FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What changed to cause the aerial assault over new, previously unimpacted areas?

Since the early 2000s and under the guise of modernizing air space navigation through a program called “NextGen," the FAA has been changing the way aircraft depart and arrive at airports, essentially by increasing flight automation and decreasing the role of pilots and air traffic controllers.

Because there has not been real public stakeholder involvement in this process, what the FAA designed and is implementing throughout the country upends decades of established flying conventions (such as ascending to cruising altitude as soon as possible) and environmental protections for millions of US citizens who live around airports across the country, without thorough and required environmental review.

Q. What is “NextGen” and where did it come from?

In the early 2000s, people connected to the aviation industry began thinking about radically changing the way pilots and planes fly in the air by incorporating GPS and  automated flight management systems already present in commercial aircraft. Those thoughts began taking shape in December 2003 as part of Congress' Vision 100- Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act.  

In January 2004, the Department of Transportation announced the plan for NextGen:  It would be a multi-agency, multi-year modernization of the air traffic system that would extend into the future at least 25 years. In December 2004, the DOT published the Integrated Plan for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, which outlined goals and processes for NextGen.  NextGen was divided into short-term (2004-2012), mid-term (2012-2020), and long-term (2020-2030 and beyond) goals and visions.

In 2012, Congress passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which more fully described the project called the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or “NextGen.”

Q. What’s the connection between NextGen, VNY and BUR flight path changes, and the dramatically increased noise and air pollution that LA residents have been experiencing in recent years?

The flight path changes are the product of NextGen and the FAA’s implementation of new types of flight procedures called area navigation flight procedures, or RNAV for short.

These new RNAV flight procedures at Van Nuys and Burbank Airports differ from the previously used conventional flight procedures in the following ways:

1. They’re automated — reducing the role of pilot in flying and air traffic controller in navigating where the plane is located in the air;

2. They segregate the airspace above our heads so that aircraft stay within prescribed altitude bands dependent on aircraft type and place of departure or arrival;

3. They’re at lower altitudes than previously-used conventional flight procedures; and

4. They're concentrating air traffic in new airspace being used to turn planes north.

The effect has been an assaultive and relentless significant impact on residents of VNY and BUR departures and arrivals.  In essence, the new RNAV flight procedures have resulted in the extension of BUR and VNY runways, overlapping over areas up to 25 miles away from these airports. This overlapping runway extension has had a cumulative impact on thousands of LA residents who now are being assaulted by aircraft from two or more airports.

Residents in Magnolia Park, Burbank and near the 101 Fwy also report the new presence of assaultive aircraft buzzing them at very low altitudes.

And since the RNAV changes went into effect, tens of thousands of LA residents are now experiencing very low overflights from helicopters directed to fly at lower altitudes, in order to stay below the new flight procedures.

Q. What is the reason for “modernizing” airspace navigation?

The reason for making these changes is to create airspace conditions that permit airports to increase their capacity to handle air traffic, or to increase “throughput.”  NextGen provides a way for landlocked Burbank and Van Nuys Airports to greatly expand air traffic — bypassing the need to lengthen or add more asphalt/concrete runways.

With NextGen, airports no longer are limited by geographic constraints to expansion.

With NextGen, airports and the FAA now have a way to bypass community input into decisions about airport expansion because they do not need to acquire more real property to build actual, physical runways.

Thus, we observe at Burbank Airport, for example, that these changes have coincided with a marked uptick in departure and arrival frequency (sometimes only 30 seconds apart) and are accompanied by the airport’s attempt to build a new terminal.

At Van Nuys Airport, we observe that the changes are accompanied by the installation of the second-in-the-country Gulfstream maintenance facility and the opening of a Customs office that allows international aircraft to arrive at Van Nuys Airport.

See https://www.flyingmag.com/gulfstream-van-nuys-service-center/ and https://www.iflyvny.com/us-customs-and-border-protection

Q. Is NextGen safe?

Whether it’s safe depends on the perspective from where one stands.  The FAA touts NextGen “safety” by claiming that computer-based navigation reduces human error and that new narrow flight paths in the sky keep planes in segregated airspace, away from each other.

Impacted communities are responding that these narrow flight paths — that function as runway extensions — are unsafe because they result in aircraft departing and arriving at much lower altitudes for longer periods of time than ever before — increasing air pollution, fuel dumping, and collision and wildfire risks —  and because they drastically increase the frequency with which impacted communities are subjected to overflights, harming the health and environment of those who live below and near the new flight paths.

Q. Does NextGen save fuel?

NextGen is the subject of a multi-year government audit because projected economic and other benefits of NextGen, as claimed by the FAA, have not been proven.  See, e.g., US Department of Transportation Office of the Inspector General Audit Report:  FAA Reforms Have Not Achieved Expected Cost, Efficiency, and Modernization Outcomes By Lou E. Dixon Principal Assistant Inspector General for Auditing and Evaluation Washington, Federal Aviation Administration Report Number: AV-2016-015 Date Issued: January 15, 2016, at https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/32908

Q. Why prepare to sue the FAA when there have been South San Fernando Valley Airplane Noise Task Force (“Task Force”) recommendations made to the FAA regarding the flight path changes?

Similar examples of community noise roundtables — and FAA inaction and delay in response — at LAX and across the country suggest it is highly unlikely that the FAA voluntarily will respond to the Task Force recommendations with positive and timely action.  Even though the Task Force made recommendations to the FAA to fix the problems by reverting to prior dispersed and higher altitude departure and arrival patterns, the FAA is under no obligation to change the new NextGen / area navigation flight procedures they implemented at Van Nuys and Burbank Airports in 2017 and 2018 without public notice and comment.

Indeed, FAA Regional Administrator Raquel Girvin’s interim response to the Task Force recommendations indicated the FAA

will not be able to complete the feasibility determinations for all recommendations within 60 days as you requested. However, we will plan to provide periodic, written updates about our progress in evaluating the recommendations. We will provide information about which recommendations can potentially be implemented in the short and long terms, as well as which are not feasible to implement.

(Letter from FAA Regional Administrator Raquel Girvin to Patrick Lammerding and Flora Margheritis dated June 11, 2020) (emphasis supplied). See the letter here (copy attached).

This response indicates the FAA’s intention to take its time and to delay responsive action.  It has also become clear that our local, state, or federal elected officials are not prepared to vigorously lobby the FAA on our behalf, as they have demonstrated and even stated in their communications with residents.

We essentially are at their mercy unless we take legal action.

Q. Why sue the FAA and not the airports?

As a co-equal branch of government, only the federal judiciary has the power to “check” the excesses of executive power, for example, when a federal agency such as the FAA acts beyond the scope of legislation, as arguably happened here.  The only way to force the FAA to curb its actions is through judicial order as we saw in Phoenix v Huerta, 881 F.3d 932 (2018), a similar case involving FAA’s change in flight routes, or a change in the laws.

In addition to keeping public pressure on our elected officials, we believe engaging the federal judiciary to review the FAA’s actions is a wise and necessary step toward restoring peace, health, and sanity in our neighborhoods and skies.

Q. Why should residents sue when the City of LA already has sued the FAA regarding their new flight procedures?

The City’s lawsuit against the FAA only challenges departure procedures at Burbank Airport. It does not raise flight procedures at Van Nuys Airport. It does not raise arrival procedures at either airport.

The FAA made their NextGen changes to departure and arrival procedures at both airports around the same time. The FAA views and has designed the airspace around Burbank and Van Nuys Airports as one, integrated airspace.  Our lawsuit recognizes this fact.

Also noticeably absent from the City’s lawsuit are the compelling stories of impacts on residents, parks, and the environment, which our lawsuit will provide.

Raising LA resident voices in federal court should strengthen the City’s fight against the FAA, much as the City of Phoenix’s fight was strengthened when Phoenix residents filed their separate lawsuit 60 days after Phoenix sued the FAA. Those lawsuits were joined together, and the same may happen here. For more information, see http://www.skyharbor.com/Media_old/PressReleasess/2017-archives/2017/08/29/us-court-of-appeals-rules-in-favor-of-city-neighborhoods-in-faa-flight-paths-lawsuit and the Phoenix v FAA initial lawsuit timeline here:

http://www.skyharbor.com/docs/default-source/pdfs/flight-paths/lawsuit-timeline-final.pdf?sfvrsn=1db09888_8

Unlike the City’s lawsuit against the FAA, our suit focuses on a Van Nuys new RNAV flight procedure and the PPRRY waypoint which never was presented for public notice, comment, and environmental review. According to Mitch, we can frame the FAA’s act of implementing this new flight procedure as a continuing violation of federal environmental laws.  When the FAA takes the action of republishing this procedure on its website in September, we will have 60 days to file a lawsuit challenging this action and the continuing violation of the unstudied HARYS RNAV flight procedure with the PPRRY waypoint.

Q. Why should residents support this lawsuit when UproarLA already has secured funding for a lawsuit on behalf of residents?

Unlike UproarLA’s future lawsuit that would challenge the FAA-Benedict Hills settlement (regarding FAA proposed changes to two Burbank departure flight procedures); that focuses solely on Burbank Airport flight procedures; and that cannot be filed until the FAA completes their environmental assessment of their proposed changes (It is unknown when they will complete it, perhaps sometime next year). This lawsuit challenges the changes that already have happened.

Also, this lawsuit can be filed as soon as the FAA takes the act of revising the HARYS RNAV flight procedure, which their IFP Gateway website shows they are scheduled to do on September 10, 2020. See IFP Gateway at https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/procedures/application/?event=procedure.results&tab=productionPlan&nasrId=VNY#searchResultsTop

We’re using this Van Nuys flight procedure because it gives us a window of opportunity to sue, with the goal of addressing the whole NextGen problem at both airports hopefully through settlement discussions with the FAA after we file a petition for review in federal court.

Q. What is the basis of the proposed lawsuit?

The lawsuit is a petition for federal judicial review of the process by which the FAA implemented new area navigation flight procedures at Burbank and Van Nuys airports affecting the San Fernando Valley.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and related regulations, federal agencies like the FAA are required to conduct environmental review to analyze the environmental impact of a proposed action. (42 U.S.C. § 4332.) Under NEPA, the FAA was required to prepare a detailed statement (referred to as an “EIS” or “EA”) analyzing such environmental impacts or explain that the proposed action is categorically excluded from the NEPA analysis (e.g. category of actions determined to not have significant environmental impacts which are adopted by regulation).

Here, the FAA did neither. It failed to prepare any NEPA documentation prior to adopting new area navigation flight procedures. Moreover, the FAA has not identified such flight procedures as categories of actions which do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment. (See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1507.3(e)(2)(ii), 1508.4). Therefore, the FAA failed to comply with NEPA.

Two of the new area navigation flight procedures were just re-published on the FAA’s Instrument Flight Procedure Gateway — HARYS at VNY and SLAPP at BUR. These are FAA actions we will challenge via the filing of a petition for review in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Q. Is the lawsuit timely?

According to our lawyer, a flight procedure can be challenged during the 60 days after the FAA takes an action. Therefore, when HARYS publishes in September 2020, we will have a sixty-day window to file in federal court what is called a petition for review, to challenge that action based on several federal statutes.

We also plan to challenge the FAA’s process which excludes the public from being informed about and commenting on new or changes to existing flight procedures.

Q. Why not wait to see what happens with the Task Force recommendations prior to preparing to sue?

Given the upcoming legal window to sue, challenges in preparing for a lawsuit, and nonexistent track record for FAA responses to community roundtables across the country, we believe the wiser course of action is to lay the groundwork so that residents can avail themselves of the tool of judicial review at the appropriate time.  It is not possible to sue whenever we would like, nor does the law reward latecomers.

Q. What is the goal of the lawsuit?

The goal will be to win with the legal argument that the FAA did not follow legally required process under the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws prior to implementing new flight procedures.  Once we file, we immediately plan to approach the FAA about reaching a settlement agreement that would include reverting to existing conventional flight procedures for departures and arrivals.  Our attorney, Mitchell Tsai, plans to shape litigation strategy with that goal in mind.

Q. What is the chance of success?

It is difficult to say, perhaps 50-50.  However, if we do nothing and just sit back and wait for the FAA’s response to the Task Force, then we will have no leverage to get the FAA to settle.  This is basically an “all hands on deck” strategy attempt to right a dangerous and harmful situation that has been created by the FAA’s implementation of NextGen, with airports' acquiescence.

Q. Who is the lawyer retained to help us?

The lawyer is Mitchell M Tsai of the law firm by the same name. See https://mitchtsailaw.com/.

He and his firm specialize in environmental litigation and have represented individuals, companies, and organizations in federal and state court.  Mitch was named by Thomson Reuters Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star” for 2020, an honor reserved for the top 2.5% of attorneys 40 years or younger or in practice for 10 years or less.  Prior to establishing his own office, Tsai served as an associate with the Law Office of Gideon Kracov handling environmental cases involving environmental impact review (National Environmental Policy Act, California Environmental Quality Act), pollution control (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act), hazardous waste (Resources Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act commonly known as Superfund), consumer safety (Proposition 65), and land use.

Q. What will the lawsuit cost?

The total projected cost of filing a petition for review in federal court is $91,000, with an additional $1,000 cost to form an unincorporated association, SAVE OUR SKIES LA. We have raised $5,000 of that cost, so the remainder of the legal fund to be raised is $87,000.  We plan to raise this sum, plus administrative fiscal sponsorship costs and a small margin/cushion for unexpected or unknown costs through IOBY.com (now in Fundraising - Phase 4).  All donations to the legal fund will be tax deductible.

Q. Are there additional costs?

Yes. Apart from the Legal Fund, we also need to raise $3,000 to cover communications work needed immediately to SPREAD THE WORD that there are residents who are fighting back.  We plan to do this through gofundme.com so we can raise and have immediate access to this sum to fund street signs that we plan to place on major thoroughfares and to fund establishment and maintenance of the website.  Donations to the communications work will not be tax deductible, and we hope to raise this amount quickly, within the next few weeks or so.

Contributions can be made at this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sosla-yard-sign-campaign

Q. What else can I do to help?

Submit preferably by July 20th (although you can still submit after that date) aeronautical inquiries (which we’re calling public comments) about the Van Nuys flight procedure HARYS on the IFP Gateway by using the “EMAIL FAA” link next to the HARYS flight procedure on the IFP Gateway, at this link: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/procedures/application/?event=procedure.results&tab=productionPlan&nasrId=VNY#searchResultsTop

To submit an inquiry, you must first register to create an account at:  https://nfdc.faa.gov/nfdcApps/controllers/PublicSecurity/nfdcLogin  and then submit your comment about how these changes have significantly impacted your life, health, and the environment in your neighborhood.

Please retain your record of the inquiry; we may ask residents to provide these to the attorney at a future time.  If you have difficulty with the above avenue, you can alternatively send an email with your comment to:  9-amc-aerochart@faa.gov.