General Attacks Anti-Airport Ad

A former commander of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station on Tuesday demanded that opponents of an airport stop airing a cable television spot with footage of the 1965 crash that killed 84 servicemen and crew members bound for Vietnam.

Gen. William A. Bloomer, who ran the base from 1984 to 1986, said the crash was caused by pilot error and not, as the ad suggests, by an unsafe northern runway. He accused the South County cities that paid for the ad of “capitalizing on pain and human suffering just to make a political point.”

The spot shows body bags being hauled into a helicopter in the wake of what remains the county’s worst aviation disaster.

“I’m angry that your tax dollars are paying for this insult,” Bloomer said in his own 30-second spot, paid for by Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, a pro-airport coalition. “I want them to start telling the truth.”

Airport opponents stood behind their commercial, saying it raises an important safety issue.

“It’s unfortunate that Gen. Bloomer is offended,” said Susan Withrow, chairwoman of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of South County cities opposed to the airport. “Our intention was to show the very real safety hazards of the northern takeoff.”

The pro-airport ad was the first by those fighting an anti-airport initiative on the March 7 ballot. If passed, Measure F would require two-thirds voter approval before the county could build or expand airports, large jails near homes or hazardous-waste landfills.

The crash spot does not mention the upcoming election because cities cannot use public money to advocate a position in elections. It asks viewers to support the Millennium Plan, a nonaviation alternative for the base created by the South County cities coalition.

Concerns about the safety of El Toro’s northern and eastern runways have been raised since 1994 by commercial pilots, who this week again accused county planners of moving ahead with an airport that compromises safety.

Jon Russell, Western regional safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots Assn., repeated the organization’s concern about the northern route: Sending departing planes over Loma Ridge, the site of the 1965 crash, “defies common sense.”

But Russell is more concerned about easterly takeoffs. If El Toro is built as planned, the nation’s largest pilots union has said it will advise its members against using the eastern runway because planes would have to accelerate uphill and depart toward rising hills, Russell added.

Russell’s comments were made in response to the county’s environmental review of the airport. Tuesday was the deadline for responding to the review.

County planners insist that planes can clear the hills.

“The county will apparently ignore safety concerns by placing a premium on noise and votes,” Russell said in his response to the county review. “It is not uncommon for an airport to have some minor problems. Unfortunately, [the Air Line Pilots Assn.] feels the problems or safety fires at El Toro rage out of control.”

In an interview Tuesday, Bloomer said there are legitimate safety concerns about rising hills off the eastern runway, which the county intends to use for two-thirds of El Toro’s departures. However, “I never saw any problems that couldn’t be overcome,” he said.

The anti-airport ad that raised Bloomer’s ire claims that the Marines “refused to use that runway for passenger flights” after the crash--which Bloomer said is untrue.

“There was never any restriction on using any runway at El Toro,” said Bloomer, an Irvine councilman from 1990 to 1993 who has since moved to Virginia but still owns a home in Irvine.

He said he personally flew repeated flights--loaded with hundreds of passengers--off the northern runway during his years at the base.

Bloomer said he was not paid for his appearance.

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