Residents Angered by Low-Flying Planes Given Steps to Follow

When classes at Fern Drive Elementary School in Fullerton are interrupted by the noise of low-flying planes and teachers and parents protest to the city’s municipal airport, they are asked to call back when they have the identification numbers on the bottoms of the planes.

Teacher Jean Crum told the Fullerton City Council on Tuesday night that one parent, irked by that suggestion, had answered: “I’m sorry. I didn’t get his number. I was too busy looking at his blue eyes and mustache.”

Fullerton resident Timothy Bentley, 38, said he has no problem spotting identification numbers. It’s easy, he said, because the planes fly so low.

“I look out my picture window and that’s all I see: numbers,” he said.

A crowd of more than 400 residents who live near Fullerton Municipal Airport expressed frustration and anger about low-flying aircraft at the council meeting Tuesday, where the topic was a proposed ordinance allowing some small jets to land at the airport. Residents directed much of their wrath toward city and federal authorities, who they said turn a deaf ear to their concerns.

Several residents said authorities have hung up phones on them or ignored their inquiries.

Wednesday, officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and its Flights Standard District Office, the Fullerton Airport Noise and Safety Committee, the Fullerton Municipal Airport and the John Wayne Airport control tower described procedures to follow and places to call to report low-flying or noisy aircraft.

Calling the airport is one option but not the best one because residents will ultimately be directed to the FAA, officials said.

Steve Pansky, area supervisor at John Wayne Airport, said if a low-flying or noisy airplane can be identified and tracked on radar, an official will meet the pilot upon the plane’s descent. From there, it’s in the hands of the Flights Standard District Office. Typically, most calls are directed to the FAA.

“We are not an enforcement agency,” Pansky said. “We’re controlling airplanes.”

Fullerton Airport Director Rodney L. Murphy said he wants to hear from residents and encourages them to call him--but not the tower.

Murphy said he has heard controllers in the tower answering telephone inquiries about low-flying planes, directing the caller to the proper authority and then hanging up.

Orange County is within the Long Beach FAA district. That office investigates safety complaints--a process that can take four to six weeks and lead to the suspension or revocation of a pilot’s license if there is a violation of federal regulations, spokeswoman Elly Brekke said.

The agency puts out a brochure, available to the public, advising: “How you can help FAA identify unauthorized low-flying aircraft.”

In that brochure, the FAA recommends that residents jot down the low-flying plane’s identification number, which begins with an “N.” In addition, residents should try to get:

- The time, date and location where the aircraft was spotted.

- The direction the plane was heading.

- The aircraft’s color and its flight characteristics, including unusual maneuvers.

- The plane’s altitude, which can be gauged with reference to nearby prominent objects.

The FAA recommends that residents take photos and talk with others who can corroborate their reports.

It is the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office that conducts the nvestigation. The FAA notifies the pilot that he or she is being investigated, Brekke said. The FAA’s Los Angeles office for the Western Pacific Region reviews the findings and either endorses or revises the recommendations, which are then forwarded to the agency’s legal department, Brekke said.

“It’s not like a policeman who gives you a ticket right away. It doesn’t work that way,” Pansky said.

Stan E. Ault, chairman of Fullerton’s Airport Noise and Safety Committee urged interested residents to attend the group’s monthly meetings and keep abreast of any problem areas in the city.