FAA, O.C. Again Discuss El Toro Flight Test Safety
Federal Aviation Administration officials on Wednesday met again with Orange County officials to discuss safety issues surrounding this weekend’s commercial jet flight demonstration at the El Toro Marine base.
Courtney Wiercioch, manager of the county’s El Toro planning office, said meetings Tuesday and Wednesday were scheduled last week before safety concerns were raised by Jon Russell, who heads a safety committee for the pilots union.
She said the meetings focused on “nuts-and-bolts stuff,” including detailed schedules of where aircraft will be arriving from and where they’ll fly after leaving El Toro.
“We anticipate no problems with the flights as planned,” Wiercioch said late Wednesday.
Russell raised a host of safety issues in a letter to the FAA. The pilots’ committee contends that the county’s planned northern and eastern departure patterns, not currently used by the military, are dangerous because of hilly terrain.
Russell said Wednesday that county and FAA assurances aren’t enough to allay fears.
The airspace over the Riverside Freeway is “the busiest corridor in the world and they want to put [pilots] in the middle of it,” he said.
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