Too many flights for Westside comfort

I live between Baker Street and Fairview Road in the Paularino

Avenue area, which is Mesa North, and I’ve noticed an increase in the

lines too (“Long Beach flights rattle West Costa Mesa,” Thursday).

I understand that Long Beach Airport has increased flights and

some of these planes are low enough that you can read the numbers on

them and you can also tell who they are, and it’s either UPS, FedEx

or now it’s Jet Blue.

I’m not too happy about this, but I think a lot of this is going

to happen more and more. Because El Toro didn’t get through, they’re

going to increase the flights into John Wayne. It reminds me of when

I used to live in Southwest Los Angeles and they brought the jets

into Los Angeles International Airport. I wasn’t too comfortable with

that either, so I’m not comfortable with this. I hope I don’t have to

sell my house pretty soon.

BETTE DUMAIN

Costa Mesa

Just wanted to thank Lolita Harper for writing an article on those

flights over the west of Costa Mesa. We just moved to Mesa Verde from

the Eastside to get away from the flights and the noise on Santa Ana

Avenue, as well as the traffic, and now, here we are, with just as

bad of a sound and it’s really upsetting me because it wasn’t this

way before and I was wondering what we can do to have those flights

maybe pushed out over the coastline a little bit. It’s only a mile

away.

I wouldn’t think, I don’t know the air patterns, but I’d like to

see something in the paper about what we residents of the Westside

can do about having those flights moved over a little bit.

JIM KERINN

Costa Mesa

I have heard the planes. I’ve seen them. I wondered where they

were going because they weren’t taking the regular path, and yes,

they are increasing and I think we ought to do something about this

before it gets out of hand.

Also, I live on the Eastside, so there are times when the other

planes leaving John Wayne fly over here, especially a few months ago

when they had those older aircraft that went over our house. What a

noise. I don’t know why the planes fly over Costa Mesa, why they take

that route rather than the regular ones that the normal planes

leaving John Wayne would take. Anyway, for whatever reason, I would

think the city could do something, monitor this or take into

consideration the impact that it would create later on down the road

if they allow the planes that are heading to Long Beach to continue.

JUNE MCKINZIE

Costa Mesa

My comments, are not

only mine but my neighbors’, and we’d like to thank the Daily

Pilot for bringing this finally to the attention of everybody in our

community and especially Don Elmore who brought it to the Costa Mesa

City Council.

We in the neighborhood have been just complaining about it. It is

a serious quality of life problem and maybe include safety concerns

as well.

First off, the public relations officer at Long Beach Airport,

Sharon Diggs-Jackson, is badly mistaken about her sense of height.

These are coming in far lower than the 4,000 feet that she said. My

airline pilot friends living in the neighborhood said they are coming

in far less than that -- perhaps 2,000 feet or less. I think we’re

just at the tip of the iceberg with this problem in that these

flights are going to be increasing heavily because of how difficult

it is for LAX and how friendly Long Beach is to get in and out of.

So the flights are going to come up, and they become all the more

of a problem because the quantity comes up. The planes used to fly in

over the ocean and they came in over industrial areas in South Long

Beach and landed at the airport, and they were of no problem to

anyone; now they’re coming in over West Costa Mesa and Mesa Verde on

an increasing frequency. Morning, day, nighttime -- they’re getting

louder because they’re flying lower, and we noticed the fallout in

contamination and pollution as well -- particularly if you have white

paint, you see all of the stains of dark tarnish coming from the

aircraft.

There is also a safety concern as people will recall the DC-9 that

crashed in a neighborhood in Cerritos was inbound to Los Angeles,

that was an Aero-Mexico Flight in August 1986, and there’s also the

727 that was inbound to San Diego that crashed into a neighborhood,

so the safety concerns are there as well. These all could be avoided

by pushing the aircraft back out over the ocean and coming in over a

shorter distance of homes.

So what can Costa Mesa residents do about this? We can get the

City Council to get after it, to study it, be aware of it. We can get

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s office to intercede with the Federal Aviation

Administration, we can go directly after the FAA and its air traffic

control people, along with Long Beach Airport operations, and let

them know our concerns, and also the airlines that are operating

these flights.

JOHN O’BRIEN

Costa Mesa

I saw your article in the paper, and I was really happy to see

that because it has been a continual problem around here. My joke is

that we sit in the pool and I can tell the pilot’s color of eyes, so

they’re really, really low, and the noise, when we go up to bed, they

just keep flying in, 8:30, 9:30, 10 p.m. We turn up the TV, and you

can still hear them so they’re flying pretty darn low.

ROSALIE O’BRIEN

Costa Mesa

I can’t imagine anyone in Costa Mesa being disturbed by aircraft

4,000 feet high going into Long Beach. I’ve seen and heard them for

near on a year now, and they are high enough that the noise doesn’t

rattle the house or stop conversation. It’s just good to know that

Long Beach Airport is getting some use, anything to avoid having to

go to LAX.

EILEEN HOFFMANN

Santa Ana Heights