Building Near San Diego Airport Called Hazard

A six-story building near Lindbergh Field is an “accident waiting to happen” because Boeing 747s and other jumbo jets have little or no room to clear the structure’s top floor while descending into the San Diego airport, according to the national organization representing commercial airline pilots.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration said that the agency is preparing a response to charges by the Air Line Pilots Assn. that the Laurel Travel Center, 1025 W. Laurel St., should be declared an air safety hazard.

In a seven-page letter dated Jan. 6 and obtained by The Times this week, the pilots group warned that the landing gear of a 747 wouldn’t clear the structure if the plane was descending into Lindbergh at a minimally approved angle. At that same angle, the letter says, an L-1011 clears the garage atop the building by only 1.8 feet, while a DC-10 clears it by 3.8 feet.

Cockpit Duties

“It is unreasonable, and certainly not safe, to expect a pilot to not only monitor his position on the steep and narrow (approach) path,” wrote John O’Brien, director of the Air Line Pilots Assn.’s Engineering and Air Safety Department, “but to study the ever-changing perspective of the runway so he can get his aircraft stabilized well before the runway threshold and, at the same time, assure that the aircraft wheels do not collide with the garage.”

The way aircraft are forced to make steep landings at Lindbergh, combined with the height of the building, is “a setup for an accident waiting to happen,” O’Brien wrote. “That it has not happened yet is not a reason for inaction.”

The pilots association asked for another study of the building and for the FAA to declare it a hazard. The group asked that the landing navigation system be adjusted to take the building into account, or that the structure be lowered to allow for at least 20 feet between the building and the landing gear of jumbo jets.

Currently, no 747s regularly fly into Lindbergh, but British Airways will begin sending in two a week starting June 1, said Jon Mathiasen, assistant airport director. Flying Tigers Inc., a cargo transporter, uses 747s occasionally for heavy loads, and several 747 charters landed during Super Bowl week, he added.

Other Large Planes

Two L-1011s and six DC-10s land daily at Lindbergh, Mathiasen added.

Karen McDonald, an FAA air traffic technical specialist, said Monday that the agency’s response to the letter should be ready in several weeks. The FAA has taken more than four months to respond because of limited “time and manpower,” she said.

“We did the study, we used our criteria, and we did an aeronautical study and determined that . . . this would not be a hazard to air navigation,” she said.

Sandy Kahn, president of Kent Holdings, the partnership that owns the building, said the first time he heard about the pilots’ complaints was several weeks ago when an FAA employee asked to stand on the roof of the parking garage.

“We pursued approval by the FAA, and we did it in good faith,” Kahn said. “If you build a building, you assume that whoever blessed those plans knew that they were doing.”

Since the building is only 710 feet away from the runway, it could be a sudden obstruction for the unsuspecting pilot who ducks below clouds and fog patches while landing, said Dick Russell, a United pilot and area safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots Assn. chapter in the Los Angeles region.

Natural Hazards

“We had enough natural hazards, the hills and such there, without adding a man-made one,” Russell said. “If you hit that building, of course, you don’t know what angle you might hit it as to what the ramifications might be.

“It might tear the landing gear off the airplane, or tear the belly out of it, and the subsequent landing could cause a fire.”

Russell said pilots landing at Lindbergh are guided by a navigation system called the Visual Approach Slope Indicator, or VASI. The system is a series of lights on the runway that guide the pilot by color.

If the pilot is approaching at an angle that is too steep, white lights will be seen on the runway. If the pilot is coming in too low, red lights will appear. With an approach at the proper angle, there will be an even number of red and white lights on the runway.

At most airports, the angle of approach is 3 degrees. But the terrain around Lindbergh requires a steeper descent of roughly 4.5 degrees, aviation officials said.

No Safety Margin

Calculations based on that angle, combined with other conditions, show that 747s wouldn’t make it past the building without a crash, O’Brien wrote.

“The FAA has long known that high-angle approaches require increased obstacle clearance,” O’Brien wrote. “This is because the trajectory of an aircraft on a high-angle approach is more towards the obstacle than over it and causes increased path-following errors.”

Building owner Kahn said the travel center is a parking garage for people using the airport. “A good 10% to 15% of our customers at any given time are the airline pilots, the crews, the flight attendants,” he said. “They would not be parking there if they were concerned.