The Select Committee on South Bay Arrivals, meeting in Palo Alto last week, on Oct. 20, failed in an attempt to arrive at a consensus set of recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about controversial changes in flight paths and procedures for commercial jets landing at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) from the south.
The current route and most previous route pass over portions of Santa Cruz County. The previous flight path crosses the Santa Cruz Mountains just east of the San Lorenzo Valley.
The committee includes elected officials from San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties.
This document is a first draft discussion document for review and comment by the public and the committee. It represents a first effort attempt to capture the consensus view of committee, and as such, it is subject to review and revision. The committee met Oct. 27, and meets again on Nov. 3, and on Nov.17, in the Palo Alto City Council chamber.
In June 2016, the current flight path, designated as SERFR and called “Surfer,” carried an average of 183 aircraft per day, or 30 percent of the arriving aircraft into SFO. This flight path was implemented in early 2015, as the FAA moves to satellite- from ground-based navigation.
Because of a barrage of complaints about jet noise, the committee considered proposals to move the arrival procedure to SFO to a similar ground track previously used before last year for 30 years, known as BSR or “Big Sur” at lower altitudes over the San Lorenzo Valley. This design would put the current (since March 2015) SERFR flight path back over the BSR ground track, roughly 3-4 miles to the west of where the path currently reaches the Santa Cruz County coastline near the City of Capitola.
“However, it should be noted that even with a ‘return to the BSR ground track,’ aircraft would not actually fly the same conventional procedure as the previous route.”
The previous procedure did not use satellite-based navigation.
The committee took no position on this controversial recommendation.
Approximately 50 percent of the arrivals to SFO from the south that are currently “vectored” – diverted – west of the current flight path for safety reasons. Known as “vectoring,” this can increase ground noise.
The committee did reach a consensus that the altitude for all flight procedures/paths into and out of SFO and the “glide slopes” for SFO should be increased as planes descend over the mountains and into the peninsula.
It asked the FAA, SFO, and industry users shall meet to set new additional overnight (between 1 and 6 a.m.) noise abatement procedures within the next six months, and ensure that aircraft comply with the obligation to cross over Woodside at 8,000 feet, traffic permitting, especially at night.
In response to pleas from some mountain residents to return to previous conditions, to “how they were” before last year, the committee repeated that “the FAA has repeatedly indicated that changes to the San Francisco Bay Area airspace are not reversible.”
Because Congress mandated that the FAA use advanced technology to modernize the air transport system, the committee rejected returning to the pre-2015 status quo.
The committee concluded that “the FAA’s established noise measurement metrics are inadequate. They do not represent what is being experienced by people on the ground,” and recommended that Congress require the FAA to adopt supplemental metrics for aircraft noise match what is experienced on the ground.
The committee also was critical of the process: “The FAA should be coming to Members of Congress and their affected constituencies with proposals for review and comment, not the other way around.”
