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