Odds Are Against Us for Air Disasters

Nearly two years ago in this column, Brig. Gen. W. A. Bloomer, then commander of Marine Corps Air Bases West, made a chilling assessment of the perils of Orange County’s overcrowded skies.

Bloomer’s targeted concern was with air traffic congestion and the high accident potential in the skies and on the ground surrounding El Toro Marine base, but his overall worry was the entire sky canopy of Orange County.

He had warned that coast air traffic controllers rapidly were approaching the saturation point when they would lose control of sky traffic. He had said that general aviation was a major safety threat.

He had pointed out that the immutable laws of probability, given sufficient encouragement--and we were surely doing that with premeditated, unrestrained growth of populations and air traffic--would guarantee that the potential numbers of air and ground accidents would increase dramatically.

We are all aware that Bloomer’s grim scenario was played out in the air and on the ground over Cerritos on Aug. 31 when a general aviation light airplane collided in midair with an Aeromexico DC-9 jetliner.

Orange County’s worst air tragedy could have happened over Anaheim. Or instead of a LAX-bound jet, a jetliner approaching John Wayne Airport could have collided with a plane over Santa Ana. Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are especially vulnerable on takeoffs.

Bloomer had warned that general aviation was a major safety threat, particularly out of John Wayne Airport, where there were 450,0000 operations (takeoffs and landings) annually, 90% of which were general aviation planes, not commercial airlines.

He had said that a problem on clear days was that non-commercial pilots like to use the coastline or Interstate 5 as orientation features. They usually flew low.

This was dangerous for Marine planes at El Toro, he had said, and Marine helicopters at the Tustin base on Redhill Avenue. Many near-misses, he had said, were reported weekly. Northerly-southerly flight patterns of all planes from John Wayne, general and commercial, posed hourly accident potentials. There was particular danger of collisions along the northerly pattern that generally parallels Redhill Avenue, he had said.

As I say, this was Bloomer, a veteran military flier, warning of air and ground perils nearly two years ago. Then, among his warnings was the potentially hazardous development of the Irvine Medical Center which, if built, would be in close proximity to El Toro’s easterly-westerly runway.

“Halt,” he had warned. “Don’t build that 177-bed hospital in that location.” Slow down, he had said of the county’s growth and development. He had even gone so far as to suggest a moratorium on the county’s growth. Population limitation would, he had suggested, help to relieve overcrowded skies. More residential development meant more people wanting to fly, he had said. I talked to Bloomer the other day to see if he had changed his views. Absolutely not. The Cerritos tragedy had firmed them. Tragedies like that are waiting to happen, he said. But nobody listens. The Irvine Medical Center is being constructed in the same potentially dangerous location near El Toro. Leisure World executives are attempting to use the greenbelt for development that serves as a safety strip for one of El Toro’s main runways. Expansion of John Wayne Airport is in the final planning stage. Near-misses in the skies continue.

Three months ago Bloomer retired from active service. He maintains an office in Anaheim, where he is Southern California regional manager for American Protective Services, which provides industrial security guards.

Unfortunately, he told me, those who propose developments don’t take into consideration what’s above them. Further, no airport should have been built without greenbelts devoid of structures on all major approach and takeoff patterns.

Yes, he said, it should be mandatory that general aviation planes be equipped with transponder devices that supply air traffic controllers with altitude information. (The light plane over Cerritos was not.) Also, it can be very confusing to inexperienced pilots who venture into positive terminal control areas, he said. He urged updating and making clearer all maps and charts to help orient pilots as to their positions.

Meanwhile, ground and air congestion proliferates, while man blindly ignores the mathematical odds of fate. Which community is next?