FAA Safety Review Focuses On Lindbergh Field

A special team of Federal Aviation Administration safety experts wrapped up a two-day inspection of Lindbergh Field and will now consider recommendations to improve the safety and operation of the center-city airport, an FAA spokesman said Friday.

The safety team, most of which was dispatched from FAA headquarters in Washington, met with pilots, airline representatives and local government officials as part of a “safety and efficiency review” of Lindbergh, said John Tompkins, the FAA’s representative to San Diego.

Key issues in the two-day review included how the terrain and buildings in the Lindbergh flight path affect incoming aircraft, instrument landings, airport marking and lighting, and governmental review of potential obstructions to air traffic into the airport, Tompkins said.

Report Due Dec. 1

Final recommendations from the study group are expected Dec. 1, Tompkins said.

“They could recommend changes in any procedures. They could recommend changes in navigational aids. They could recommend changes to the airport plant itself, or additional taxiways,” Tompkins said.

The safety team was created by the FAA as a sort of trouble-shooting squad, and it recently completed a monthlong investigation of controller errors and flight patterns at O’Hare airport in Chicago. That study led to the FAA’s decision to limit incoming flights at peak hours at the nation’s busiest airport.

Now, the team is turning its attention to Lindbergh, which has been criticized by pilots, engineers and politicians recently for safety and capacity deficiencies.

Some of the sharpest criticism has come from the Air Line Pilots Assn., which wrote the FAA in January to warn that the six-story Laurel Travel Center, just 700 feet from the end of the runway, is an “accident waiting to happen” for wide-bodied jets descending into Lindbergh.

Heeded Pilots’ Complaints

That complaint, fanned by concern expressed by local politicians, has led to the safety team’s investigation this week, said Dick Russell, a United Airlines pilot and air safety coordinator for the Pacific south region of ALPA.

“They were down here because of the objection by the Air Line Pilots Assn. as to the safety of operating the wide-bodied airplanes,” said Russell, who met with the safety team in San Diego. “I’m talking about 747s, DC-10s and Lockheed 1011s that fly into San Diego and approach over that parking garage.

“If a pilot of a wide-bodied plane would fly the visual glide slope, he’d hit the building with a 747 or miss it with very little clearance on the other two airplanes. So this is the reason they came down here,” Russell said.

According to one person who attended the meetings but asked not to be identified, one of the suggestions made to the safety team was to relocate the airport. The recommendation was made because of the hilly terrain around Lindbergh and the planned construction of high-rises in its flight path, the person said.

Another recommendation was that the runway be extended, making it safer for wide-bodied jets to land. Most airports have a runway minimum of 9,000 feet.

Lindbergh’s sole runway is 9,400 feet ong, but a “displaced threshold” imposed by the FAA in 1968 doesn’t allow pilots to use the first 1,810 feet of concrete. That leaves only 7,590 of usable Tarmac.

The question of moving the airport is at the heart of a $350,000 study by the San Diego Assn. of Governments. The study, which is funded by the FAA, is expected to be completed in a year.

Even if there were agreement today about the location of a new airport, it would take at least 13 years to plan and build it, port officials have said. Lindbergh Field will remain San Diego’s main airport at least until then, and port officials are now conducting their own set of analyses to see how the field can be expanded to accommodate more passengers.

The FAA safety team dispatched to San Diego consisted of 11 people from Washington, four from the Los Angeles office of the agency and two FAA officials from the flight inspection group in acramento, Tompkins said.