The Pinocchio Chronicles #11: Palomar, County & FAA, # 299

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in June 2021 updated its airport Land Use Compatibility Advisory Circular. [FAA AC 150/5190-4B]

This Circular explains how communities can curtail conflicts with airports, cut airport noise impacts, and improve community safety when aircraft crash.

No surprise. The FAA says two things: Reduce the density of people near airports. And know that only Superman, not aircraft, can quickly leap tall buildings and trees near airports. Fewer people, fewer eardrums pierced by aircraft. Fewer maimed or killed in an off-airport crash.

Seems simple. Just cut back on 40 million California residents and cut multifamily structures including affordable housing and offices housing workers near airports.

Meanwhile, the FAA Land Use Compatibility Circular ignores the greatest airport problem and the one most within the FAA’s control: Unsafe airport use.

The FAA Shuffle

Make no mistake. Though Congress told the FAA to make airports safe, the FAA often sacrifices air safety to grow airports. Have doubts? Examine the FAA McClellan-Palomar (Palomar) Airport track record.

• 31 Palomar-related deaths in 50 years involving 16 different incidents. [See list in Union Tribune, “Two killed in fiery crash at McClellan-Palomar Airport,” by Ireland and Kaye, 7/4/07 and at “Pilot Dies in McClellan-Palomar Plane Crash by Editors,” 9/29/08 at Carlsbadistan.com and at “2 killed after helicopter spins out of control, goes up in smoke in California (Video) ” on 11/19/15 at rt.com].
• The FAA funded Palomar as a B-II airport for limited general aviation basic transport use.
• The 4900-foot runway has 300-foot long unpaved, runway safety areas (RSA) at runway ends as the FAA design manual requires – NOT the 1,000-foot long RSAs that FAA-rated C & D airports need.
• FAA B-rated airports anticipate serving B-rated aircraft, not the larger, faster, more fuel-laden FAA-rated C & D aircraft.
• Yet about 5,200 FAA-rated C & D sized corporate jets have annually used Palomar for nearly 20 years.
• In the 1960s and 1970s, the FAA stood idly by as county created and operated 19 acres of bird-attracting landfills on Palomar Airport 500 feet from the runway substantially increasing the risk of aircraft engines ingesting birds.
• FAA-rated C & D aircraft carrying much more explosive aviation fuel increase the environmental and safety hazards in a crash.
• And, the FAA has done nothing to make the on-Palomar Airport land use compatible with the aircraft using it.

What should the FAA be doing? First, allow airports to restrict aircraft using the airport to those for which the airports are designed – as the city of Santa Monica requested and the FAA rejected. Second, immediately install safety systems to compensate for unsafe airport use.

The FAA allows airports to substitute 350-foot engineered safety systems at runway ends (called EMASs) when 1000 feet RSAs are not available. Yet the FAA failed to fund any at Palomar even though it paid county millions in 2009 to dig up the runway and rehabilitate it.

Isn’t it ironic that in its 138-page FAA Land Use Compatibility Advisory Circular, the FAA lectures communities on safety when the FAA avoids safety issues on the airports it oversees and funds?