Article: 8131 of rec.aviation.misc Newsgroups: rec.aviation.misc,rec.aviation.piloting Path: newshost.ncd.com!ncd.com!decwrl!decwrl!gatekeeper.us.oracle.com!sgiblab!peck.com!geoff From: geoff@peck.com (Geoff Peck) Subject: More Positive G.A. Press Message-ID: <1994Jan26.082430.19575@peck.com> Organization: Geoffrey G. Peck, Consultant, San Jose CA Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 08:24:30 GMT Lines: 136 Xref: newshost.ncd.com rec.aviation.misc:8131 rec.aviation.piloting:2895 Well, sometimes, press coverage of General Aviation is clear and positive. Hats off to Frank Sweeney of the San Jose Mercury News and to the editors for running this story as is! Unfortunately, the photo-pickers decided to put a picture of a Piper Warrior sitting upside down with one wing severed and a police car in the background, rather than a nice scenic shot of the airport. Fortunately, the photo was on the continuation page, page 15. ----- [from Page One of the San Jose Mercury News, Saturday, January 22, 1994] East S.J. airport is rated low-risk Reid-Hillview poses little danger, study says BY FRANK SWEENEY Mercury News Staff Writer Controversial Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose has half the national average accident rate for small airports and is far less a risk to its neighbors than stores, industries, or even more homes on the land, according to an independent consultant's report. Commissioned by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in an effort to shut down the airport, the study by SRI International of Menlo Park says exactly what some officials didn't want to hear. They've been arguing for years that the airport is a hazard to the neighborhood. The report gives new ammunition to private pilots, who say SRI validated what they've been saying all along: that the airport is safe. Even so, the county plans to spend an additional $100,000 for an environmental report on closing Reid-Hillview, one of three airports it operates. "All the pressure to close Reid-Hillview was based on safety concerns. The results of this study totally dispel that myth," said Bill Dunn, a vice president of the 315,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The AOPA, which has been fighting the closure, released the county's report Friday. But Supervisor Zoe Lofgren, among the public officials who pushed to close the airport, downplayed the report's significance Friday. "They said it's not statistically an outrageous hazard," Lofgren said. "It's certainly a perception issue and causes a great deal of anxiety in the neighborhood." Reid-Hillview has been a source of controversy since the 1950s and 1960s when the surrounding orchards and farm fields were paved over with housing tracts and shopping centers. Occasional crashes Occasionally, light planes have crashed around the airport, sometimes in neighboring Eastridge Shopping Center's parking lots, once on Macy's roof. In 1990, a plane bounced off the roof of a house north of the airport and crushed a backyard storage shed. Each time a plane goes down, some airport neighbors and city and county politicians demand the airport be shut down, and pilots rise in anger at the thought. County supervisors voted 3-2 to close the airport in 1990. But under state law the county must first prepare environmental reports on the effect of the shutdown. Since 1964, the SRI report said there have been 107 accidents reported at Reid-Hillview or within five miles of the airport. Aircraft a went down off the airport property in 35 of those accidents. The rest of the mishaps occurred on the runways and taxiways. No injuries to bystanders Five accidents, one on the airport and four off the field, resulted in 11 deaths, according to the SRI report. Those killed were all pilots or passengers of the planes; no one on the ground has ever been injured. If the airport were developed for industries or more homes, the increased automobile traffic would boost the risk of fatal automobile crashes to 10 to 30 times greater than the risk of someone on the ground being killed in a plane crash, SRI said. And automobile accident injuries would be as much as 2,000 times more likely to occur than a falling airplane hurting someone on the ground. The only real risks, the report says, are to the occupants of the airplanes. The risk analysis, costing the county $230,000, is the second phase of a package of studies needed to close Reid-Hillview. The $103,000 first phase study, analyzing technical transportation and aviation data, has been completed. That report contends that aircraft based at Reid-Hillview could be handled at San Jose International Airport or Moffett Field. However, San Jose's evolving master plan is moving toward a reduction in general aviation, and use of Moffett Field for light planes is strongly opposed by Sunnyvale and Mountain View. $100,000 more to be spent Now the county is moving toward the $100,000 third phase, an environmental impact study that could be completed late this year or in 1996. That would be a waste of money, said Susan Larson of Milpitas, vice president of the Coalition Responsible Airport Management and Policy, the largest general aviation organization in the county. CRAMP has fought efforts to close the airport. "The risk assessment ... clearly states that Reid-Hillview Airport is an extremely safe general aviation airport," Larson said. "In fact, it indicates that another use of the airport property poses a greater risk to the surrounding community than the airport." Reid-Hillview Airport is home for about 550 single-engine and twin engine light planes. It handles about 180,000 takeoffs and landings a year, less than half of the 400,000 annual operations of the late 1970s. Jets are banned. Despite the clamor, the airport probably will continue in operation well into the 21st century. The biggest obstacle to closing is the more than $3 million the county accepted in federal aviation funds for Reid-Hillview. By accepting those grants, the county guaranteed to the FAA that the airport would remain open. In 1988, for example, the county accepted a $639,863 federal grant and agreed to operate the airport until at least the year 2008. The FAA says it won't allow the county to shut down Reid-Hillview.