Project '99 Newsletter, August 1998

A Plan of Action to Protect and Improve Our Community
A Note from Larry Agran Chair of Project 99

Dear Neighbor,

In last month’s lead article (“It’s Time to Talk Dollars — and $ense! — about El Toro”), we demonstrated that the County’s promise to build El Toro International Airport for a mere $1.6 billion is nonsense. The real cost will be at least $5 billion — nearly $2000 for every man, woman and child in Orange County.

A large part of the skyrocketing cost is attributable to what’s known as “the runway problem.” In its master plan for the redevelopment of El Toro, the County promised it could convert the Marine base’s limited and decrepit military runways and taxiways to commercial aviation use for only $93 million in improvements. The plain truth is that existing runways at El Toro would have to be lengthened, strengthened and rebuilt to handle huge commercial jets. The cost would likely run as high as $1 billion — more than ten times the County’s estimated cost.

Worse yet, the runways and takeoff patterns would still be unsafe for commercial aviation. That’s the conclusion of the 50,000-member Air Line Pilots Association. And that’s what prompts this month’s lead story: “Unsafe at Any Cost.”

Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the battle over El Toro is that County officials don’t seem to care at all about public health and public safety. A shocking fact is that in preparing their massive 1996 Draft Environmental Impact Report on El Toro, County officials went out of their way to avoid any mention of the June 25, 1965 crash of a Boeing 707 military transport into the Loma Ridge, killing all 84 aboard. It was Orange County’s worst-ever aviation tragedy.

In its desperate bid to find workable takeoff patterns, County officials have been proposing “straight-north” takeoffs over the same Loma Ridge that claimed so many lives 33 years ago. These officials may want us to forget what happened way back then — but we can’t and we won’t.

El Toro International Airport
Unsafe at Any Cost

For years now, County officials have claimed that the Marine Corps Base at El Toro can be converted to a huge international airport with complete safety, and at practically no cost.

Not so, according to a lengthy July 2nd letter from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) — representing 50,000 pilots who fly for 49 airlines in the U.S. and Canada. Writing to County officials, Captain Jon Russell, Regional Safety Chairman for ALPA, sharply condemned the County’s various runway plans at El Toro as unsafe. He recommended that the County “replace all existing runways” with a new and costly configuration of runways. Experts estimate that building new runways at El Toro could cost $1 billion or more.

The ALPA letter drew attention to El Toro’s inherently unsafe conditions for commercial aviation. El Toro is a landlocked facility and is surrounded on three sides by steeply rising ter- rain. ALPA’s harshest criticism was reserved for proposed takeoffs to the north, especially the “straight-out” or “straight-north” departures on Runway 34. This takeoff route — toward the Santa Ana Mountains and Loma Ridge — is now favored by the County precisely because flights will be directed away from angry homeowners now opposed to El Toro Airport. (See map and Option 5 below)

In his letter, Russell made no direct reference to the Loma Ridge crash of a Boeing 707 military transport on June 25, 1965, which took the lives of 84 servicemen. But he offered an ominous observation: “We know of no other airport in the country where such a significant terrain mass is overflown within three (3) miles of takeoff by commercial aircraft.”

Underscoring his point, Russell noted that on hot days heavily-laden cargo and international flights taking off straight-north could find it difficult to “consistently clear the ridge and not set off aircraft terrain warning systems.” In other words, pilots must beware and be ready for cockpit warning bells and extreme crash hazards at El Toro.

If this doesn’t set off alarm bells at the County Hall of Administration, what will? Will it take another El Toro-Loma Ridge calamity?

TROUBLED TAKEOFFS. The problem with the various El Toro takeoff options offered by County officials is that they don’t work! All have severe limitations.

1. Runway 7 — with its easterly takeoffs — will be limited to smaller aircraft and shorter flights because of the uphill gradient, tailwinds, and rising terrain.
2. Runway 25 — with its westerly takeoffs over Irvine — has been temporarily set aside as an option because overflights would devastate and endanger thousands of households in Irvine and along the Newport Coast.
3. Runway 34 — with northerly takeoffs for heavy international flights — is still a possibility. But pilots would be required to bank sharply to the left to avoid John Wayne Airport incoming flights. Tustin, Irvine and the Newport Coast would be exposed to massive noise and air pollution.
4. Runway 34 — with northerly takeoffs and a softer bank to the left — would place heavily loaded national and international flights over Irvine, Tustin, Villa Park, Orange and Fullerton. But aircraft would cross the approach path of planes landing at John Wayne Airport.
5. The County’s “straight-north” alternative would be on uphill runways with tailwinds and steeply rising terrain — presenting the same high-risk takeoff conditions that led to the tragic Loma Ridge crash of June 25, 1965.

Thank You and Welcome!

Thanks to the generous donations of hundreds of Project 99 supporters, our summer “Go North” campaign has been a huge success. By summer’s end, we should reach our goal of mailing Project 99 materials to 100,000 households in central and northern Orange County.

We take this opportunity to welcome the many hundreds of new Project 99 supporters who have joined us in June and July — from Irvine, Tustin, Villa Park, Orange and Fullerton.

Together, we are working not just to defeat the County’s proposed El Toro International Airport, but to win countywide approval of the environmentally and economically superior Millennium Plan — an Orange County citizens’ plan to provide for the productive non-aviation reuse of El Toro.

Project ’99 Newsletter Director of Communications, Karen Byers Director of Media, Alan Ellstrand

Project ’99 • PO Box 252 • Irvine CA 92650 • Phone (714) 559-5423

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