Flight Plan for El Toro Unworkable, Report Says

Orange County’s plan for an airport at the El Toro Marine base is unworkable as currently designed, according to an analysis commissioned by the Federal Aviation Administration that calls into question the county’s proposal to have planes take off to the north and east.

Airspace to the north of the proposed El Toro airport is already saturated with jets preparing to land at John Wayne Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Long Beach Airport, according to the draft report by the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development in McLean, Va.

Planes could depart to the east, but they would be limited to smaller jets with fewer passengers and less fuel, the report said. Heavier aircraft would not be able to climb high enough to clear nearby hills and Santiago Peak.

“Departures from some other runway . . . appear to be necessary for the operation of El Toro as a civilian airport,” according to the 12-page report, which was completed in May and obtained by The Times last week.

“Some [other] means of accommodating [takeoffs] will be necessary,” the report said. “This may be a redesigned departure procedure [to the north], or perhaps the use of some other runway.”

The conclusions raise troubling questions about the county’s design for an airport serving as many as 28.8 million passengers by 2020 at the closed Marine base. Pilots groups and representatives of the national air traffic controllers union have said that the county’s plan is unsafe and unworkable. And the report commissioned by the FAA is certain to add more official weight to those who are protesting the county’s proposed takeoff and landing patterns.

Pro-airport forces said Congress has authorized a redesign of Southern California airspace and wants future flights from El Toro to be considered. They downplayed the concerns raised in the draft report.

“Of course the FAA would have to rework the airspace to bring another airport online,” said David Ellis, a consultant with the Airport Working Group in Newport Beach, which supports an airport at El Toro.

Orange County hopes to send 62% of El Toro takeoffs to the east, with the remaining heavier jets using the northern runway. Planes would land from the south.

The report by the Virginia center, which is helping redesign the nation’s airspace, was commissioned by the FAA as part of its own review of the county’s El Toro plan. FAA officials, however, would not comment on the report except to say that its overall airport analysis is not complete.

County aviation consultants reported in January that as many as 150 planes leaving El Toro to the north would be forced to pass over, under or through the routes of planes arriving at other airports--compounding issues of safety and raising the prospect of increased flight delays. Southern California airspace is already among the most crowded in the world.

However, the county’s environmental report dismissed potential delays as insignificant and said it would be possible to coordinate El Toro flights with others. The FAA requires that planes be separated by three miles horizontally and 1,000 feet vertically.

The FAA-sponsored study took actual Southern California flight activity from April 13 and plugged it into a computer model with an additional 156 operations a day--78 arrivals and 78 departures--from El Toro. The computer produced a graphic representation of traffic flow from the airports.

The result: Every plane leaving El Toro to the north found itself crossing over or near a conflicting flight shortly after takeoff.

An El Toro airport at full operation would create even more “flight path convergence” problems, the report indicated. The airport is expected to have more than 800 takeoffs and landings a day when it reaches full capacity in 2020.

Another issue raised by the new FAA-ordered analysis was noise. The draft report estimated that 3,200 people would be living within an area where state law restricts homes and schools because of noise concerns. County officials have insisted since 1996 that no homes or schools would fall within the high-noise zone.

The report says its population estimate is based on 1990 census data. However, it did not say whether the information included military personnel who were living on the base in 1990. The base has been closed since July 1999.

The county has pledged to open the first phase of the airport in 2005 to serve 8.8 million passengers a year. However, delays in the planning process and attempts by south Orange County residents to stop the airport have cast doubt on that deadline.

Retired airline pilot Bob McGowan, who opposes the county’s current airport design, said the latest FAA-sponsored study confirms that the county’s plan won’t work.

“It’s what I’ve been telling them for two years, that you’re doing it backward,” said McGowan, mayor of Villa Park. “They’re trying to drive the wrong way down the freeway.”

McGowan has proposed flipping the flight patterns, with planes landing from the north and departing to the south--the same direction as other airport traffic flows. He and a coalition of airline pilots have recommended removing El Toro’s east-west runway because of noise and safety concerns.

The only other northern flight path studied by the county calls for planes to make a U-turn after takeoff, a maneuver occasionally used by the military to keep jets from flying too close to traffic into John Wayne Airport.

However, the flight path requires planes to turn south above North Tustin and Irvine--a route that would drastically increase noise over homes.

Supervisor Tom Wilson, who opposes a new airport at El Toro, said he was told about the airspace analysis last week during a meeting with FAA officials in Washington.

“It certainly reinforces our position, which is: How can you look at that spaghetti bowl [of plane routes] in the sky and say you’re going to add two more scoops and still make it work?” he said.

“I’m anxious to see the scientific data that confirms what we’ve thought all along.”

Wilson said he was told that the final report was sent to county staff in June; attempts to obtain a copy were unsuccessful, he said.

El Toro spokesman John Christensen said he tried to get the final report for Wilson but could not find anyone at county offices who received it.

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Flight Path Traffic

Experts say El Toro’s proposed northern takeoff route would require a U-turn to avoid air traffic. The turn, however, would put El Toro’s jets over noise-sensitive communities in Irvine.