Pilots’ Group Offers El Toro Runway Plan

An airline pilots’ group has come up with a way to build an airport at El Toro that would steer arriving and departing aircraft over undeveloped areas and ban jumbo jets altogether, the group’s leader said Friday.

Villa Park Councilman Robert E. McGowan, a retired United Airlines pilot, said the proposal “makes a lot more sense” than the county’s plan for a landing pattern that would bring jets in over Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods and Laguna Hills.

McGowan’s group, Airline Pilots for a Safer El Toro, plans to explain details of its alternative routing plan Wednesday at a meeting of the 15-city, pro-airport Orange County Regional Airport Authority. County officials said airport planners are aware of the proposal and will respond to it in an environmental study to be released next month.

Unlike Orange County’s plan, the pilots’ proposal calls for planes to arrive from the north and depart heading south, flying away from homes and over the open hills of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Crystal Cove State Park.

East-west runways at the former Marine Corps Air Station would be removed, eliminating the controversial county plan to send departing jets over homes in southeastern Orange County.

South County foes of the planned international airport have argued that noise from jet landings and takeoffs over residential areas would severely affect them. Irvine residents, in particular, are incensed about the likelihood that jets occasionally would take off westbound--over them.

“Having that [east-west] runway is like aiming a cannon at Irvine and saying, ‘We’re not going to shoot it,’ ” said McGowan, a past regional safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots Assn.

Under his group’s plan, jumbo jets would be effectively barred because they would have trouble descending over the higher elevation of Loma Ridge in bad weather. Heavier jets need a more gradual rate of descent.

The proposal is similar to--and simpler than--another private proposal for runways intended to divert jets over unpopulated areas and prevent noise complaints. That plan also is being reviewed.

South County officials said they oppose an airport at El Toro, regardless of the flight paths.

A 3-2 majority of the county Board of Supervisors has been planning an airport at El Toro since 1996. The current plan calls for planes to take off to the north and arrive from the south.

Both the Air Line Pilots Assn. and the Allied Pilots Assn., the second of which represents American Airlines pilots, oppose the county’s plans for the northern and eastern departures because of safety concerns.

McGowan discussed his proposal after a new conference Friday in which North County officials condemned statements made earlier this week about expanding John Wayne Airport.

Assemblywoman Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel), who opposes an airport at El Toro, had said earlier that John Wayne Airport could be expanded to handle the county’s future airport growth without building El Toro.

“I’m not suggesting that the people of Newport Beach should have to endure that expansion, but it probably would happen if El Toro doesn’t happen,” she said during an Assembly committee hearing on airport growth.

On Friday, however, the assemblywoman said she doesn’t favor expanding John Wayne Airport beyond its current boundaries and that her comments were misunderstood.

John Wayne Airport handles about 7.5 million passengers a year, limited to 8.4 million through 2005. County officials have said it could handle up to 14 million without expanding.

For John Wayne Airport to handle all of Orange County’s future air travel would mean an expansion--including condemning land, homes and businesses--that would be unacceptable, North County officials said.

“If [Bates] doesn’t support it, she shouldn’t have put it out on the table,” said Peggy Ducey, executive director of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority.

El Toro would be expected to handle 22.2 million passengers annually by 2020, with John Wayne Airport at 7 million passengers a year, according to projections by the Southern California Assn. of Governments. An additional 13 million people would use Los Angeles and Ontario international airports.

South County leaders assert that those estimates are inflated.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

TURNING EL TORO

A group of airline pilots led by Villa Park Councilman Bob McGowan wants to reverse plans for arriving and departing jets at the proposed El Toro airport, bringing planes into the airport from the north with departures to the south over undeveloped parkland. Planes would cross the coastline at 8,000 feet. The county’s current plan calls for planes to depart to the north and arrive from the south over Laguna Woods.

Source: Airline Pilots for a Safer El Toro