PORTSMOUTH – Portsmouth officials have agreed to travel to Massachusetts to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration about noise complaints concerning the operation of Seacoast Helicopters.
Mayor Robert Lister said a group of five officials, including him, City Councilor Jack Thorsen and Deputy City Manager David Allen, will travel to Burlington, Mass. on Nov. 20 for the meeting.
“We’re going down to see if we can open the lines of communication and let them know what the concerns of the residents are,” Lister said Monday. “We’re hoping to have a discussion about helicopters and their flight patterns over the city.”
City officials had invited FAA officials to attend a public meeting in Portsmouth, but the FAA refused.
The FAA released a statement that said they declined to meet with the public about noise complaints because “airport operators are responsible for addressing noise impacts on the communities they serve.”
“The FAA's primary mission is to ensure the safety and efficiency of our nation's navigable airspace,” they said in a statement. “It does not have the authority to prohibit aircraft overflights of a particular geographic area unless the operation is unsafe, or the aircraft is operated in a manner inconsistent with Federal Aviation Regulations.”
Lister remains disappointed that FAA officials wouldn’t come to Portsmouth to meet with the City Council and city residents.
“We could have at that point had a public session where they could have heard from residents and responded to residents,” Lister said. “It would have been televised and the message would be gotten first hand, not second hand.”
The FAA said Portsmouth can only bring five people to the Nov. 20 meeting, Lister said.
“We’re pleased we can at least see where it goes from here,” Lister said about the meeting at the Regional Offices of the FAA.
The number of noise complaints received at the Pease Development Authority — which oversees the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease — has jumped dramatically during the last five months when Seacoast Helicopters began conducting its red-helicopter tours over Portsmouth and other Seacoast areas, according to PDA statistics.
PDA officials received 226 noise complaints during the last five months, 169 of which were related to helicopter noise. Most but not all of the complaints involved Seacoast Helicopter operations, they said.
“Typically there might be 10 a month,” Airport Director Bill Hopper said recently about noise complaints before Seacoast Helicopters started operating.
Pease Development Authority Executive Director David Mullen said he’d like to have someone from the PDA attend the meeting, but he’s not yet sure if they will.
Still, he acknowledged there’s really nothing the FAA can do to regulate where Seacoast Helicopters flies as long as they follow FAA rules.
“It is a permitted use and they don’t regulate overflights over Portsmouth,” Mullen said Monday. “As long as Seacoast Helicopters maintains safe operations, there’s nothing regulatory that can be done.”
Seacoast Helicopters owner Bruce Cultrera has repeatedly told the Portsmouth Herald that he is already flying his tours at 1,000 feet or more, higher than he is required to by the FAA.
And he has refused so far to change how he operates his business.
FAA regulations state that helicopters, if their operation is “conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface,” may operate below even the 500 feet requirement for planes flying over non-congested areas, according to a copy of the regulation provided to the Portsmouth Herald.
- Source: http://www.seacoastonline.com
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