Our friend in Mission Beach, Gary Wonocutt, sent us this ancient article from the New York Times, entitled, “SAN DIEGO IMPOSES NIGHT FLIGHT CURB” by Everett R. Holles as a “special to The New York Times” from December 7, 1975. (Please excuse the use of the old name for the airport.)
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 6—A curfew prohibiting aircraft takeoffs from San Diego’s Lindbergh Field between midnight and 6 A.M. has been ordered in what the city’s Port Commission called the most restrictive noise-abatement action by any metropolitan airport in the country.
Already facing “noise pollution”claims and damage suits totaling nearly $125 million brought by more than 1,000 citizens as well as the city’s school administration, the port commissioners were warned by several airline officials that the ruling this week would “inevitably” be challenged in the courts.
Six scheduled airlines using Lindbergh Field and the National Air Transport Association called the order an encroachment on the Federal Government’s regulatory authority. The Federal Aviation Administration also joined in opposing the action.
Shut Down by Construction
Actually, a 12:15 A.M. to 6:30 A.M. shutdown has been in effect at Lindbergh Field for the last 18 months, for both arrivals and departures, during construction of a runway extension and other work. The temporary ban, scheduled to be lifted next Saturday night, will remain until the new curfew takes effect on Jan. 5.
The port commissioners, who operate the downtown bayfront airport, voted unanimously for the Jan. 5 curfew, which forbids all flight departures but allows certain large jetliners considered to be “quiet” to land after midnight.
The jetliners classified as quiet are the wide-body I-1011 and DC-10, the Boeing 747 and those Boeing 727’s whose engines have been acoustically reconditioned
to reduce their noise.
Before the field’s temporary, late?night traffic shutdown for the construction work, only four flights had been leaving between midnight and 6 A.M.
However, several new departures, as late as 3 A.M., had been scheduled before the curfew order and additional ones were expected because of Lindbergh Field’s annual traffic growth of about 10percent.
Three-Year Dispute
The port district’s action, which culminates three years of heated civic debate and unsuccessful efforts to agree on a new airport location away from the center of the city, was also opposed by the San Diego. Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Tourist Bureau and the San Diego County American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Relations Labor Council, which warned of unemployment and a drop in tourism, the city’s third-largest industry.
The field, situated in the business section of the city, near 24?story office buildings, has difficult flight paths that compel screaming jetliners to fly low over heavily built?up residential areas to negotiate one of the most precipitous glide slopes and take-off ascents at American airports.
The Airport Relocation Committee, a citizens organization, urged the flight curfew after failing to obtain relocation of the airport which has an annual volume of 4.5 million
passengers, to an area along the Mexican border or by acquisition of the Navy’s Miramar Air Station on the city’s northern outskirts.
Group Spurs Legal Action
The committee, which says it has 100,000 members and adherents who live under the Lindbergh Field flight pattern, has been the driving force behind the claims and
lawsuits.
One damage suit pending in Superior Court seeks $100,000 in damages for each of 870 plaintiffs and a second suit filed by nearly 100 residents seeks a total of $10 million.
The San Diego School District has brought suit against the Port Commission for $20 million. The district contends that jetliner noise interferes with studies and other
activities at 12 schools.
Some 60 claims, not yet formally rejected by the Port Commission preliminary to the filing of lawsuits, add another $6 million.
Joseph Patello, Port Commission lawyer, advised the commissioners that “litigation by the airlines is to be expected” but assured them that their decision was based on firm legal ground.
Paul Leonard, regional vice president of the Air Transport Association, said that the 25 airlines represented by the association will meet in Washington next Thursday to
discuss the San Diego development.
Robert Root of Pacific Southwest Airlines, the country’s largest intrastate air carrier, which has 61 daily flights in and out of Lindbergh Field, and accounts for one?third of the field’s passenger volume, said that the airline was not only contemplating legal action but also might move its headquarters and shops out of San Diego, to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
That photo of the airport is from the 50’s.
I spot a 1959 or 1960 chevy station wagon in the bottom left. I love this curfew.
and what appear to be snipers “at-ease” (possibly wearing LL Bean oxford button-downs) on the rooftops in the foreground.
so very paranoid, vern! there was nothing to fear back in those days — the 50s.
Joseph R. McCarthy was swimming deep in the shallow end…
You know, you blow that picture up and it looks like Vern is on to something.
Okay, it’s been a few days and numerous posts since and I’ve forgotten what Vern was up to.
Yeah, so did I. I had one but I think it was a 64. Was in college and doing a lot of drugs so I can’t remember.
Patty Jones, our local car expert, confirms its probably 1960 model, while all the other cars are from the 50s.
In those days, it was the City Council and the Port Commissioners who called the shots. The FAA was on the side-line. The airlines and the ATA claims and threats have always been toothless. It was the same, when a group from Pt. Loma, one from I think midtown, and myself used numbers to convince the Port Commissioners to only allow Stage 3 aircraft to depart after 10 pm, again with threats from the ATA and at least one airline that showed up at the Port Commissioner’s meeting to announce they would pull out of San Diego before they would change their equipment. They didn’t change their equipment, and the sky did not fall as was predicted by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. The decrease in noise from the nighttime Stage 3 requirement was palpable The Airport Noise Advisory Committee (ANAC) came out of the lawsuit as I recall.