Under the Flight Path

Nate and Carol Peiman still recall the sputtering roar of the engine, the blast that shook the house, the blare of the fire alarm.

Two years ago the Peimans were awakened before dawn by the thunder of a small private plane that crashed through the roof of their two-story Van Nuys home. The nose of the aircraft plunged through their upstairs gymnasium--less than 20 feet from their bedroom--into the first-floor dining room and through the floor, where the bodies of the pilot and his wife were found.

When a Sherman Oaks doctor was killed last week after his small plane crashed into a Fullerton house, Carol Peiman suddenly recalled that terrible morning when she and her husband narrowly escaped death.

“I got goose bumps all over,” she said. “When I learned that no one was in the house, I said, ‘Thank God, somebody is watching over us.’ ”

The Fullerton crash highlighted, once again, the danger of busy general aviation airports in Southern California. Residents who live beneath the flight paths and vapor trails are also plagued by the noise, nuisance and pollution of countless flights. Like the annoying habits of a nosy neighbor forever hovering nearby, the takeoffs and landings continually invade residents’ privacy, whether during backyard barbecues, quiet mornings in the breakfast room or evenings in front of the television.

Those who live near the Santa Monica Airport, one of the busiest single-runway general aviation airports in the country, must endure about 230,000 takeoffs and landings a year.

‘Like Fingernails on a Blackboard’

“The noise grates on your nerves like fingernails on a blackboard,” said Arne Foss, who lives just two blocks from the airport.

When Foss and his wife, Barbara, moved into the Santa Monica neighborhood of Sunset Park 31 years ago, the skies were mostly filled with small biplanes and twin-propeller aircraft flown by weekend pilots. Over the years, Foss and his family grew accustomed to the occasional plane that buzzed overhead.

“You might have had a slight interruption of conversation or a little raising of the voice,” he recalled, “but that was it.”

Within the last two years, however, Foss, 68, and his neighbors have noticed an increase in jet traffic at the airport.

“At first I thought, ‘Who is using all that fluid to light their barbecue?’ ” Foss said of the exhaust he occasionally smells from jet engines. “But I realized it was the jets.”

A retired engineer, he used to spend lazy weekend afternoons on his sun deck. He fondly recalls the Easter brunches he and his wife hosted for their church group after sunrise services. And in the winter, Christmas carolers and friends from his hiking group would gather to sip eggnog on the scenic perch. But now when Foss looks out onto his deck, he can only think of one thing: jets.

He has made many efforts to reclaim his deck. He’s installed sound-absorbing tile underneath the awning. He’s put dual-pane glass on the sliding doors leading to the deck. He’s even covered the stucco with strips of thin wood to help dampen the noise.

“I’ve run out of ideas, as an engineer, of how to deal with it,” he said. “I’ve done all I can. . . . We used to wake up to the sound of songbirds. Now we wake up to jets.”

Jason Morgan, an officer for the airport’s noise abatement program, acknowledges that jet traffic has increased. Although the airport is closely surrounded by what airport officials call “noise sensitive” residential areas, only 0.2% of all takeoffs and landings violate noise standards, Morgan said.

Residents, however, disagree with that number, citing figures from Airport Commission reports showing that although jets make up a small percentage of total operations, they are disproportionately represented in noise violations.

Morgan contends that most planes operate within the noise guidelines and that most of those pilots who do not are new to the airport. First-time violators are informed about the airport’s noise abatement program and issued a warning letter. If they continue to break the rules, they can be fined up to $500, said Morgan.

“The program is not working,” said Caroline Denyer, a mother of two who lives a block away from Foss. “They get a warning, another warning, a letter and then a fine. When you park in a red zone, you get a ticket. No one says, ‘Oh, you’re being naughty. Don’t do it again.’ ”

Residents are even more concerned by the threat of a crash. The neighborhoods around the airport--Mar Vista, Venice, Santa Monica and West Los Angeles--have experienced at least 12 crashes and seven related fatalities since 1985.

When the single-engine plane plummeted into a home less than a mile from Fullerton Municipal Airport last week, Carol Varieur took more notice than most people. The crash, which destroyed an unoccupied home, was the 31st incident--involving 12 fatalities--at or near the general aviation airport in the last 15 years. It was the first such crash since Varieur and her husband moved in January to a brand new home in a neighborhood that has gone up just a few hundred feet from the Fullerton runway.

“It did make me think. I guess a plane could crash into one of these homes,” Varieur said while walking her dog on the path around the community’s scenic man-made lake. “But all of life’s a chance.”

At her new home, small planes buzz overhead on most days like amplified insects--a steady stream over the 350-home community. For six months before they decided to buy there, Varieur and her husband visited the spot every weekend.

“There are more planes on the weekends, and I think the helicopters make more noise than anything else, but it’s not bad, “ she said. “If it was a jet, forget it.”

Varieur’s upscale neighborhood--where spacious single-family homes painted in neutral shades can sell for more than $500,000--was opposed by the city of Fullerton and officials at the airport, which sits just beyond a sound wall at the development’s edge.

Rod Propst, the airport’s manager, calls the decision to build the houses one of the worst ideas for land use near an airport that he has seen. Pilots, in particular, objected to the expansive lake that the homes are built around, citing the danger of attracting flocks of birds to airspace shared by small planes.

The airport averages about 100,000 takeoffs and landings a year.

Van Nuys Airport, the busiest general aviation airport in the country, averages about six times that amount. At Van Nuys, there have been 18 aviation accidents near the airport since 1985, killing eight people.

Earlier this week, airport neighbors got some relief. The Los Angeles City Council moved to sharply limit the number of new, noisy aircraft that may operate from the airport. The decision pleased many who had complained of noise for years, but it fell short of the complete ban sought by some neighbors.

The plane that crashed into the Piemans’ home had taken off from Van Nuys Airport. After the crash, the couple decided to move--even after their house was rebuilt.

‘I Could Not Handle Those Planes’

“I loved the house, but I just couldn’t do it,” Carol Peiman said. “Two people were killed in that house. I never could set foot in the dining room again. You count your blessings and ask yourself, ‘How many times can this happen?’ But I did not want to be there anymore. I could not handle those planes.”

Before the crash, she said, she paid little attention to planes flying overhead and didn’t even realize she lived under a flight path less than a mile from the airport. “I knew [the airport] was there, but it never bothered me before,” she said.

The Peimans still have a chain ladder, which they had set out on a second-floor balcony just two days before the crash. The ladder allowed them to scramble safely out of the house after flames licking at the stairs blocked their escape.

The couple rented a house just two doors from their damaged home so that Nate could monitor the reconstruction. But Carol found herself cringing with the drone of every engine overhead.

“I would curl up in a ball,” she said, “and think, ‘Oh, my God. They’re going to hit us again.’ ”

A year ago, the Peimans decided they would leave the neighborhood. With the house almost finished, Nate said he “had hoped that we would move back in. But my wife was suffering too much.”

At the Porter Ranch home the couple bought in July, some of their furniture still bears signs of the crash. Carol points to repairs of burn marks on a living room sofa, decorator carpet, curio cabinet and other furnishings.

Commercial airliners en route to Los Angeles International Airport and elsewhere pass overhead at 14,500 feet. Nate checked that fact before they even considered purchasing the home, about nine miles from Van Nuys Airport. Yet no matter where they are, the Peimans say they stop in their tracks and look up whenever they hear a low-flying aircraft.

They sold the Van Nuys house to a young family that had relocated from the East Coast after their own property was destroyed in a flood, Nate said. The buyers were not particularly concerned about airplanes falling from sky.

Their main concern, he said, was flooding.

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Times staff writers Miles Corwin and Megan Garvey contributed to this story.