EDITORIAL: Flying High: Airport Flight Turn Settled at Last

By The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

May 24–”B

cause hope springs eternal we venture to think that at last, the dispute over the flight takeoff course at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport has been resolved.”

Those words are taken verbatim from a Herald editorial published almost four years ago. That hope was expressed at the end of six years of legal battles over the flight path of planes taking off from Runway 32. At that time, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of an airport flight plan filed in 1996. The ruling left opponents little opening to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So now, four years after the 2002 decision, 10 years since this effort began and 20 years since the airport began an expansion and noise-abatement plan encompassing a flight turn, is it over? Long-time residents who recall the heated battles over noise going back to the late 1970s may find it hard to believe it could be over. Back then, airport authority meetings were epic battles between Manatee and Sarasota representatives, and irate residents living close to airport flight routes fought to limit flight operations and even to have the airport moved to East Manatee.

Well, reliance upon poet Alexander Pope’s insight seems even more appropriate today: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast. . . ” It appears the final obstacle to implementation of the turn has been removed. Starting on June 8, planes taking off to the northwest on Runway 32 will turn due west on a 270-degree heading, after they have reached a sufficient altitude for safety, instead of the current 295-degree heading. Once west of Longboat Key they will turn either north or south, depending on their destination.

The change to 270 degrees will put the planes over Longboat Key at about mid-key instead of the present point at the northern end just before Bradenton Beach. That’s what riled up mid-key residents, who complained it would make their lives intolerable and endanger marine birds as well as the aircraft themselves. They persuaded the town to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees demanding environmental studies and making other motions to block the course change — all to no avail.

The key to this battle has always been which course is safer and which produces the least noise impact on the most residents. The 270-degree heading wins in both cases. By turning left sooner, departing planes spend more of their acceleration time over Sarasota Bay, thereby reducing the noise impact on about 40,000 residents on the mainland shore in south Manatee. It also improves safety for all those under the flight path as well as those aboard the aircraft. If a plane encounters mechanical problems that forced it to crash, the 270-degree course will have a better chance of putting the plane over water than over heavily populated neighborhoods. If the pilots can crash-land in the relatively shallow bay waters, passengers will have a better chance of surviving.

And it isn’t as if this is simply shifting the noise problem to Longboat residents. By the time planes cross the key, they are between 3,000 and 5,000 feet in altitude — high enough to minimize any noise. Coupled with the development of much quieter planes in the past few years, aviation experts expect the impact on mid-Longboat Key to be negligible.

Hopefully, this ends the protracted battle over airport noise and enables the airport to bid for new business, including larger, transcontinental flights, without fear of provoking new protests. Along with the rising passenger traffic since luring AirTran to the airport 18 months ago, SRQ’s prospects are infinitely brighter than they have been for many years.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

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