The plane truth

Jasmine Lee

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT -- No, it’s not a bizarre flight test or the result of

technical problems. And no, it has nothing to do with the proposed

airport at El Toro. Believe it or not, it’s just the wind.

The 180-degree shift in John Wayne’s flight patterns during the last

several weeks is simply because of consistent Santa Ana wind conditions,

aviation officials said.

Depending upon the weather, air traffic controllers direct pilots to fly

into John Wayne Airport from the south -- over Newport Beach -- to land,

said Mitch Barker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The planes take off into the wind and land with the wind,” Barker said.

“They call it ‘turning the airport around.”’

The phenomenon should be welcome news to Newport Beach residents because

planes landing are less noisy than those taking off, airport officials

said.

“It reduces the engine thrust and that reduces the noise,” said Nghia

Nguyen, a spokeswoman for the airport. “It’s like a car -- when you slow

down, your engine quiets down.”

Eight residents this week called the airport’s noise abatement hotline,

Nguyen said. The hotline usually receives about 50 calls during a

one-week period.

Only one of the calls inquired about the planes landing from the south,

Nguyen said.

Longtime Newport Beach resident Nora Lehman said she has noticed the

planes coming in over the coast for the past month, even when she didn’t

feel a breeze in the air.

“It’s hard to say when I first noticed it,” Lehman said. “I would find

myself in the morning saying ‘That’s funny.”’

Lehman said she was not concerned about technical problems or even noise

-- she was just curious. In 39 years, she has never seen the planes come

in from the south so consistently during such an extended period of time.

“Especially with all the discussion about El Toro, one begins to wonder,”

she said.

Barker said construction on the runways or faulty navigational equipment

could cause a change in flight paths, but in this case, only the weather

is to blame.

Aviation officials said that because weather forcing pilots to take

alternate routes is so common, there are no statistics available about

the frequency of the reverse landings -- for John Wayne or for airports

throughout the nation.