"Santa Monica Airport Safety"

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Airport Safety   
By Terence Lyons
The Santa Monica (CA) Mirror


Takeoff and landing safety at Santa Monica Airport (SMO) took center stage
at a meeting of the City's Airport Commission on Monday evening, March 26.
Brian Armstrong, manager of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Los
Angeles Airports District Office, seemed caught in a crossfire as he fielded
questions and criticisms from both city commissioners on the dais and the
public audience during a Commission "workshop" on proposed runway safety
enhancements at SMO.

The public exchange between the City and the FAA is the most recent chapter
in a long-standing and sometimes strained discussion of safety issues, in
which the federal agency has often been perceived as caring more about the
convenience of aviators and of distributing air traffic than about the
safety of local residents.  Monday night's session is the first occasion on
which an FAA representative has directly addressed either the Airport
Commission or the Santa Monica public; in prior chapters, the FAA has dealt
only with SMO staff.

Historical Overview

SMO Airport Director Robert Trimborn provided the context for the evening's
discussion and explained the "workshop" format as a technical presentation
to the Airport Commission regarding proposed runway safety enhancements at
SMO. 

Although SMO has been around since 1917, it was in the mid-1980s that the
airport was designed according to what the FAA calls "category B-2
standards."  Airplanes are categorized A through E according to their
approach speed at maximum certified gross landing weight (E being the
highest), and they are also categorized 1 through 4 according to their wing
span (4 being the largest).  In the mid-1980s, the "design aircraft" for SMO
- the most demanding category that had more than 500 "operations" per year
(a takeoff or a landing is an "operation") - was category B-2.

Over the last 20 years, the fleet mix of aircraft at SMO has changed - for a
variety of reasons summarized by Trimborn - and there are now many more
"bigger, faster" airplanes using the same 5,000-foot runway at SMO, so that
today's "design aircraft" is category D-2 at an airport designed for
category B-2. 

The City became concerned about runway safety issues, and in 2002 the City
Council suggested that the airport be restricted to B-2 aircraft.  The FAA
responded to this suggestion by initiating an administrative proceeding to
enjoin the City from implementing its proposed Aircraft Conformance Program.
(Although the City owns the airport and "maintains and operates" the
facility, the FAA controls access to the airport, and federal approval is
required for any runway safety enhancements.)

The City's Proposal

For five years now, SMO staff (making reports to, and obtaining direction
from, the Airport Commission and City Council) have been dealing with the
FAA in an effort to address runway safety.  Under FAA guidelines, an airport
with category D-2 design aircraft should have a runway safety area (RSA) of
1,000 feet of tarmac - for airplanes overshooting the runway or other
emergency conditions - at each end of the runway.  Santa Monica Airport
basically has none.  Or, as Stacy Brown of West LA said at Monday's
workshop, "The present RSAs are a whole lot of houses and at least one gas
station [meaning the Union 76 station across Bundy from the east end of the
runway]."

The recommended RSA for an airport with category B-2 design aircraft is 300
feet at either end of the runway.  FAA guidelines allow for alternatives to
these recommended RSAs, one of which is the use of EMAS (Engineered Mass
Arresting System) - a much shorter distance at the end of the runway that is
covered not with standard tarmac but with a special sort-of-soft-concrete
surface perhaps two feet thick that is crushed by the weight of an airplane
and thereby "arrests" its forward movement.

The City has proposed an EMAS surface of about 250 feet at the west end of
the runway and a "declared distance" limitation of 600 feet at the east end
of the runway that would not alter the physical runway itself but would
limit the space available for takeoffs and landings.  Armstrong of the FAA
said that the agency favored 165 feet of EMAS (including a lead-in area) at
the west end and a lesser "declared distance" limitation at the east end.

The safety areas proposed by Santa Monica might limit the amount of fuel
(weight) that certain airplanes could carry, thereby limiting the range that
they could fly without refueling.

Airport Director Trimborn introduced Steve Benson of Coffman Associates,
which conducted a study of design standards for the City, and Kevin Quan of
ESCO, which manufactures the EMAS product. But the appearance of FAA
representative Armstrong captured the attention of the Commission and the
public.  The audience rumbled when he referred to the safety concerns of
aviators without mentioning the safety of residents.

Commission chair Mark Young asked whether Santa Monica Airport was unique,
with residences within 220 feet of the airport on all sides, and Armstrong
responded that it was not unique, but was hard pressed to name another
airport so situated.

The Airport Commission will report to the City Council, and the runway
safety discussions between Santa Monica and the FAA will no doubt continue.

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