Jittery Neighbors Want a Crackdown at Airport

An outspoken group of Torrance homeowners, worried about a recent spate of plane crashes, has called on city officials to tighten safety measures and crack down on pilots who violate a ban on late night and pre-dawn use of Torrance Municipal Airport.

Several residents of the neighborhood just west of the airport said they fear for their safety after three plane crashes last week.

“Every time I hear a sputtering engine, I now wait for the noise and smoke,” resident Gail Bedinger told the Torrance City Council on Tuesday night. “I cannot handle three crashes in five days.”

The issue is no longer aircraft noise or the number of operators at the airport, Bedinger said: “The issue is safety.” She urged the council to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that aircraft taking off from Torrance are operating safely.

Her plea was echoed by other residents, including Paul Jacobsen, representing the Southwood Riviera Homeowners Assn., who said the crashes have sparked fears among neighborhood residents.

“Everyone is thinking who will be next,” Jacobsen said. “Safety is a big concern in the community.”

In response to neighborhood concerns, council members asked the city staff to study options for tightening controls at the airport.

However, Torrance Airport Manager John Cagaanan defended the airport’s safety record. He said the Torrance airport, which recorded 212,000 operations--takeoffs or landings--last year, is “very safe,” but “all of a sudden when something major happens, it’s going to be highly visible.”

City Councilman Mark Wirth agreed the airport has “quite a good safety record.” Wirth, who lives in a neighborhood near the airfield, said: “I’m satisfied that we’re doing everything safely.”

Since 1978, there have been two fatal accidents at the airport, killing seven persons. Both aircraft lost power and crashed after takeoff, one at the airport and the other on Hawthorne Boulevard across the street from a crowded ice cream parlor.

Six aircraft, including two of the three that crashed last week, have been destroyed in accidents in the 10-year period. Five of those crashes took place on airport property.

Cagaanan, a veteran of 15 years at the airport, said, “To my knowledge, nobody (not in a plane) has ever been killed or injured” in one of the crashes.

The first of last week’s crashes occurred early March 27 when a single-engine Piper aircraft lost power on takeoff and crashed into a tree in a front yard on Audrey Avenue, just west of Hawthorne Boulevard. No one on board was seriously hurt.

That was followed by a crash landing later that day in which the landing gear on a single-engine Mooney aircraft collapsed.

Another single-engine Piper aircraft crashed last Thursday when the pilot lost control after takeoff and slammed into a parked Cadillac and Rolls-Royce while trying to make an emergency landing at the airport.

Neighborhood resident Jacobsen wanted to know why the city had not taken action against the pilot of the first plane who violated the city’s 11 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. curfew on aircraft operations. The crash occurred at 5:50 a.m.

“What type of signal are we sending to the community?” he asked.

Cagaanan said the early morning takeoff by the pilot, identified by Torrance police as Gregory Howlind of Redondo Beach, was “a blatant violation” of the curfew. But he told reporters later that he had sent a letter to the owner of the plane and would not seek the maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Educating Pilots

“I’m not going to crucify on the first” offense, Cagaanan said, adding his goal is to educate pilots about the restriction. “I look at it like a fix-it ticket,” he said.

Cagaanan said the pilot is going to “face a lot of consequences” from the Federal Aviation Administration for taking off on the closed northern runway in addition to violating the curfew. That runway is closed from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., when the FAA-operated control tower is closed.

Jacobsen said it is obvious that pilots can violate the curfew repeatedly and not be noticed since the tower is shut and then “only get a letter” if they are caught.

To the dismay of neighborhood residents and several council members, Cagaanan also said that 35 permanent exemptions to the nighttime curfew have been issued to pilots, some of whom use their planes to commute to work. The airport issues the permanent exemptions only for business uses, he said.

Council members, who were surprised, asked Cagaanan to provide more information on the criteria for exemptions, and suggested the waivers should not be permanent.

In an earlier action, the council unanimously denied a request to start a fourth airport business for towing advertising banners.