"FAA challenges California reliever airport on business jet access"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thursday, April 3, 2008

FAA Issues Order to Show Cause to City  
By Terence Lyons
The Santa Monica (CA) Mirror


The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wasted no time in responding to
the new Santa Monica ordinance banning the larger, faster "Category C and D"
jet aircraft from Santa Monica Airport (SMO),  set to go into effect April
24.  After the City Council adopted the ordinance late in the evening on
Tuesday, March 25 (already after midnight in Washington, D.C.), the FAA
issued a nine-and-a-half-page, single-spaced (with 11 footnotes) Order to
Show Cause on March 26, directing the City to respond within 10 days and
explain why the federal agency should not supplement and expedite an
existing investigation to an "initial determination."

Mayor Katz told the Mirror, "We gave [the FAA] more than a fair hearing" at
the March 25 Council meeting - "a lot of time.  We were very fair."  Saying
that he had been told the FAA thought the City had prejudged the proposal
put forth by the agency on March 25, Katz said that the speed with which the
FAA issued the Order to Show Cause showed that "they prejudged it; we
didn't."

The Order to Show Cause re-starts, broadens, and expedites an existing
administrative investigation that was initiated by the FAA in October 2002
after the Santa Monica Airport Commission recommended that the City Council
adopt an Aircraft Conformance Program to address safety issues at SMO; the
investigation had been put on hold while the City negotiated those issues
with the FAA over the more than six years since that time.

New issues in the investigation, according to the Order to Show Cause,
include whether the new ordinance "is consistent with the [City's] federal
obligation" to operate SMO "without unjust discrimination," and whether the
ordinance is "preempted under Federal Law," "consistent with the terms of
the 1984 Agreement" that settled earlier litigation between the City and the
FAA, and "consistent with the Surplus Property Act deed covenants" by which
SMO was deeded back to the City after World War II.

Reviewing the six years of negotiations between the City and the FAA, the
Order to Show Cause complains that the proposals put forward by the City
"would have a significant impact on the utility of the Airport," echoing the
emphasis on utility rather than safety that was clear in the March 25 City
Council presentation by FAA Associate Administrator for Airports Kirk
Shaffer.

Once the City files its 10-day response to the Order to Show Cause, it will
be the FAA that decides whether that response shows enough cause that the
investigation not be supplemented and expedited.  If the FAA decides that it
does not, the investigation will be expedited toward the issuance of "the
initial determination" - also made by the FAA - according to FAA Western
Pacific Region spokesman Ian Gregor.  What happens beyond that, Gregor would
not say.

City Manager Lamont Ewell said that the City's response to the Order to Show
Cause would be coordinated through the City Attorney's office, which would
work with the Washington, D.C. lawyers expert in aviation mattersthat have
been retained by the City.  Calling the FAA's position "obstinate," Ewell
said the City needs a solution that includes runway safety at both ends of
the runway.  "If we're not even in compliance with the standards of the FAA
[which provide for the Runway Safety Areas sought by the City], it not only
exposes our residents [to danger], but it exposes the City to liability."

Airport Manager Robert Trimborn called the 10-day limit for the City to
respond "to a fairly intense request" set by the FAA "Draconian," and said
that he was "amazed" that the agency put together the Order to Show Cause
"15 hours after Shaffer's presentation" to the City Council.

The new FAA Order acknowledges that, under its own regulations, SMO has an
Airport Reference Code (ARC) designation of B-II, meaning that it was
designed to accommodate Category A and B aircraft (based on approach speeds)
and Category I and II aircraft (based on wing span).

But the Order goes on to argue that "the ARC design category of an airport
is not intended, and cannot be used, to limit operations of an airport..
While the design category and geometry of an airport are useful in airport
planning, the FAA does not consider it inherently unsafe for an aircraft of
a larger design category to utilize an airport that has been designed to
accommodate a lesser design category of aircraft."

With particular reference to Runway Safety Areas (RSAs), the Order to Show
Cause argues, "RSAs are problematic at SMO because they need to be level,
and the land drops off at the end of the runways at SMO.  However, the RSA
standard is part of FAA's airport design standards, and is not an operating
requirement of condition."

Speaking with the Mirror immediately after the City Council adopted the
ordinance and before the FAA order was issued, Trimborn responded to this
kind of argument divorcing design standards from operating standards by
saying that it made no sense.  If you design a road for passenger cars
weighing x pounds and traveling at 40 miles per hour, he posited, and years
later the road becomes a thoroughfare for cement trucks weighing 4x pounds
traveling 60 miles per hour, you have to do something, he reasoned.

It seems apparent that in the case of SMO (or Trimborn's road, for that
matter) the "something" is either re-design the airport/road or regulate the
aircraft/vehicles that use it.


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http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php

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