L.A. Prods FAA on Strobe Light

Annoyed at “foot-dragging” by the Federal Aviation Administration, a Los Angeles City Council committee challenged the FAA on Wednesday to install a relatively inexpensive guidance light that proponents said could avert disaster at Los Angeles International Airport.

The panel voted to ask the FAA to install the light in 30 days on top of the Forum in Inglewood. FAA officials have contended that the device, although a good idea, is not essential and is too costly.

The council panel, anticipating a possible lack of cooperation, passed a companion motion asking the city’s Airport Department to pay for the light if the FAA refuses. Airport officials said the department is willing to buy and install the equipment at a cost of $10,000 to $80,000, but contended that responsibility for maintaining and operating the light would rest with the FAA.

The FAA has not yet agreed to assume that task. Richard Alatorre, chairman of the council’s Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee, accused the agency of “foot-dragging” for more than a year on installing a device that he said could save lives.

In early 1987, the FAA was asked to install the intensely bright, flashing strobe light atop the Forum to help shepherd westbound jets to their landing strips during periods of low visibility. Forum officials have embraced the idea. Richard Russell, a safety consultant to the Air Line Pilot’s Assn., told the committee Wednesday that the light would help pilots who are blinded by late afternoon glare caused by haze, smog and the setting sun.

“We may have 12 to 15 miles visibility as you look to the east,” Russell said, “but once you turn to the west we’re looking into sun and smog and the visibility is reduced to practically nothing. (The pilot) has to grope around out there.”

The FAA activates high-powered strobe lights at the head of the main LAX runways, but only when visibility drops to between 3 and 5 miles.

Russell said a full-time light atop the Forum could prevent mid-air collisions. In one 45-day experiment when the airstrip strobe lights were left on all day, the instances in which pilots overshot their runways dipped from about 40 a month to only a few.