Air Traffic Program Welcome

Pilots, passengers and residents living below the crowded air corridors over Orange County should find welcome relief in the new safety regulations the Federal Aviation Administration has imposed at 66 of the busiest mid-size airports in the nation, including the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The new traffic control program, which will cover most aircraft operating around John Wayne Airport and along the county coastline, extends the area in which pilots are required to contact an airport’s control tower to report their location.

That simple process will help air traffic controllers to identify aircraft in the area on radar and reduce the potential for mid-air collisions--an ever-present danger that has grown alarmingly in recent years.

There were 589 near-misses between aircraft reported nationwide in 1984. That number has increased by about one-third this year.

One of those near-misses occurred several weeks ago on the landing approach to the John Wayne Airport, when a Jet America MD-80 passenger jet had to swerve sharply and narrowly to avoid a small plane that flew across its path. The stray private plane was not in contact with the airport tower.

The near-miss may not be an everyday occurrence, but it happens in the skies over Orange County with unnerving frequency as a mix of commercial, military and private aircraft maneuver through Orange County’s crowded air corridors each day.

Marine Corps officials from El Toro, in sworn documents filed in federal court, disclosed that near-misses of mid-air collisions between the high-performance military jets and slow-moving private planes are becoming almost routine. They reported two or three near-misses each month, some as close as 200 feet. That, according to FAA accident prevention specialists, is what makes El Toro one of Southern California’s most dangerous air corridors.

That danger justifies the new safety controls that are similar to those already in place at most major air terminals across the country.

Such safeguards are a must in areas where heavy air traffic so substantially increases the risks of a mid-air collision and they have been strongly endorsed by military officials and the Air Line Pilots Assn.

Curiously, however, owners and pilots of small aircraft have steadfastly resisted the federal safety effort. They claim it restricts their freedom to fly where they want to in areas that they believe are already overregulated. It’s a weak argument. Their voices would be better directed at airport towers--to give their in-flight locations.

If more private pilots had voluntarily contacted air traffic controllers for radar identification and assistance around busy airports perhaps the new mandatory requirement would not have been needed. But the FAA reported last year that despite repeated warnings, private pilots had not been supplying military air controllers with the information they needed to maintain a higher degree of air safety.

The FAA can no longer compromise that safety. It ordered the new reporting procedure after a four-year review of the national airspace system. It must now firmly enforce it.