Officials Air Worries Over Flight Paths
By Neil Vigdor, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.
Aug. 9–The nearest holding pattern for Westchester County Airport is being moved to the east under a controversial new Federal Aviation Administration routing plan, appearing to spare Greenwich and Stamford but exposing New Canaan, Wilton and Weston to noise from planes circling overhead.
“This just seems to be going from bad to worse,” New Canaan First Selectwoman Judy Neville said yesterday. “In busy times, adverse weather conditions and when the airports are backed up, they will keep them holding over New Canaan and Wilton.”
Neville said she was blindsided by the changes, which were shown for the first time in the appendix of 600-page final report the FAA issued last month on a flight path redesign project. The project is meant to reduce air traffic delays in a five-state region that includes Connecticut.
“This is typical FAA,” said Neville, who has been a vocal critic of the multiyear project.
An FAA spokesman had no comment about any of the changes and referred to the report, which said the new holding patterns were not far from their current locations for airplanes at lower altitudes that are audible.
The current holding pattern for Westchester County Airport has planes fly in a circle that goes directly over backcountry Greenwich and North Stamford. The center of the circle is in Golden’s Bridge, N.Y., according to pilots’ manuals and aeronautical charts. The altitudes for those planes range from 2,000 feet to 2,300 feet.
Under the new holding pattern, those planes would appear to loop over an area that covers New Canaan, Wilton and Weston at 4,000 feet to 5,000 feet.
A side-by-side comparison of the existing and new holding patterns was not available from the FAA, which is expected to adopt the overall plan for the region in September and start implementing the changes within a few months.
Attempts to reach Wilton First Selectman William Brennan and Weston First Selectman Woody Bliss were unsuccessful.
First Selectman Jim Lash said the new holding pattern probably won’t be as a bad as it looks for New Canaan and other towns to the east because air traffic controllers tend to keep planes grounded instead of having them circle when there are weather problems or congestion.
“I can’t remember the last time I was in a plane that was in a holding pattern,” said Lash, a former astronautical engineer and former Boeing employee.
But officials in Greenwich, which borders Westchester County Airport, acknowledged that the changes could have a greater effect on other Fairfield County communities.
“It could be an issue for people farther east. I’m not sure,” said Bruce Dixon, a licensed pilot who is chairman of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Aircraft Noise in Greenwich.
With the report’s recent release, Neville and other critics of the FAA renewed accusations that the agency failed to disclose the new holding patterns for the airports in the region when they presented the redesign project’s details to the public this spring.
“I don’t think anybody is aware of this,” said Mike Kroposki, who lives in Ridgefield, at the northern boundary of the new holding pattern, and who is a member the Danbury Airport Neighbors Association.
“They withheld the information until after the (public) comment period, so you can’t talk about it,” Kroposki said. “You’re kind of being foreclosed from doing anything.”
The new routes are supposed to save 200,000 hours of delays per year at Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Philadelphia airports starting in 2011, according to the FAA.
The last major changes to FAA flight patterns came in 1986, the product of an effort that began in the 1970s. Now, the annual number of airline passengers is approaching a billion, with 29 airports accounting for 75 percent of the load. With many airports close to capacity and the advent of light jets, transportation planners have been eyeing changes in the use of the airspace.
The FAA has said that even at the new levels, the noise increases for the area are not significant based on government standards. Officials from the agency have conceded that there could be a noticeable difference for those not currently exposed to the noise, however.
While the new Westchester County Airport holding pattern would appear to pit the interests of New Canaan against those of Greenwich, the two communities have been working together to oppose the redesign project and pooled their money to hire an aviation consultant to study the new routes.
“To the extent the holding pattern shifts eastward, that can only be good for Greenwich. However, the basic thrust of the FAA redesign is to squeeze more flights into the regional airspace. That is something we opposed and continue to oppose,” Greenwich Selectman Peter Crumbine said.
Neville said the aviation consultant hired by the two towns told her that the new holding pattern could still affect Greenwich.
“I think you have to consider legal recourse here,” Neville said. “They’re not going to pay attention to any other method or avenue.”
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