LET’S END THE AERIAL ASSAULT!

Five “Friend Of the Court” Letters Filed

December 17, 2021

After the resident’s brief was filed, SOSLA heard from homeowners associations (HOAs) and non-profit organizations in the impacted area interested to express their support for the lawsuit. Five HOAs and non-profits requested and received consent from the FAA to file amicus joinder letters. Read the five letters here.

These letters further flesh out the facts of environmental harms due to the FAA’s implementation of new kinds of low, assaultive flight procedures. The letters corroborate the facts and timeline of the case as laid out in the SOSLA opening brief, including:

• Cumulative effects from the new virtual runways emanating from at least two airports — BUR and VNY — using the same new airspace for routing departures and arrivals;

• The falling of jet debris in the newly impacted area;

• The presence of toxic black plane soot in the newly impacted area and the unexamined effects on plants and wildlife in parks and protected open spaces; and

• The fact that the FAA made the changes without public notice, consultation with local park and other officials or any environmental analysis.

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Residents’ Opening Brief Filed

September 9, 2021

Ninth Circuit Court

SAVE OUR SKIES LA (SOSLA) filed its opening brief presenting to the Court the facts and legal argument that the FAA violated federal environmental laws by implementing new kinds of low flight procedures at Burbank and Van Nuys airports. The new kinds of flight procedures not only result in aircraft flying at much lower altitudes than ever before, but also in aircraft ascending more gradually than before.

From these changes arose new flight patterns that are assaultive in character, because they are so low. Additionally, the new flight procedures shorten the time and space needed between departures that lead to the onslaught or blitzkrieg that residents report experiencing in their homes, parks, and protected open spaces especially in the mornings and late afternoons when jet traffic from both airports is frequent.

Central to the SOSLA brief are the sworn declarations of residents throughout the newly impacted areas — detailing health conditions, sleep disturbances, and their inability to reside peacefully in their homes and to enjoy the outdoors. The brief includes the sworn declaration of the Mountain Recreation Conservation Authority’s Chief Ecologist Paul Edelman who opined,

“The current impacts of these new FAA RNAV flight procedures on the subject eastern Santa Monica Mountain parklands and protected open spaces are of such a degree and nature that they amount to a constructive taking of these lands in that they substantially impair the intended uses of these properties.”

The SOSLA brief also includes documentation of serious heavy metal and other cancer-causing pollutants being found on plants from the new frequent, low flying aircraft in the Santa Monica Mountains.  The brief summarized the study by UCLA Environmental Health Sciences Professor and Ultrafine Particles Researcher Dr. Yifang Zhu who concluded, "I was 100% certain that the substance showing on the leaves I collected was particulate emissions from planes.”

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