FAA Removes Official at John Wayne Airport

Ralph Odenwald, the Federal Aviation Administration manager at John Wayne Airport, will be transferred to the agency’s Los Angeles regional office next week as a result of an evaluation that found “procedural misunderstandings” among his airport tower staff, an FAA official said Tuesday.

Odenwald, who has been in charge of the Orange County airport’s FAA tower since 1981, declined to comment on the transfer.

Wayne Newcomb, manager of the FAA’s air traffic division for the Western Pacific Region, said he decided to transfer Odenwald because of “some things that were going on in the facility that were questionable . . . a misapplication of procedures.”

For example, Newcomb said, tower controllers more than once released departing aircraft before incoming planes that had been approved to land had actually landed. The situation was not a safety problem, Newcomb said, but it ran counter to official procedure.

“Our environment in these facilities is super-structured,” Newcomb said. “We have procedures on everything from what words you use when you talk to a pilot to . . . how one controller communicates with another.

“For obvious reasons we have these standards. It avoids confusion. (Otherwise) if a pilot flies from New York to California . . . you have room for misinterpretation.”

As facility manager, Odenwald was ultimately responsible for his staff’s procedural compliance at the tower, Newcomb said.

The problems were first noticed by FAA officials who were preparing a routine report for the National Transportation Safety Board on tower activity for the night of Feb. 26, when a private pilot crashed and died attempting to land in fog.

Procedural Issues Not Involved

Newcomb stressed, however, that none of the procedural issues contributed to the fatal crash of Newport developer Walter Scott Biddle, 58, chairman of Biddle Development Inc. of Irvine. Nor could the accident have been prevented had the procedural problems been corrected, he said.

In Los Angeles, Odenwald will be classified as a traffic control specialist, Newcomb said. The transfer is not a demotion and gives him no less responsibility. Newcomb said Odenwald “will do procedural work and recommend policy to me” rather than be involved in day-to-day management of air traffic facilities.

Temporarily filling in for Odenwald at John Wayne will be Marion Davis, manager of the FAA radar facility in El Toro.