Marines May Fight Noise With Dollars

Officials from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot are threatening to boycott major airlines whose planes fly--unnecessarily, the Marines say--over the depot as they depart Lindbergh Field.

The Marines are threatening to advise the more than 18,000 recruits who fly into San Diego each year, then fly out to their assignment posts, not to fly on specific airlines unless the airlines begin conforming to a stipulation that states that departing planes must clear the entire runway before making their 20-degree turn to the north.

That stipulation is part of the 1970 lease between the San Diego Unified Port District and the Marines Corps, under which the runway was extended by 23 acres. It was supposed to prevent the planes from flying directly over MCRD.

The threat of an economic boycott is a last-ditch effort by the Marine Corps, frustrated because complaints to the Federal Aviation Administration, Lindbergh Field and Port District officials have met with little success and a lot of confusion, said Col. Rufus Young, chief counsel for MCRD.

“We have tried almost everything and we are still noise-impacted,” Young said. “We have been appropriately straightforward. We have made presentations both written and verbally to the Port District. We mailed out letters, we have called all the right people. Nothing has changed.

Trying to Keep It Local

“We are taking this approach because it is local and it will work without getting into a jurisdictional dispute about who is responsible for doing what and with whom.”

Nevertheless, the solution seems to be mired in a jurisdictional dispute as airline officials respond to the threat with accusations against the FAA, which in turn claims that the responsibility rests with the Port District.

“It would be terrible if they actually followed through, but we are simply following the flight manual that is mandated by FAA regulations,” said Margery Craig, spokeswoman for Pacific Southwest Airlines.

The Marines say that one study, complete with videotape of departures, shows PSA to be one of the top three airlines they are targeting because it shows that PSA planes turn too early 57.4% of the time.

“We have to do what the FAA says,” Craig said. “That’s the law and for heaven’s sake they may just be barking up the wrong tree.”

Craig said airline officials knew nothing about the stipulation before this week and never received the letter of complaint that Young said was delivered last fall.

One official from Skywest Airlines, which Young says turns too early in 68.6% of its departures, said the airline had already taken care of the problem, while another official responded angrily that the airline “just does what it is told.”

“I don’t even know if I should be talking to you about it,” said Nick Conti, Skywest chief pilot for the Southern Division. “I can tell you that we are following the noise abatement procedure for Lindbergh Field, which is you turn to a heading of 290 (about a 20-degree turn) after departure. And have you ever heard a Marine plane fly over your house? It’s not quiet.”

Conti said Skywest airplanes are more advanced than some other airlines’ planes and therefore can turn before reaching the end of the runway ramp. He also said the company’s pilots do as they are told so as not to violate FAA policies.

The FAA officials said its role is only “advisory” and anything contained in a lease between the Port District and the Marines must be resolved between those two.

“As soon as the plane is safely in the air, the pilot takes over,” said Henry Harris, local FAA airways facilities sector manager. “And as far as the lease, when the Port District signed the lease with the Marines, they bought into that. FAA is just responsible for getting planes off the ground and safety in the air.”

Port District information officer Bill Morgan said the problem has nothing to do with the Port District.

“It is the port’s contention that it is the FAA that controls the aircraft,” Morgan said. “It would be very unwise to start telling the FAA how to control the airport.”

When asked why the Port District entered into a lease with the Marines with a stipulation they could not enforce and how the port might enforce it, Morgan said “Those are questions we really can’t answer.”

Young said the Marines would not be dragged into the jurisdictional issue and would continue to state their position directly to individual airlines. He said letters have been mailed to at least nine other airlines and the Marines are ready to act.

“It’s really very simple,” Young said. “If your neighbor has a dry cleaning business and he constantly annoys you by playing the stereo too loud, you wouldn’t go to his dry cleaners anymore.”