Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution
Excerpt from Washington Post Editorial below:
The FAA swears that the Dallas-Fort Worth TRACON coverup-and-do-nothing era is over. … But the FAA will understand if the public doesn't trust a word it says.
Fake reports from Dallas-Fort Worth control tower add to the aviation agency's air of chaos.
Saturday, May 3, 2008; Page A14
WHAT GIVES with the Federal Aviation Administration? A month ago, the flying public learned that aircraft inspectors
for the agency were in cahoots with the airlines and letting jets get off the ground without proper equipment checks. Then came a report from the inspector general of the Transportation Department to the Office of Special Counsel that reveals a coverup of errors by air traffic controllers. Thanks to whistle-blower Anne Whiteman, we now know that the Dallas-Fort Worth Terminal Approach Control
(TRACON) decided to cover up mistakes made by its personnel by pinning the blame on pilots. According to the FAA, between November 2005 and July 2007, TRACON managers wrongly reported 62 air traffic "events" as
"pilot deviation or non-events." Instead, the agency says, there were 52 "operational errors" and 10 "operational deviations." We're talking about letting planes fly too close to each other and other
potentially dangerous mistakes. The problem with fake reports, aside from dishonesty, is that they corrupt the FAA's system of gathering timely and accurate information to spot trends, which allows the agency to anticipate trouble
and prevent accidents. What incentive might there be for someone to put so many at risk? Could it be the agency-wide bonus system that rewards workers for reduced operational errors? Maybe the final report from the Office of
Special Council, expected to be completed by late this month, will shed some light on that. Now, here's the really scary part: This isn't the first time this has happened at Dallas-Fort Worth. Ms. Whiteman blew the whistle on
this crew once before, in 2004. That coverup spanned seven years. Disciplinary actions were taken. Directives were issued. Still, nothing changed. The FAA swears that the Dallas-Fort Worth TRACON coverup-and-do-nothing era is over.
The facility manager and the assistant manager were removed. Unannounced audits by the Air Traffic Safety Oversight organization have begun. And implementation of a computer system that automatically catches the errors of
controllers has been accelerated. All good moves. But the FAA will understand if the public doesn't trust a word it says.
LONDON, UK, May 7, 2008 (ENS) -
Climate change emissions by the airline industry, airport noise, and local air
pollution are all trending sharply upwards, according to a suppressed report based on information contained in U.S., European and UK government databases maintained by regulatory agencies.
The technical report was submitted to the 7th US/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar held in Barcelona, Spain last summer.
But it was not accepted for publication by seminar organizers and remained unpublished until released to the public on April 24 by the Aviation Environment Federation, the principal UK nonprofit concerned with the
environmental effects of aviation. Calling it a "shock report," the Aviation Environment Federation says that between the years 2000 and 2025 the
rapid growth in aviation globally is set to generate "massive environmental damage." Emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from aviation are forecast to more than double - from 572 million
metric tonnes in 2000 to 1,229 million metric tonnes in 2025. "Aviation emissions on this scale run a severe risk of overwhelming all CO2 reduction targets," said Jeff Gazzard
of the Aviation Environment Federation, AEF. But the latest UK Department for Transport's projection of future aviation emissions, released in November 2007
contains a 2050 figure for aviation carbon dioxide of 60.3 million tonnes - way below the figures in the suppressed report.
Emissions of nitrogen oxides, which cause air pollution around airports and at high altitude, are predicted in the report to more than double - from 2.5 million tonnes to 6.1 million tonnes.
"This suppressed report forecasts shocking and continually rising impacts from aviation's major environmental impacts on a region by region basis," said Gazzard.
Gazzard presented some of the report's key findings to the UK All-party Parliamentary Sustainable Aviation Group on April 23.
He shared with the legislators the report's finding that the number of people affected by aircraft noise is forecast to rise from 24 million to 30.3 million.
Noise above World Health Organization guideline levels will grow from impacting 1.4 million people across Western Europe in the year 2000 to impacting 3.98 million people in 2025, the report predicts.
Gazzard called this increase in noise impacts, "an intolerable public health burden dumped unasked and unwanted on airport communities."
With local air quality impacts from nitrogen oxide levels around airports forecast to rise, the report itself acknowledges these "may lead to adverse health effects."
"We urgently need to look at demand management through tough green taxation and behavioral change messages
to start to control and reduce all of these negative environmental impacts," said Gazzard, "more aircraft noise, worsening air quality around airports and growing climate change emissions are totally unacceptable!" To view the report, entitled "Trends in Global Noise and Emissions from Commercial Aviation for 2000 through 2025," click
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.
Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution
CONTACT: Martin Rubin Founder and Director of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution
P.O. Box 643033 Los Angeles, CA 90064 Website:
E-mail: jetairpollution@earthlink.net
Phone: (310) 479-2529