Cities outside Newport-Mesa claim flights have increased

Paul Clinton

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT -- Costa Mesa and Newport Beach residents aren’t

the only ones concerned about the noise from planes landing at the

airport.

Orange has stepped into the fray, with elected officials from that

city publicly complaining about what they say are increases in flights

and noise over that city’s homes.

“More planes tend to be flying over east Orange, which is

residential,” Orange Councilman Dan Slater said. “I talk to friends in

east Orange on the phone when a plane is going by, and it’s quite loud. I

don’t think you can have a discussion outdoors when a plane is flying

over.”

While flights have been on the rise, the real problem, officials in

Orange, Tustin and other cities say, is a wider dispersion of flights

over a larger geographic area.

Orange put its concerns in writing in March when Mayor Mark Murphy

sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration. The city objected

to a shift of arriving planes eastward, increases in aircraft operations,

nighttime landings and takeoffs, and low-flying planes.

Officials at John Wayne Airport acknowledged they have received more

complaints from Orange, Tustin and even Irvine, in recent months.

“I think it’s substantially a perception,” said John Leyerle, the

airport’s access and noise manager. “All the complaints we receive are

valid.”

Leyerle, however, said the airport has seen increases in the number of

daily flights. In 1990, the airport counted 65 arrivals each day,

compared to 125 today.

Since the letter was sent to the FAA, that agency formally responded

to it. In an April 17 letter to Orange, FAA Regional Administrator

William Withycombe said he couldn’t confirm that flights have increased

“in all directions of the community,” as the letter stated.

Flights landing at John Wayne typically take two routes. Planes from

the north come in from Catalina Island, while those that come in from the

east cross over Saddleback. Eastern arrivals fly over Villa Park, Orange,

North Tustin, Tustin, parts of Irvine, eastern Costa Mesa and on to the

airport.

On their approach, flights usually follow the Costa Mesa Freeway.

However, pilots are given leeway by FAA air-traffic regulators to veer

off course if needed. Those “over flights” have caused the biggest uproar

among the affected cities.

“The FAA has no evidence that indicates the aircraft overflights

referenced by Murphy are being conducted unsafely or inconsistently with

federal regulations,” Withycombe wrote in his letter.

Flights began to divert from their usual patterns, Slater said,

shortly after the closure of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

At the time, the FAA lifted restrictions on airspace previously

reserved for military flights. Irvine was hit hard at the time, said Dan

Jung, that city’s director of special programs.

“The way I learned about it was through a flood of citizen calls

[stemming] from low-flying planes crisscrossing over Irvine,” Jung said.

Costa Mesa Councilman Gary Monahan has also said publicly he has

noticed more planes in the skies over the eastern portion of his city.

The increases in flights could get worse, Newport Beach officials

said, if John Wayne remains the only county airport.

Newport Beach has held a series of meetings with staff members of

other North County cities.

Without naming anyone, Newport Beach Councilman Tod Ridgeway said the

city has been frustrated by the lack of understanding in some other

cities about that potential scenario.

“That’s one of our frustrations,” Ridgeway said. “They’re just not

aware of the impacts John Wayne has on their cities. . . . We’re trying

hard to get that information out to them.”