The Municipality to Petition the Supreme Court against the Night Flights – but its Chances Appear Slim

On Monday this week the Municipality issued the following press release (translation to English courtesy of Modiinfo):

Municipality to Petition the High Court Against the Night-time Landing Path

The city's management met last night (Monday) in order to discuss the latest developments regarding the nighttime flights over the city.

During the discussion, it was agreed that the city cannot function properly with the noise disturbances caused by the planes and the disruption of the residents' quality of life. It was therefore decided to petition the High Court against the nighttime landing route above the city.

The route is a blatant violation of the entire process that began when the Civil Aviation Authority and the Israel Airports Authority declared in front of the High Court that "the procession will run only during the afternoon hours, depending on the direction of the wind. We are only speaking about approximately 30 landings on weekdays, and around 20 on weekends. The procession is only temporary until Route 30 is renewed, planned, and implemented."

The municipality will hire the services of the former head of the CAA, a pilot and Israeli aviation expert, Neri Yarkoni, esq. In the past, Yarkoni has represented a number of authorities against the CAA and the IAA, and today leads the Holon area against a night-time flight plan similar to the one affecting Modiin.

Yarkoni will join the Municipality Legal Advisor, Dana Chafetz-Tokler, Esq, Einav Livna, Esq, from the Legal Department, and Ayal Mamo, Esq. and Avi Portman, Esq. from Agmon Attorneys.

The basis for the petition as stated above are statements made by the aviation authorities to Bagatz well over a year ago. The problem is that Modiin Municipality erased its petition in June 2009, and thus it is essentially relying on a dead process, that was succeeded by a new process with totally different parameters.

Following the resident protests organized by Clear Skies in July 2009, the municipality and the CAA entered into a new process, in which the CAA evaluated the Modiin Municipality’s proposed landing path. This process culminated in the CAA decision published last April, which included a reduced forecast of 5-10 flights expected to fly over Modiin, but on the other hand the CAA decision did not include even a single word about any restrictions on what hours flights will take place over Modiin.

Instead of appealing to Bagatz against the CAA decision as Clear Skies proposed, the Modiin Municipality embraced the CAA decision document, overlooking the fact that there was no mention of the hours which this landing path will be used. The Modiin Mayor Haim Bibas put his faith in the forecast cited in the CAA document and in the trust relations with head of CAA, Giora Rom.

Thus Clear Skies believes that the appeal to Bagatz has very slim chances of success, and that it is mostly aimed to convey to Modiin residents that its Municipality is doing everything it can to stop the night flights that are disturbing the sleep of its residents.

We sincerely hope that the Municipality’s legal team has some tricks up their sleeves that they are not sharing with us, and that our assessment above will ultimately be proven wrong.

For more details see the post on our Hebrew Website.

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