Why All That Noise? Village Officials Provide Insight About Airplanes Over Woodridge

If you’ve been noticing a lot of noisy air traffic over the Woodridge area lately, you’re not alone.

“Many residents have noticed over the last several weeks that commercial aircrafts seem to be flying over our area more frequently and at times at lower altitudes,” the Village of Woodridge stated in a press release Friday.

The Village’s best guess, they wrote, is that the change in air traffic is a result of the Fly Quiet Program and the Runway Rotation Test, both of which are originate at O’Hare International Airport.

As part of the program, airlines at O’Hare voluntarily agreed to use designated noise abatement flight procedures with the goal of reducing the impacts of aircraft noise on neighborhoods around the airport.

According to the Chicago Department of Aviation, Chicago authorities announced in June of 1997 that airlines flying into and out of O’Hare had agreed to use noise abatement procedures in accordance with the Fly Quiet Program.

Fly Quiet encourages pilots to use specific runways and flight paths developed by the Chicago Department of Aviation in cooperation with the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission, the airlines and air traffic controllers. These routes are designated for nighttime flying.

The paths constructed for special use are designed to cross over less densely populated areas, like highways, forest preserves and commercial and industrial areas.

The Village of Woodridge is small, at just under 33,000 residents, but not sparse.

The Fly Quiet Runway Rotation Test is what Woodridge village officials think has been disturbing their residents. The rotation test is designed to change overnight flight paths in rotations of 25 weeks — or six months — in 12 weekly periods. The complex schedule was designed to balance overnight noise in affected areas under the flight paths.

Each new rotation begins Sunday evening at 10 p.m. or later. The six months of testing will end the week of December 18.

To round out their project, the Chicago Department of Aviation is also encouraging residents to input their feedback and concerns through a survey provided on their website.

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Photo by Anicka Slachta for Patch.