North Tustin : John Wayne Airport to Monitor Noise Level

Residents have won a partial concession from officials of John Wayne Airport in a battle over noise.

Airport Manager George Rebella said the North Tustin Municipal Advisory Council complained about late-night arriving flights and wanted the county to bar airlines from scheduling arrivals after 9:30 p.m.

The airport has agreed to set up sound monitors, but not to change the landing curfew, which is now 11 p.m.--at least not right away.

Rebella said five flights now arrive between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.

“My thinking right now is that a 9:30 p.m. curfew would interfere too much with interstate commerce and would subject us to lawsuits (by airlines),” he said.

“These flights stop in several other cities before they get here, and telling the airlines to change their schedules in all those other places to accommodate us is a serious problem.”

Rebella said a 10 p.m. departure curfew at the airport is more justifiable because the planes generate more noise taking off than landing.

“At least in the case of takeoffs, there is a legal rationale on our side,” Rebella said. “Until we see the data from the noise monitors in North Tustin, there’s no rationale for changing the landing curfew.”

Rebella said monitors would be placed around the North Tustin area in two to three weeks and would be used to gather data over several months.