RSS Feed
|
|
|||||
|
for larger version       Weiner Urges Ban On Flights Over Rockaway Congressman Anthony Weiner has announced that he will introduce legislation shortly that would require takeoffs from John F. Kennedy Airport to follow a route over water and not over the Rockaway peninsula. The bill closely follows the crash of a large jet aircraft into the streets of the Belle Harbor community resulting in five confirmed deaths and millions of dollars in destruction. It also follows years of complaints from Rockaway residents about aircraft noise, pollution and safety. "Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and air traffic regulations usually instruct pilots to follow the ‘Breezy Point Track,’ which takes planes over water until they reach the end of the Rockaway peninsula," Weiner says. "However, in certain circumstances, pilots deviate from these routes and cut across the peninsula." Weiner, a member of the House of Representative’s airport caucus, has proposed legislation that will impose strict penalties against airlines that fail to follow the prescribed routes. "Long before the horrible accident of Flight 587, residents of the Rockaways had dishes rattling from noisy flights from JFK," Weiner says. "There is no good reason why an airport built on the water should not use a water routing when it is available." ""We have tried cajoling, we have tried negotiating and now we are going to legislate the problem," the Congressman added. The proposed bill would require the FAA and air traffic controllers to assign outgoing JFK flights a route that follows a path along the Jamaica Bay to the Atlantic Ocean rather than over the peninsula and impose fines as much as $10 thousand per incident on airlines that fail to follow those assigned water routes.
|
|
||||
