An email exchange between former Airport Commissioner Susan Hartley and Santa Monica Airport Director Bob Trimborn;

TRIMBORN: Use of the nation’s airspace is regulated by the federal government through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The City of Santa Monica does not control air traffic operations at Santa Monica Airport – that falls within the purview of the FAA.}Federal Air Regulation (FAR) Part 91.119 applies to all aircraft operating at Santa Monica Airport. Aircraft arriving and departing the Airport routinely operate below 1’000 over congested areas as they approach or depart the runway – as is the case at most airports located within highly congested urban areas. The qualifying statement “Except when necessary for takeoff or landing…” at the beginning of FAR Part 91.119 applies to all aircraft whether or not they are operating under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) or Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). It simply means that aircraft operators are allowed to depart and climb over congested areas to their desired (or required) cruising altitude and conversely are allowed to descend over congested areas as they approach and land.

Most pilots follow the recommend flight tracks; however on occasion you will notice aircraft turning before (or just after) the end of the runway and overflying the Sunset Park area at low altitudes. This has been happening for over 80+ years and could occur for any number of reasons – FAA Air Traffic Control could have directed the pilot to turn early to avoid conflict with other aircraft, the pilot might be avoiding inclement weather or a cloud bank near the end of the runway, the pilot could be following the FAA test of the proposed IFR departure for piston powered aircraft, etc. All of which are allowed under FAR Part 91.119.
For further clarification of the application of Federal Air Regulations, I suggest that you contact the Federal Aviation Administration, Flight Standards District Office (FSDO). FSDO is primarily responsible enforcement of the Federal Air Regulations related to the operation and certification of aircraft and the certification of pilots and aircraft operators. Here is their local contact information:
Richard Falcon, Manager, Los Angeles Flight Standards District Office (LAX FSDO), 2250 East Imperial Highway
El Segundo, California 90245, (310) 215-2150

I understand your point regarding inclusion of your neighborhood and Sunset Park in the FAA environmental review of the Federal Aviation Administration’s test of the proposed change to piston-powered IFR departure procedures. Your supposition that I am somehow in opposition to a complete and inclusive environmental review of the test procedure is unfounded. The press release (which I co-authored) clearly states as follows:
The City of Santa Monica announces its intention to aggressively pursue all avenues for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct a full environmental impact study of any permanent change to Piston-Powered Instrument Flight Rules Departure Procedures at Santa Monica Airport. The City insists on the inclusion of the City and its residents in reviewing any proposed change before final departure procedures are decided. Further, the City is initiating noise modeling of the test’s impact on the affected areas.”
I, and the rest of the Airport staff fully support this position – staff will demand that the FAA include your neighborhood and all other affected neighborhoods in the environmental review process.

HARTLEY: Thanks for your email and inclusion of the pertinent FAA regs.I suggest you look at page 3 of the 11/23/09 Airport Staff report where it mentions that the aircraft can make their 40-degree turn to the right when they reach an “altitude of 400 feet above mean sea level”.

A comparison of that Airport Staff report with the FAA reg cited in your email, on its face, shows that there is indeed the “exemption from clearance restriction” mentioned in my email unless you are going to claim that all these low flying planes are departing and not subject to any minimum safe altitudes requirements of the reg, i.e., You are claiming that the aircraft I’m complaining about are permitted the lower altitude because they are departing over Clover Park, Fire Station #5, my home and neighborhood on Ashland between 25th and 23rd Streets, which is two blocks at approximately a 90° angle from the north side of the runway!

The reg’s minimum safe altitude is 1,000 feet over “any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons… within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.” Surely, Sunset Park qualifies as a congested area of a city, town, or settlement. If you don’t feel it does, then the reg requires that aircraft be at a minimum of 500 feet over any person or structure in “sparsely populated areas”. “400 feet above mean sea level” is definitely below these minimums and we certainly deserve the 1,000 feet minimum safe altitude.

All that said, the point of my initial email was that my neighborhood between the runway and Ocean Park Blvd and 23rd and 25th Streets be included, as well, in any much needed EIR. You shouldn’t be objecting to this. The Press Release’s claims that these turns take place “just southwest of SMO after take-off” and generally “near the vicinity (of) the Penmar Golf Course” are not true, accurate, or complete. Those of us to the northwest of SMO and near Clover Park are being subjected to these planes flying over us at low altitudes as well. This may seem like a tempest in a teapot to you, but to those of us having planes fly over our residences at such low altitudes, it’s a hurricane and part of the continuing de facto expansion of Santa Monica Airport that we sadly witness and experience every day and night.

As I stated earlier, SMO must be closed. We must think “El Toro”. It happened there. It must happen here

Editor’s Postscript
Presumably. Congress gave the FAA dominion over the sky in one
Of its more witless moments, or surely it would not have given it so much power and so little responsibility. When there is a plane crash,. It is blamed on “pilot error” or “mechanical failure.” Never FAA error or failure.
So far it has sprayed once serene Santa Monica residential neighborhoods (i.e., “congested areas”) with toxic particulates from jet fuel and fumes from the leaded gas used by prop planes; hammered them with big jets, and had the gall to order residents to decapitate their palm trees as they allegedly breached the flight path, and now low-flying planes are rattling residents’ nerves.
A recent L.A. Times article (May 24), was headlined “Flyovers have residents up in arms.”

The very idea of giving dominion over the sky to an utterly parochial
Agency that persists In describing the earth as a “congested area” is
Lethally stupid.
.