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By Jorge Casuso

March 31 -- It took federal officials just hours to rev up for a lawsuit challenging a new ordinance banning large jets at Santa Monica Airport.

Last Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) filed an order after City Council on Tuesday gave final clearance to a plan that shortens the runway and adds safety areas at either end that abide by current federal standards. ("City Restricts Jets," March 27, 2008).

The order, signed by Kevin L. Solco, acting director of the Office of Airport Safety and Standards, said the new law banning Category C and D jet aircraft, which goes into effect on April 24, requires “expedited handling.”

The order challenges the City’s contention that the larger faster jets that routinely use the 63-year-old airport jeopardize the safety of residents who live near the airstrip’s single runway.

“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,” Solco wrote.

“The practical effect of the new Ordinance would be to ban several thousand jet operations per year,” he wrote. “Based on the City's own data, the new Ordinance would ban approximately 9,000 operations at the Airport.”

Solco said the FFA first expressed its position during a meeting with City officials shortly after the Airport Commission voted in July 2002 to recommend that the council implement an ordinance banning category C and D aircraft from the airport.

“FAA cautioned the Santa Monica representatives that the proposal was not consistent with the City's Federal obligations and Federal law,” the order states.

“FAA commented that safety determinations involving flight of aircraft are the responsibility of the FAA.”

The ordinance, Solco argues, violates the City’s 1984 Settlement Agreement with the FAA, which includes conditions making the airport available “to all types, kinds, and classes of aeronautical activities, including commercial aeronautical activities offering services to the public at the airport.

“Thus, any actions taken by the airport sponsor that conflict with these obligations could be found to be in violation of its Federal obligations,” the order states.

The order laying the groundwork for a lawsuit comes as no surprise. Before last Tuesday’s vote, the council held a study session meant to put the City on firmer legal ground.

During the session, council members vociferously rejected the FAA’s proposal to install a concrete arresting system that slows down aircraft travelling at 70 knots.

Council members noted that the system fails to meet the FAA’s own standards and would be only capable of stopping two of the seven large aircraft that frequent the airport built at the end of World War II.

Council members worry that soaring jet traffic -- from 4,829 jet operations in 1994 to 18,575 last year -- is putting neighboring homes, as well as pilots, in danger.

The looming lawsuit comes nearly 30 years after the City’s efforts to ban jets landed it in court. The legal wrangling let to the 1984 settlement agreement set to expire in 2015.

Neighboring residents want to see the airport shut down, but FAA officials, who have advocated buying adjacent homes, have stated in no uncertain terms that it must remain open when the agreement expires.