off on, I could make a normal takeoff instead of a noise-abatement takeoff. The passengers wouldn’t feel like they were on a roller coaster. They (Newport Beach residents) wouldn’t even know an airplane went by. They’d be hearing more noise from diesel Mercedes and sea gulls than they would from airplanes.

Q: But some people in Newport Beach argue that the airlines will merely use a longer runway as an excuse to fly bigger, heavier and noisier planes.

A: Again, that’s politics . . . . Remember, most airports where airlines operate have runways of at least 8,000 feet long. Los Angeles and Long Beach even have runways over 10,000 feet long. And here Orange County has a runway only 5,700 feet long. We need extra runway for takeoff and as an option in an emergency for landing. They could put a 747 at John Wayne right now if they wanted to. It has the stopping power to stop in 5,700 feet. It would be too bad if political decisions and the fear of possibly having a larger airplane come in means that they won’t extend these runways for our safety.

Q: What role should the public play in these debates--for example, in the consideration of the new rules the FAA proposed?

A: I would like to see the public become involved in telling their politicians that “We don’t want a roller-coaster ride out of Orange County; we want it nice and smooth and comfortable as it is out of every other airport,” and to do that, put in this extra 1,000 to 1,500 feet of runway, give us some more takeoff distance. Then we can give them a normal takeoff, a normal ride. Again, I say we could be a couple of thousand feet higher over Newport Beach. Everybody would be happy down there. To not make those safety improvements in the airport facility itself for fear of a larger airplane coming in there is not correct.