Flying toward airport solutions

Although residents of the Five Towns and Atlantic Beach may be used to hearing planes fly over their homes from John F. Kennedy International Airport, new technological advances could lessen the aircraft noise they have become accustomed to.

Helen Cibere, a 74-year Inwood resident, has represented Inwood for the past 25 years on the board of the Town-Village Aircraft Safety and Noise Abatement Committee (TVASNAC), a group of representatives from Atlantic Beach, Cedarhurst, East Williston, Floral Park, Garden City, Hewlett Harbor, Island Park, Lawrence, Long Beach, New Hyde Park, Stewart Manor, Valley Stream and Woodsburgh that address aircraft noise in the Town of Hempstead.

“There used to be five people at the meetings when I started,” Cibere said. “Now it’s standing room only.”

At a July 25 TVASNAC meeting held at Lawrence village hall, representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and The Port Authority were there to address questions and concerns from audience members. Representatives from the villages that hardly voice their opinions about the noise, such as Garden City and East Williston, Cibere said, were there complaining. “I tell them, ‘you should live in Inwood,’” she said. “We (in Inwood) get cargo planes flying over at 11 or 12 at night on the longest runway and those are the really bad ones.”

Woodmere resident and Woodsburgh representative for TVASNAC, Bob Seide, who was also at that July 25 meeting, said representatives can do little to push the Federal Aviation Administration, Port Authority and airlines to make improvements in their approaches for arrivals and departures.

“The FAA and Port Authority promised to look into certain things,” Seide said. “But even they have limited ability to make changes because it’s still up to the airlines and they don’t want to observe rules.”

Residents may be able to breathe a sigh of relief as new Stage Four airplane engines are now in use and are being installed in more planes, Seide said. These engines are more fuel-efficient and will produce less noise than previous models.