About the Problem
SECTIONS
X
Aircraft Density
Over the course of 4 quarters in 2015, departures that were previously dispersed over a wide area were newly concentrated into narrow flight rails that now bombard the same homes and neighborhoods relentlessly.
In late 2015, aircraft density over a number of neighborhoods in Montgomery County, MD suddenly increased nearly 500 percent.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had unilaterally created new aircraft corridors that concentrate flights over the exact same routes as they approach and depart Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) for 20 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The result is unrelenting noise for the overflown communities, which received no advance notice of the impending changes. Constant aircraft noise now disrupts sleep, interrupts thoughts and conversations, and causes levels of stress that studies have determined cause cardiovascular and numerous other diseases. Far from being a mere “annoyance” as the FAA wants Congress to believe, our members describe the inescapable noise as a daily and nightly torment. The noise affects residential communities as far as 25 miles from the airport.
The FAA’s oft-repeated assertion that “the number of people exposed to significant levels of aircraft noise has been greatly reduced while air traffic has increased ” is a grotesque distortion of reality. Yes: Engines are quieter than they used to be, and more airplanes are flying. However, consider this analogy: if society significantly reduced all the lead in water nationwide and then put all the lead that remained into the water supply of a limited number of communities, would that be an accomplishment – or a crime? The answer is obvious.
Health Consequences
Decades of research have definitely established that noise is a significant public health hazard.
We are determined to reduce the exposure of our communities to this hazard.
The FAA’s common reference to noise as “an annoyance” trivializes its serious health impacts. No one affected by aviation noise refers to it as “an annoyance” but rather uses words like “assault” and “torture.” The impacts they describe are consistent with what has been reported in the scientific literature and include deteriorating mental and physical health, anxiety, depression, anger, exhaustion, fear, disrupted sleep, work, concentration, and communication.
The FAA’s NextGen area navigation system, introduced to promote air traffic safety and efficiency, has exacerbated the known health risks of aircraft noise by highly concentrating flight paths. The known health risks from chronic noise exposure include “cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, metabolic disturbances, exacerbation of psychological disorders, and premature death.” (American Public Health Association, 2022).
Aircraft noise also is an environmental justice issue, as it has disproportionate impacts on children, seniors, racial minorities, and the poor.
For more information about the serious health risks of aircraft noise and concentrated flight paths, go to Journal Articles and Research in the Resources section (button below).
DCA’s Unique Noise Issues
Reagan National Airport has many unique features that have implications for addressing noise:
With essentially one runway, aircraft perpetually arrive and depart over the same communities with no periods of relief or respite.
Over 400 flights a day, roughly 12,000 a month, spew tailpipe emissions and unrelenting noise over the same homes, schools, churches and parks in Montgomery County. Communities south of the airport deal with an additional 400 flights overhead. More than 800 flights a day using the same runway!
DCA has evolved into a national, commercial hub airport despite being located in the middle of a densely populated metropolitan area. The airport was not intended for this much traffic – it was planned to be a regional airport. More on DCA’s unique history here.
Nighttime flights, which have increased significantly, seriously disrupt the health of underlying communities, but federal law prohibits DCA (and all airports) from having a nighttime curfew.
DCA’s location means its departures and arrivals fly over Maryland, Virignia and Washington DC., making particularly challenging to find political solutions to its noise issues. To try to address DCA noise issues, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) in 2015 convened the DCA Community Noise Working Group (CWG).
The Bigger Picture
The FAA’s deference to the interests of the aviation industry over the interests of many Americans is disrupting the lives and homes of hundreds of thousands of people every day.
New flight procedures conceived primarily by the airline industry and implemented over the last decade by the FAA have brought highly concentrated overflights and emissions to unsuspecting communities across the country.
A growing body of evidence demonstrates that unrelenting noise from the dramatically increased frequency of flights imposes cardiovascular risks, disturbs people’s ability to sleep, ruins enjoyment of parks and outdoor spaces, and undermines the ability of students to focus in school. Aircraft also emit ultra-fine particulates which studies show are likely hazards to public health.
In short, the FAA is prioritizing and promoting the interests of the airline industry while ignoring decades of scientific evidence that noise and emissions from aircraft are harming the public health. This is especially true in its administration of the “NextGen” airspace-modernization program. In implementing this program, for which Congress has appropriated billions of taxpayer dollars since 2008, the FAA has fundamentally altered the way aircraft approach and depart busy airports. Specifically, the FAA now directs commercial aircraft to follow with relentless precision the same narrow, channelized flight paths over the same communities 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To maintain minimum separation distances as flights approach airports, aircraft descend to lower altitudes earlier and employ mechanisms such as flaps and brakes, bringing punishing noise to underlying communities.
In many metropolitan areas, the FAA has abandoned flight paths that resulted from carefully negotiated noise-abatement agreements with municipalities. These agreements were designed to keep airplanes from flying over residential areas, but new procedures have introduced relentless noise to once-peaceful communities far from commercial airports.
In the face of intensifying outcry and skyrocketing complaints, the FAA insists that its new procedures create no significant impacts to residents and communities; it even claims that jet noise has decreased. The agency bases these assertions on outdated methods for measuring noise impacts and on the unsupportable position that concentrating noise on fewer people somehow results in less noise. In reality, concentrating noise pollution in this way is extremely harmful. The agency also asserts that these new procedures are safer, but it is hard to conceive how channelizing flights over densely populated residential areas improves safety.
Left with few options for recourse, a number of lawsuits have been filed to confront the plague of highly concentrated air traffic over residential communities. Applicable law gives communities a mere 60 days to determine what happened and initiate legal challenges; otherwise, legal action is considered untimely and risks being dismissed, leaving individuals and communities to bear this devastating and unjust burden.
Federal law grants the FAA responsibility to regulate airspace in the national interest, but the agency is using its authority to promote industry interests, often at the expense of the health and welfare of Americans.
The best way to ensure that the FAA is accountable to all Americans is for Congress to pass new laws requiring the agency to stop deferring to and prioritizing the interests of industry, whether in aircraft-safety reviews or in configuring concentrated flight paths over homes and communities.