CITY OF LA AND CITY ATTORNEY FILE SUIT AGAINST FAA, UPROAR LA APPLAUDS ACTION TO STOP DEVASTATING NEW BURBANK AIRPORT FLIGHT PATHS
Nearly 1.5 Million Complaints Submitted to Burbank Airport Over Flight Path Change
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Today, City Attorney Mike Feuer and the City of LA announced they are filing suit against the FAA in response to Hollywood Burbank Airport’s new flight path, which now sends departing planes “in a singular, repetitive departure track” at extremely low altitudes over residential neighborhoods and schools in the San Fernando Valley. Local residents have now submitted nearly 1.5 million complaints to Burbank Airport Authorities (via Airnoise.io - in addition to even more calls and complaints to the airport) over these illegal new flight paths that bring noise and pollution through the FAA’s new NextGen “jet Superhighway.”
UproarLA and our supporters want to thank the City Attorney for his strong and decisive action in filing a lawsuit against the FAA to fight this new illegal, unstudied and dangerous flight path from Burbank Airport over our community. This has become a mounting safety and public health crisis. After two years of denial, the FAA has now admitted the flight path moved in 2017, while claiming it does not know why this change happened. It should concern everyone on the ground and in the air that the agency in charge of directing planes through the sky is unaware of why their planes are going 1.5 miles south of their historic path. There is wide-spread consensus in our community and with local and Federal officials that the FAA must immediately return the flight path to its original path, including a rapid ascent and dispersal of aircrafts to minimize noise and pollution for all of those on the ground.
While the FAA has now admitted that the flight paths were changed without the required public notice or environmental or safety analyses which are legally required, the agency continues to downplay the magnitude of the issue. Contrary to its claims they’ve only shifted “.33” miles, the FAA’s own documents prove that flight paths have actually shifted a full 1.5 miles south.
The roar and toxic emissions of low-flying jets have caused a public health crisis for affected citizens, including over 10,000 schoolchildren under the narrow new precision path. A recent long-term study of aircraft emissions at SeaTac airport found emissions from aircraft consist of the relatively smaller ultra-ultrafine particle sizes and lower black carbon concentrations. Ultra-ultra-fine particles are even more damaging to health than the ultrafine particles from other pollution sources: the smaller the particle, the more easily it enters the body, lodging permanently in organs. Ultrafine particles are linked to breast cancer, heart disease, prostate cancer and a variety of lung health issues.
On the heels of a year that has stripped the FAA of its credibility after it ignored its oversight duties with 737 Max crisis, the Inspector General’s office has found for five years in a row that the FAA has bungled the $36 billion “NextGen” program - which aimed to revamp the country’s air-traffic control and save airlines money by creating new “precision paths” over communities around the US. While the FAA continues to neglect its duties, UproarLA is grateful to our LA City Officials - City Attorney Mike Feuer and City Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz - for taking action aimed to keep those on the ground and in the air safer.
Watch the press conference, or press coverage below and read the Complaint Here.
Press Coverage:
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