Restraining order to be heard on Monday
CITY HALL City officials have decided not to enforce a ban on faster, larger jet aircraft flying into the Santa Monica Airport after a request for a temporary restraining order was filed Thursday morning by federal prosecutors on behalf of the FAA.
The ban was supposed to go into effect Thursday at 12:01 a.m., however, city officials felt it was best to postpone enforcement until a hearing is held on the request. The hearing is scheduled for Monday, said Kate Vernez, assistant to the city manager.
This comes a day after the FAA filed a cease-and-desist order against City Hall, calling the ban on Category C and D aircraft illegal. The ban was passed in March by the City Council, which is concerned about the lack of runway safety areas and other public safety measures at the airport, leaving residents vulnerable to a potentially deadly accident.
Those in violation of the ordinance could be subject to misdemeanor charges, fines and possibly jail sentences.
The so-called Category C and D jets include such models as the Gulfstream IV, Challenger and Citation X aircraft and account for nearly 9,000 landings and departures a year — about 7 percent of flight operations.
City Hall and the FAA have been at odds for decades over operations at the airport and have been negotiating for six years to come up with safety enhancements that both sides could agree upon.
City Hall has requested measures which the FAA believes are too extreme and would limit the types of aircraft that can fly in and out of the airport.
The FAA has said repeatedly that it will not endorse measures that prevent Santa Monica Airport from being used by aircraft that currently are allowed to land there. The airport is considered by the FAA to be an important reliever for LAX.
Santa Monica poses a unique situation in that residents are located within 300 feet of both ends of the runway. There is also commercial development directly adjacent to the airport’s boundaries.
FAA officials said they would much rather settle the matter with an agreement and not through other means, most likely litigation.
The FAA has made numerous proposals that would increase safety while maintaining user access to the airport, however, both the community and the City Council have rejected such moves because they believe the measures did not go far enough to protect the public.
Proposals included: a 40-knot Emergency Materials Arresting System at each end of the runway; a 70-knot EMAS bed at the west end of Runway 21, which is used about 95 percent of the time; an offer to fund a residential acquisition program to create a Runway Protection Zone, which would mean purchasing homes.
Officials with the FAA said despite the council’s actions, they are willing and able to move forward with safety measures proposed. They also said the jets City Hall are trying to ban are some of the safest in the skies with pilots who have more cockpit experience than those flying piston-drive planes.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 25, 2008. Read the original PDF.