Countywide : Stray Takeoffs Concern Grand Jury

Nearly 80% of all commercial aircraft leaving John Wayne Airport deviate from their takeoff route, posing some dangers to communities in Newport Beach, according to a report released by the Orange County Grand Jury on Wednesday.

The grand jury’s report also encouraged airport authorities to install a beacon near the airport to guide aircraft away from neighborhoods where hot pieces of jet engines and other debris have fallen in the past.

Airport officials disputed the panel’s findings. They said they were inconsistent with the airport’s records.

The takeoff route has been a source of constant controversy, especially among homeowners in the Dover Shores and Westcliff communities who complain that noisy aircraft fly dangerously close to their homes.

Commercial planes leaving John Wayne are required to fly over Newport Bay to “limit noise impacts on the neighborhood . . . (and) provide greater safety to the people in those neighborhoods,” the report stated. “Should a piece of a plane accidentally fall to earth during the first minutes of flight, it has a better chance of coming down into the bay, not in the neighborhoods.”

But on two previous occasions, debris from planes have fallen in Dover Shores, which is more than a mile south of the runway. In 1988, fallen pieces of turbine blades “set roofs and shrubbery on fire, and sizzled in back-yard pools,” the report states, noting that pieces of metal fell from another plane last year.

The panel suggested that navigational aids, including the beacon, could guide aircraft down the ideal departure path.

Seth Oberg, a retired pilot who is president of the Dover Shores Community Assn., said his group agreed with the recommendations.

Oberg said that if the grand jury’s recommendations are implemented, people who live under the departure path would be less fearful.

Courtney C. Wiercioch, a spokeswoman for the airport, said the grand jury’s observations of the flight path’s were “inconsistent with records of the airport’s computerized flight tracking system.”

But she declined to elaborate, saying airport officials plan to send a formal response to the panel.