Airport task force to consider possible actions to abate noise issues
Members of the Southern San Fernando Valley Airplane Noise Task Force will have a little over a month to develop recommendations about how to address aircraft noise issues affecting the south San Fernando Valley.
After five meetings and hearing from various neighborhood groups and experts, aviation consultant HMMH Inc., which has been the facilitator of the meetings, spent the majority of Wednesday night distilling all of the recommendations that have been brought forward so far and the feasibility of implementing them.
HMMH worked with Kevin Karpe, an aviation expert who worked as an air traffic controller at Hollywood Burbank and the Federal Aviation Administration Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control, to analyze the departing flight procedures out of the Burbank airfield as well as Van Nuys Airport, both of which are at the center of the noise issues.
Since March 2017, residents in the south San Fernando Valley have complained about an increase in the number of planes flying overhead.
Many blame the FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen, which was implemented in Southern California in March 2017.
The satellite-based navigation system was geared toward making flights across the country more fuel efficient and safe. However, NextGen became …