We are being misled!

Two weeks ago we received from Mayor Bibas a copy of the Civil Airline Authority (CAA) document which outlines its decision to implement the original landing path over the heart of Modiin, with some minor modifications. We have also received volunteer advice from a flight expert who is a resident of the city.

The flight expert has gained access to the details of the CAA flight path which for some strange reason are omitted from the 47 page document of the CAA. We have learned that the flight path crosses Menachem Begin Blvd at 2,900 ft, continuing its descent over Moriya & Shvatim (Buchman South & North), Reut, Mesuah (Giva C), Nechalim (Sfadia), Prachim (Meromi) until finally leveling at 2,300 ft over Cramim/Neviim (Tsipor/Shimshoni).

The heights stated above are relative to sea level, and as Modiin is situated at 800-900 ft above sea level, this means that flights will fly as low as 1,400-1,500 ft., or 426 meters. This is before bringing into account the height of buildings, particularly the tall towers.

The original flight path revealed in September 2008 features the same exact geographic pattern as detailed above, crossing Menachem Begin Blvd at 2,650 ft and leveling out over Tsipor/Shimshoni at 2,300 ft., precisely at the same height as the current CAA landing path. Ergo the current landing path features only a marginal increase of between 0-250ft., which are an average of 125 ft.=37 meters in the height over the city than the original path.

Yet the municipality boasted only two weeks ago that the new landing path is 1,300 ft. higher than the original landing path, and thus it would supposedly significantly reduce the noise levels. Most remarkably, when confronted with the data revealed this week about the landing path and its height, the municipality continued to stick to their original position in their responses to the local press.

Our flight expert has also proposed that the 180 degree turn conducted over the heart of the city be shifted 2.5 km north-west, instead of a 2.5 km leg of level flight, using the same exact patter suggested by the CAA. This way the U-Turn would take place mostly over unpopulated areas. The expert said that the same approach is used in Ben Gurion Airport for runway 26, also via instrument landing. However his proposal was rejected out of hand by the CAA, without offering any reasoning.

We have requested a meeting with Giora Rom, head of the CAA, who met us in July 2009. However this time he rejected our request.

To sum it up: It looks as if the CAA is determined to push through with its landing path and that the Modiin municipality has laid down its resistance.

We at clear skies think that unless the CAA offers solid reasoning why not to implement a landing path that is least damaging to Modiin residents, and provides guarantees that will limit the flights over Modiin to 5-10 flights a day as the CAA declared - that we should continue the struggle. In order for that to happen the public will first have exert enough pressure to convince the municipality to change its mind.

Please see the map of the landing path and more detailed information on our Hebrew website.

The Aviation Authorities rejected the Iriya's proposals

Modiin mayor Haim Bibas has met last night with Clear Skies activists in order to update us on a formal document received from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regarding the landing path chosen for LDA instrument approach to Ben Gurion Airport from the east.

As it turns out, the CAA has rejected all the alternative landing paths proposed by the municipality. The landing path chosen by the CAA is the original landing path that flies over the heart of the city and most of its neighborhoods, but with elevated flight level of 3,500 feet instead of 2,200 feet as originally proposed - which should reduce the noise level experienced by Modiin residents. The Western approach over uninhabited parts of the city did not pass the simulator tests conducted in the US last November. The eastern approach, over fields east of Yair Pereg BLvd was deemed as "מעט פחות טובה" (slightly inferior) to the original approach chosen by the CAA.

The CAA has also agreed to direct planes equipped with R-NAV systems to do the turn over Ben-Shemen forest instead of over the city. This is expected to significantly reduce the number of flights from 20-30 per day to 5-10 flights per day. On days with limited visibility (as was on Sunday this week), all planes will use the LDA approach over Modiin. The eastern approach to Ben Gurion Airport is used when there are strong western winds, per the CAA this is between 12:00-19:00 (originally we were told that it would be 13:00-18:00). However in certain parts of the year there are strong Western winds in other hours of the day, including at night. The CAA estimates that such weather conditions exist in up to 30 days in the year.

The CAA has notified the mayor that it will publish their chosen landing path within a week, and it will go into effect 45 days later. This landing path is expected to be in use until December 2011, when runway 12-30 will be shut down for work in Ben Gurion Airport. At the end of 2013 runway 12-30 is expected to reopen, and at that time most landings will be conducted from the north. It is unclear under what circumstances the landing path over Modiin will be used from 2014 and beyond.

We in Clear Skies think that it is not time to give up yet:

1. In our meeting with Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz last September, we emphasized that the guiding principle should be that from all the alternatives that pass the required safety threshold, to choose the one that least impacts the residents of Modiin. The minister accepted this principle. Therefore, as the eastern approach was not rejected in the simulator tests and was only deemed as slightly inferior to the original flight path, we believe that we should continue to demand that the eastern path will be chosen.
2. We also think that the municipality should demand from the CAA not to create any facts on the ground by publishing the new landing path, and that it should wait until the municipality has ample time to assess the report and provide the CAA with feedback, including with feedback from its expert abroad.
3. We are also concerned with the lack of data regarding the use of the landing path over Modiin in 2014 and beyond, as this is a permanent situation, and we call the CAA to provide the municipality with explicit details of the use of the landing approach over Modiin in 2014 and beyond.
4. We also think that there should be put into place procedures to monitor the number of flights, their height, noise level , etc. in order to assure that these agreements are implemented, including sanctions in case of exceptions.

See our detailed report on our website (in Hebrew):
http://planesmodiin.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html