Carlsbad pilot hoping to ‘land on common ground’ with residents over Palomar airport concerns
CARLSBAD, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) — Residents in Carlsbad are complaining about the noise from the McClellan-Palomar Airport for weeks, and now a pilot is responding. Despite the loud sounds that come from planes overhead, one pilot told FOX 5, right now, it’s the safest route for them to take.
Tuesday night, the City of Carlsbad took a step forward to address both the noise and the people who fly out of Palomar often.
Leaders there have been proactive over the past few weeks, when it comes to finding common ground between the people who live nearby and pilots. While residents have stressed in the past that pilots may be violating certain rules, at the end of the day, those up in the air say air traffic control has final say.
“I don’t fly to annoy the neighbors, I fly because I love to fly, and I love to be in the air,” said Carlsbad resident, pilot, and President of the Palomar Airport Association Alan Baldus.
Whether he’s taking off to the skies, or landing on the tarmac, it’s more than a mere hobby for Baldus.
But residents who live nearby hear it differently.
“Other representatives who live on the landing end are getting small planes coming right over their homes,” said Don Betro, who is a resident and fellow HOA Representative.
They say their concerns over noisy jets at McClellan-Palomar Airport is falling on deaf ears.
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“This is a follow-up issue, this is an enforcement issue, and the county and the FAA really have to step up here and hopefully the city will hold them accountable to that,” Betro said.
That’s exactly what the city of Carlsbad set out to do Tuesday night.
This follows ongoing complaints over the airport’s Voluntarty Noise Abatement Procedures, otherwise known as V-NAP.
Some say pilots are violating both arrival and departure suggestions which residents claim to be one cause of the noise. However, according to Baldus, sometimes it’s necessary for pilots to deviate from suggested departure or arrival directions due to safety issues, a busy tarmac and so on.
“Everybody I know and that I fly with that are in our clubs, they all are safe pilots. Do they make mistakes of course, we all make mistakes, just like driving in our cars.”
Alan Baldus, President of the Palomar Airport Association
Although the county owns the grounds, part of the efforts brought up Tuesday was to ensure the city of Carlsbad has the final say over major changes which is backed by a lawsuit initiated by Citizens 4 a Friendly Airport won back in 2021.
“If you want to change what you’re doing at the airport, you want to make it bigger, you want to make it smaller, you want to add things, you want to take things away, we [referring to the city] get to decide,” said Citizens 4 a Friendly Airport President Vickey Syage.
As far as pilots like Baldus are concerned, they want to land this plane on common ground with neighbors.
“I don’t think that we are the wild wild west,” Baldus said. “I think we are professional pilots out there doing what we love and accept the fact that it’s not a freeway with arm ramps.”
Local leaders unanimously agreed to address the city’s land use policy’s surrounding Palomar airport in 60 days which should give more direction of the future of Palomar.
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