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Editorials
Congressman Lee, please display a rationale, fair play, unprejudiced, understanding and common sense approach that has been wanting in the debacle that has been on-going regarding the Buffalo-Lancaster Airport (BLA) safety issues brought to light by the Safe Aviation Coalition (SAC) and Town of Lancaster resident supporters.
Congressman Christopher Lee will be holding a forum at the Buffalo Lancaster Airport on Wednesday, August 5th, at 6:30 pm. Reresentatives from the town, SAC, the FAA and the airport will speak on the safety issues and for resolution.
The airport safety issue problem has been pushed your way by the Town of Lancaster, the FAA and the BLA management team. Despite the Town of Lancaster conducting a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) (declaring there were no negative significant adverse impacts associated with the project) and then approving the airport’s master plan, thereby making it possible for the airport to receive federal and state grant funding for airport expansion, the town plays Pontius Pilot and washes its hands proclaiming “no involvement”, “no jurisdiction.”
The town changed the game plan, Congressman Lee. With but a few media press releases and minor dispensing of information to the public, residents were led to believe the object of the project was to relocate and extend the BLA runaway to allow for corporate and other jets to access the airport, thereby allowing BLA to become a reliever airport for the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport (BNIA). It goes without saying that the BLA would increase small craft business as well, but there was never any indication that a flight school was part of the project.
As has been recently discovered (within the last 18 months or so), residents from varied parts of town started complaining to BLA management and the town on safety related issues with increased air traffic. Pilots were flying at low altitudes and purposely buzzing their homes claimed residents from areas within the flight path. The then airport manager was telling individual complainants that they were the first to bring any issue to light in the past 10 years. He has been replaced for not telling residents the truth and for not appropriately addressing the safety issues.
Coincidentally, the complaints started when the flight school started up. Because of the BLA’s close proximity to the BNIA, pilots have to make abrupt turns to avoid flying into the five-mile restricted BNIA airspace and are often in flight path conflict with airliners from BNIA. Is it any wonder that SAC and their supporters don’t want flight school trainees flying in a pattern that takes them over two town parks and several hundred homes at low takeoff and land altitudes when in training. Especially worrisome is that trainees can be as young as sixteen and get their sport certifications by the age of seventeen – after taking as little as twenty hours of training and then flying solo for twenty hours with the flight school observer on the ground.
When contacting the FAA, they were told that because of airspace restrictions resulting from proximity to BNIA, the flight school planes when practicing takeoff and landing (touch and go) procedures are most of the time at altitudes lower than 500 feet. FAA recommended altitude for planes flying over populated areas is 1,000 feet. So should homeowners and residents visiting town parks have their safety compromised by a flight school that can be easily relocated?
Most disturbing is that town of Lancaster residents who do not live in the flight path had their standing questioned by town board members when they made comments in favor of SAC. We are talking about town residents who visit the parks on a regular basis and/or the homes of family members of friends.
It was ludicrous of BLA owner/manager Tom Geles to tell the town board of the taxes the airport pays, making it sound like residents were standing in the way of their largesse. SAC did its homework. Through arduous research they were able to determine that the airport will pay 2009 property taxes of $7,000 to the town and county and approximately another $12,000 to the school district. Wow, considering BLA will be receiving a total of $12 million in federal and state grants and has applied for and received (why?) three IDA’s, not a bad trade off. There are hundreds of homes in the flight path alone that greatly exceed that amount in property taxes; and in sales taxes which Geles proudly brought to light. The residents deserve better, instead of being told they should have known better when they moved by a defunct airport – that in certain years had less flights than what now takes place in a day.
SAC and their supporters want the BLA brought under the control of the BNIA. They and others of us became enraged when Town Supervisor Robert Giza prompted Geles into mentioning that the BLA was already under BINA control when he declared, “It is my understanding that the BINA can see the planes at BLA, even when they are on the ground, with their radar.” “Yes, that’s correct,” responded Geles.
Congressman Lee, considering the recent plane crash in your hometown of Clarence, the number of small engine plane crashes that have recently been reported, the new safety related increase in flight hours required for flying commercial aircraft and your stance on flight safety, please seriously consider the three requests made by Safe Aviation Coalition and the hundreds of Lancaster resident supporters:
1. Removal of the flight school from the Buffalo Lancaster Airport;
2. Buffalo Lancaster Airport operation put under control of the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport;
3. Discontinuance of federal and state grant funding until such time all safety issues are addressed.
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