Airport’s Landing Setup to Be Upgraded

The Federal Aviation Administration has decided that a 7-story building near Lindbergh Field is not a safety hazard, despite complaints from commercial pilots that the structure is an “accident waiting to happen” for jumbo jets landing at the San Diego airport.

Instead, the FAA has decided to install a new landing system at Lindbergh that will use more sophisticated lights to better guide pilots into their descents over the building and onto the runway, an FAA spokeswoman said Friday.

An official with the Air Line Pilots Assn., the organization that complained about the building, applauded the FAA’s response and said the new landing system will greatly increase safety at Lindbergh.

“This is what we really called for,” said Dick Russell, a United Airlines pilot and area safety coordinator for the ALPA chapter in the Los Angeles region. “It does not answer the complete problem, but it does answer our safety concerns because the system that is presently installed is inviting disaster.

“The present visual-guide system would put an airplane into the building,” said Russell, who added that the travel center is an air-safety “abomination.”

710 Feet From Runway

At the center of the issue is the Laurel Travel Center, a garage and offices that opened in 1986 at 1025 W. Laurel St. The center is 710 feet from the end of the main runway at Lindbergh.

In January, the pilot’s association wrote to the FAA, warning that the landing gear of a Boeing 747 wouldn’t clear the travel center if the plane were descending into Lindbergh at the minimal angle allowed under the existing landing system.

Calculations also showed that an L-1011 would clear the garage by only 1.8 feet and a DC-10 by 3.8 feet.

The way aircraft are forced to make steep landings at Lindbergh, combined with the height of the building, is “a set-up for an accident waiting to happen,” wrote John O’Brien, director of ALPA’s Engineering and Air Safety Department. “That it has not happened yet is not a reason for inaction.”

O’Brien also complained that the FAA failed to notify pilots in 1984 about plans to build the travel center and invite comments about its potential as a hazard in the Lindbergh flight pattern.

Federal officials said, however, that they decided not to notify pilots because the agency determined that the building poses no hazard. And FAA spokeswoman Barbara Abels said further study of the building in response to the ALPA letter confirmed the agency’s original determination.

That conclusion was sent to the pilot’s association in a letter dated May 3 from H. C. McClure, director of the Western-Pacific Region of the FAA. The letter was released publicly on Friday.

“The Federal Aviation Administration has evaluated the issues brought out in ALPA’s original letter of Jan. 6,” McClure wrote. “After assessing the safety considerations considering the landing of DC-10, L-1011 and Boeing 747 jet transport aircraft, we agree that installation of a precision approach path indicator (PAPI) air navigational aid at the existing runway . . . will mitigate the problems.”

Lindbergh Field now uses a landing system called the Visual Approach Slope Indicator, or VASI. That system, which was installed more than 10 years ago, uses a series of lights on the runway to guide pilots by colors.

If the pilot is approaching at an angle that is too steep, only white lights will be seen on the runway; if he is coming in too low, red lights will be visible. Approaching at the proper angle, the pilot will see an even number of red and white lights.

New System Better

The new PAPI system, however, is more precise in showing the pilot how he is angling toward the runway, said Abels of the FAA.

Based on the same principle as the VASI, the PAPI system uses a row of horizontal lights on either side of the runway. Approaching at an angle that is too high will cause all white lights to show; approaching at an angle that is only slightly too high will cause one red and three white lights to show, Abels said.

In the case of a descent that is too steep--one that the pilots fear would cause a crash into the travel center--the pilot will see all red lights; if the descent is slightly lower than the correct angle, he will see one white and three red lights, Abels said.

Flying in at the correct angle will cause two white and two red lights to show on the horizontal bars.

Abels said the new system will cost the FAA $20,000 and will be installed by the end of the summer.

ALPA’s Russell said that, although he is pleased with the FAA’s response, he isn’t happy over the time it took the federal agency to respond to the pilots’ concerns.

“I think that the thing is, it took them from Jan. 6 to this time to answer a simple question and come up with a doable answer,” Russell said. “We should not have to wait that length of time to get something done. But I am pleased with their action.”

FAA officials said the response was delayed because the agency is short on staff.