Navy Offers to Modify Its Low-Altitude Flight Plans

Navy officials announced Wednesday that they are talking with the California Coastal Commission about modifying their proposal to fly planes straight at a Silver Strand beach radar facility in response to concerns about the plan’s impact on shipping and recreation.

The commission voted earlier this week to repeal its previous “no objections” ruling on the defense weapons systems testing plan. Agency officials said they wanted more information from the Navy before signing off on the proposal that calls for flying jets as low as 100 feet from the water’s surface to simulate missile strikes on a warship.

Citing a modification outlined in an April 1 letter to the Coastal Commission, Navy officials said they could minimize interference with commercial and recreational boating by setting up a “safe separation zone.”

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If boats entered this special, 1.15-mile-wide corridor, the Navy said it would wait until vessels cleared the zone to conduct the flight tests.

“We would avoid low-altitude flights when ships, boats or other water craft were inside this safe separation zone,” Capt. J. Scott Beachy, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Port Hueneme Division, said in a written statement.

If, for some flight-safety reason, the planes could not abort the flight, the Navy said the aircraft would not come closer than 1,000 feet to any vessel.

The proposal described in the Navy’s latest environmental study on the project allowed planes to fly with boats in the area, as long as the aircraft did not come closer than 500 feet to the vessels.

Coastal Commission officials agreed to the Navy’s plan in September because they said the Navy had then told them the flights would be called off altogether when boats were traveling in the 19-square-mile flight area.

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But agency officials reversed their decision in an 8-2 vote Tuesday because of what they said were changes in the Navy’s plan.

Coastal Commission officials said Wednesday that they welcomed the proposed modification but wanted the Navy to supply more information on its possible impacts.

Mark Delaplaine of the Coastal Commission said his agency wants to know in particular how often the Navy would allow planes to continue flying while boats were in the special zone.

“I am saying, ‘How often are you going to be unable to make that turn because of flight safety reasons?’ ” Delaplaine said. “That is when we get into some sticky areas.”

The commission in March submitted a list of 52 comments and questions regarding the flight-testing proposal. Several questions deal with statements in the Navy’s latest environmental report that conclude it would be too costly and technically infeasible to relocate the testing site at the tip of Silver Strand beach.

“The [study] should explain how it arrived at the conclusion that it would cost $48 million to relocate the activities,” one of the comments said.

Navy spokeswoman Letitia Austin said: “We are going to address all the comments received.”

Although the Navy could still go forward with the project without the Coastal Commission’s concurrence, the lack of support could affect the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to grant a special airspace permit the Navy needs to conduct the testing.

Depending on how quickly the Navy can provide the commission with answers, the agency will hold another public hearing in May or July to determine whether to give its blessing to the Navy project.