'Like a missile overhead': New group fed up with Teterboro Airport aircraft noise steps up
For over three decades, more than a dozen communities within 5 miles of Teterboro Airport have lobbied to minimize noise from planes flying over their homes and businesses.
In recent years, people outside of that radius have asked to join the Teterboro Aircraft Noise Abatement Advisory Committee, or TANAAC, but were told they weren’t eligible.
So this spring a group of residents, most living in towns in the Pascack Valley, formed their own organization: Taxpayers for Aircraft Noise Solutions, or TANS.
The group recently launched a petition calling for the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic controllers to prioritize an alternative flight path that follows Route 17 as the preferred route into Runway 19 at Teterboro Airport. So far, it has garnered more than 800 signatures.
“Late afternoon, especially on Sundays, the planes come once every two minutes or so,” said Warren Feldman of Woodcliff Lake, a founder of the group. “The speed and elevation, the noise of the jets is very loud. It’s the regularity that bothers a lot of people. You hear it moving towards you like a missile overhead.”
The alternative flight path, which diverts air traffic away from residential neighborhoods, Hackensack University Medical Center and the high-rise buildings along Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, was announced in 2021. Instead, pilots would fly along the Route 17 corridor in their approach to Runway 19, the busiest runway at the airport.
The flight pattern was approved by the FAA after more than a decade of lobbying. But pilots rarely use the approach.
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At night, the flight path is used about 30% of the time, but during the day, out of 19,000 flights over the last quarter of the year, it was used just six times, said Kathy Canestrino, the Hackensack deputy mayor, who has advocated for aircraft noise relief for years.
“At this point, the flight path is an approved flight path, and all we’re asking for is that the daytime use is encouraged more,” she said.
TANS has gained the support of the Pascack Valley Mayors' Association, which sent a letter to the FAA, and Hillsdale, Park Ridge, Woodcliff Lake and Washington Township have each appointed a council person and resident to serve as liaison to the group.
On Tuesday, Park Ridge passed a resolution backing the TANS petition. The group would also like planes to fly higher than the mandated 2,000 feet above sea level.
That altitude “doesn’t mean much to people who live on hills,” said Greg Hoffman, a Park Ridge councilman and the borough liaison to TANS. Another idea proposed by the group is to have “quiet hours,” perhaps on Sunday mornings, to “give residents a little bit of relief,” Hoffman said.
The FAA did not respond to a request for comment. But last year, Arlene Salac, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the path is a viable alternative for pilots to use, but that the decision on what approach to take is at their discretion.
“We just think there’s too intense of a concentration over several narrow paths coming over this area at a low altitude and high speeds,” Feldman said. “If we could fix E-ZPass and build new terminals, and fix the Route 17 connection into Route 4, then why can’t we come up with some ways of dealing with the pressure felt by people on the ground under these flight paths?”
Aircraft noise over the Pascack Valley has gotten worse in recent years, said Audrey Herget of Park Ridge, a founder of TANS.
Traffic into the airport has increased to roughly 170,000 takeoffs and landings a year, and the noise has grown louder as larger jets with more powerful engines use the runways. When it opened in 1919 as the first airport in the metropolitan area, Teterboro accommodated single-engine planes.
“We need to make our voices heard,” Herget said of the petition. “If a neighbor is being really loud you can knock on the door and say: ‘Hey, can you turn it down?’ With planes, this is our only recourse.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Teterboro Airport NJ airport noise forces new group to step up
