El Toro Routing Opposed by Pilots

In a blunt rejection of Orange County supervisors’ vision for a new airport at El Toro, the nation’s largest union of airline pilots has announced that it supports a radically different plan for landings and takeoffs at the proposed airport.

In a written statement issued Tuesday as supervisors were preparing to vote on El Toro, the Air Line Pilots Assn. urged adoption of the V-Plan, which would reverse the county’s proposed takeoff and landing paths. Supporters hope to get the plan on a ballot next year.

The union said the V-Plan, developed by retired aerospace engineer Charles Griffin of Newport Beach, would be safer and more efficient in Southern California’s crowded skies. It would send departing jets from El Toro to the southwest over undeveloped land toward Crystal Cove State Park, with planes landing from the north.

The El Toro issue has polarized Orange County into opposing camps. But the pilots represent a powerful third voice not aligned with either side, though their criticisms of the county’s plan have been touted by airport foes.

Supervisors voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to approve an environmental review of the county’s plan, which dismisses the V-Plan among several El Toro options. County officials, saying takeoffs to the southwest would create noise over homes planned by the Irvine Co., have refused to seriously study the proposal, introduced in 1999.

The pilots group, which represents 66,000 airline pilots, has opposed the county’s airport design for years but has never endorsed a rival plan. The union supports construction of an airfield at the former Marine base--just not the one the county wants to build.

Air Line Pilots Assn. members and the Allied Pilots Assn., which represents 11,700 American Airlines pilots, have argued that the county’s proposed takeoffs to the north and east would endanger them and passengers. Pilots would be forced to fly toward hills with unfavorable wind conditions, they said.

“The way Orange County has written its plan dooms the airport to almost certain failure,” said the union statement, issued from the union’s national headquarters in Virginia.

Union Raises Same Concerns as FAA

Nevertheless, the county plan was approved Tuesday, with board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad and Supervisors Chuck Smith and Jim Silva voting in favor and Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, who represent areas of South County opposed to the airport, voting no.

The union’s statement comes a week after the Federal Aviation Administration raised some of the same safety concerns. In its airspace study, the FAA noted that the county’s proposed aircraft flow is opposite that of every other airport in Southern California.

The FAA said the airport could operate safely, however, as long as pilots use other runways under certain weather conditions. Flights arriving at John Wayne and Long Beach airports also would have to be delayed--as long as 15 minutes each--for each El Toro takeoff.

The FAA review prompted some airport backers--chiefly Smith--to suggest that the county could change the plan later.

That prompted Irvine Co. official Monica Florian to send a letter last week urging supervisors to stick with the current design. Florian’s letter reiterated the company’s opposition to any departures to the west over Irvine. The FAA review suggested that westerly takeoffs wouldn’t interfere with surrounding air traffic.

The company has never commented on the airport beyond letters addressing technical issues. Supervisors said they chose the current plan not to protect the company but to reduce noise for airport neighbors. The airport was designed to confine the greatest noise within areas protected for decades with building restrictions because of the roar of military jets.

The Air Line Pilots Assn. endorsement is a boost to backers of the V-Plan, who hope to place it on the November 2002 ballot as the Reasonable Airport Alternative. It has been endorsed by several north Orange County officials.

The measure would replace the county’s airport plan with the V-shaped runways.

Villa Park Councilman Bob McGowan, a former United Air Lines pilot and supporter of the V-Plan, said the county designed the airport to minimize opposition from the Irvine Co., the county’s largest landowner.

The developer still hasn’t said whether it will support the county’s airport design. But Florian has written several letters protesting any possibility of departures over Irvine and over the company’s undeveloped lands to the southwest of El Toro.

“They’ve been the adversary all along,” McGowan said. “The county wants to protect their future developments. But this wouldn’t give [the company] any problems. Flights wouldn’t go over Newport Coast.”

McGowan said he will ask city councils from north and central county cities, which generally support an El Toro airport, to endorse the V-Plan.

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, the county’s lead airport attorney downplayed the power of the pilots’ concerns. He said the pilots union traditionally has supported the easiest ways in and out of airports regardless of other factors, including subjecting nearby neighborhoods to noise.

Pilots Opposed Steep Takeoffs at John Wayne

For example, the Air Line Pilots Assn. for nearly 20 years has opposed as unsafe the county’s use of steep departures at John Wayne Airport, required to minimize noise over neighborhoods in Santa Ana Heights, attorney Michael Gatzke said. It’s a constant tension between the union and airport operators, he said.

“That’s their choice” if pilots don’t want to fly from John Wayne Airport, Gatzke said, “but plenty of pilots do operate there every day.”

Airport backers said the pilots’ opposition to the county plan is colored by the problems created by current airspace, which can be redesigned. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, has written to supervisors pledging to work with the FAA to accommodate El Toro.

“Common sense tells you that if you’re going to bring in a new ingredient, the airspace has to be reworked,” said Bruce Nestande, president of the pro-airport Citizens for Jobs and the Economy. “In congested airspace, you can’t plop in [another] airport without any adjustments.”

County planners, meanwhile, said they have never studied how much noise would be generated in areas around the airport by the V-Plan, concentrating instead on the current plan. State law forbids homes and schools to be in areas of high airport noise; planners couldn’t say whether any homes or schools would be in that zone if the county reversed landings and takeoffs.