Quiet Rockland’s August 5, 2008 Emergency e-mail to its members and others, read something like that text which follows. I didn’t have time to post it to our blogs until today, four days after its original transmission, given the frenetic pace of FAA-related events and communications in the four days since.By the way, we’re still winning. BIG. The FAA and Bobby Sturgell are still losing. BIG.
What happened earlier this week prompting the Emergency e-mail, was that USDOT and USA Today, acting in speech-suppressing and disinformation-spinning collaboration, tried to set up Quiet Rockland and the American public with even more lies. See:
http://indictsturgell.blogspot.com/2008/08/usa-today-aka-news-mcnuggets-in-usdots.html
Robert Belzer of our colleague-organization NJCAAN, alerted us to this new USA Today/USDOT attack:
http://njcaan.org/
USA Today has prostituted itself beyond all semblance of journalistic objectivity.
USA Today is the Benedict Arnold of American newspapers.
In the face of a recent numbing, continuous, and blistering attack from Quiet Rockland, and from other communities and groups, litigators, law enforcement, and other branches of federal, state and local government, along with now even a certain contingent of traditional and non-traditional media starting to turn on FAA and USDOT, the FAA and USDOT tried to spin-out yet one more laughable sagging
balloon as a defensive tactic, to try to further defraud those of us in Rockland County, New York and the 5 states affected by the FAA “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”.USDOT caused USA Today, a non-newspaper reported to have at least two Board members who are former airline executives, to plant a false and malicious concocted “Editorial” therein in support of the ill-conceived, harmful, and unlawful Airspace Redesign. In a further vain attempt to get their sagging
fake publicity balloon off the ground, USDOT then posted a complimentary and complementary foolish article to Mary Peters’s alleged blog on the USDOT GOVERNMENTAL website, purporting to congratulate and tout the synchronistic objectivity of the USA “editorial” – and purporting to request public comment on the issue.“Every time that they plant a seed, I say kill it before it grows. I say kill it before it grows”.
So here was the essence of Quiet Rockland’s August 5, 2008 Emergency e-mail message that started things off. This e-mail went to many thousands of people and organizations, and set a whole further series of events in motion:“EMERGENCY!
http://fastlane.dot.gov/secretarysblog/2008/08/usa-today-suppo.html
I need EVERY able-bodied, able-minded citizen to please now blog back at the USDOT, as quickly as possible.
Please also save the text of your posts in case the USDOT tries to delete them.
It’s GAME ON!
http://fastlane.dot.gov/secretarysblog/2008/08/usa-today-suppo.html
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Guess what happened? Scores of people posted thoughtful blogs on the Mary Peters/USDOT website and blog, attacking the pretextual reasons given by USDOT, FAA, and now USA Today for the NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign. USDOT published but a few of the comments, but for fear of revealing the strident chorus of voices of Americans dead-set opposed to the Redesign, USDOT squelched the remainder of the valid comments in opposition and deleted them – in a blatant and malicious display of suppression of First Amendment-protected speech and forced inaccessibility and non-responsiveness of government.
And guess what now? WE’RE FIGHTING BACK! A number of the comments from which USDOT is trying to hide, and doesn’t want you to see, are printed below.
MARY PETERS, YOU TRULY ARE AN IDIOT FOR THINKING THAT WE SOMEHOW WOULD NOT CALL YOU ON YOUR PURPOSEFUL AND MALICIOUS ATTEMPTS TO RIG THE MEDIA AND SUPPRESS OUR RIGHTS OF FREE SPEECH AS CITIZENS. YOU, LIKE FAA ACTING HEAD BOBBY STURGELL, ARE AN UTTER FAILURE AS A PUBLIC OFFICIAL.
The USDOT-suppressed comments, follow:
1. I just read the Official Blog of the US Secretary of Transportation[, Mary Peters, at:]http://fastlane.dot.gov/secretarysblog/2008/08/usa-today-suppo.html
Although I left a comment, it is yet to be seen if it will be posted or if I’ll hear anything about it. In essence I said that the FAA isn’t going to listen to the Controllers much less some citizen’s group. I mentioned that there have been too many news stories of FAA corruption when it comes to the airlines that the FAA is supposed to be inspecting and regulating that one has to believe that any plan that the FAA comes up with is most likely to have airline revenues in mind. I seldom use an alias and figure to endure any consequences that come my way for what I’ve said. Besides, I figure that any amateur computer geek can find the IP address of this computer and know that I wrote the offending comments. Surely the FAA has somebody (probably under contract) that could figure it out.
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2. The "Blame New York" Jonestown-esque mantra once again rears its head. We now more careful scrutinize FAA conclusions and statistics, since those numbers have proven to be manufactured and of whole cloth, in the past. They are lies currently as well."Blame New York" stats and conclusions are completely consonant with FAA's playbook as expressed two days ago in fake newspaper USA Today a/k/a "News McNuggets" - the very death of American journalism. We're laughing at USA Today, up here in the Northeast. The USA Today story was planted. That "newspaper" takes a ton of advertising revenue for the airlines. USA Today is not comprised of journalists. USA Today is comprised of aero-streetwalkers. Maybe some of them should go back to journalism school - assuming that they know what one looks like, that is.
Let's look at what the planted "New York congestion" stories are intended by the FAA to accomplish. The FAA's NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign project is a fraud. It was originally engendered as part of an economic turf war between Boston and NY ATCs, and in its genesis had nothing at all to do with efficiencies, fuel, timing, or so-called "flight delays". The "flight delays" of recent years, especially those in NY, were caused directly by the FAA itself by FAA's purposeful over-scheduling of airports and over-saturation of skies. The Redesign will not even save FAA's claimed "3 minutes per flight" and will actually INCREASE delays. All Redesign will do is increase airline company profits at all of our expense. The FAA is the same agency that threatened aviation inspectors to suppress the truth from you. Bobby Sturgell is the legacy-case son of J. Edgar Hoover's secretary. Do not believe what this FAA tells you - the agency lies habitually.
Redesign and aviation safety are not and should not be partisan issues. Northeast Democrat and Republican citizens alike are shutting down FAA's Redesign. And as for the other familiar blame-the-victim tactic out of FAA's now-tired playbook, Quiet Rockland's members, for example, didn't MOVE next to Newark Airport. It is 30 miles-plus away from us. The majority of Americans live near metro areas and within 30 miles of an airport. That's right. The FAA is coming to YOUR town next, to put 600 flights a day over your houses and densely-populated communities. On FAA's website, the agency just announced that it is targeting NYC, Philly, SF, LA, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Charlotte. If you live within 30 miles of any of those cities, assume FAA is about to wreck your quality of life and put you at risk, too - and they'll call it a "Redesign", and promise you "mitigation", while like adders they lisp to you illusory sympathies about your "noise experience". This FAA is a federal agency without a soul. The same would be the case if they were Dem appointees. The FAA's aforethought, is malice aforethought. All the FAA does, is make money for aeromercantile interests at our expense while putting us in harm's way. And at Quiet Rockland, we are shutting that down – now - irrespective of the FAA-planted and airline-planted bloggers who try to carp back at us with bad facts.
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3. The FAA has been slowly introducing their capacity enhancing initiatives since last December. Delays are just as bad as they were before. The FAA has placed caps on the numbers of flights at JFK and Newark. Delays are just as bad as they were before. The FAA forces air traffic controllers to run unsafe, simultaneous, converging operations that the public only hears about when a near mid-air occurs and that is only after the FAA denies it ever happened. Do you seriously think the pilots are going to speak up? They’re the ones that don’t have enough fuel and even less job security. The FAA is hesitant to put the entire NY/NJ/PHL plan into effect because it is unsafe and it will not work, and I don’t need to hear Spokesperson Jim Peters telling me to look for another job because of it. Project Manager Steve Kelley is promising to reduce each aircraft’s delay by 2 minutes. Former Administrator Marion Blakey left promising that redesign would reduce delays 20% for the level of traffic scheduled in 2007. This prompts me to ask, if 30% of the traffic was delayed in 2007 and you can cut those numbers to 24% with redesign, what happens to the 20, 30, 50% increase in air traffic forecast to occur between 2017 and 2025? Oh that’s right, you have the ultimate smoke and mirrors trick up your sleeve. NextGen. GPS-based, satellite tracked, continuous descent, virtual visual approaches and dispersal heading departures that rely on an aircraft turning at the right moment and turning in the right direction. It took 8 months for the Newark departure headings (Liberty One Departure) to be published and even that procedure is messed up because no plane leaving Newark on a 263 heading will ever sniff joining the Solberg 047 radial because they don’t intersect. Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full. Rather than decreasing the safety in the skies over the tri-state area by trying to grant every wish that your aero-mercantile “customers” make of you, you can get them to pave a new runway or build a new airport. Of course you could also remember that the FAA is a safety related Agency and not a corporate report watchdog awaiting the next quarter’s returns.--------------------
4. Does Mary Peters really believe that she has any credibility with anyone, since she is a member of the… cabinet? She quotes the remarks of just one ALPA Captain in a weak attempt to give credence to her airspace plan and the entire nation is supposed to derive comfort in from his remarks. There are 55,000 other ALPA pilots out there who might beg to differ with Captain Larry Newman’s statement. Everyone in the industry knows that ALPA is in bed with DOT/FAA.
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5. The FAA Redesign plan is not opposed by special interest groups but by the citizens who reside in the effected areas. The FAA sought to bypass local Rockland County Residents by refusing to hold a public meeting in Rockland during the comment period. They knew that if they did so, they would be required to comply with the 1990 Aviation Safety and Capacity Expansion Act which mandated that the FAA perform an EIS. The FAA would have to answer the concerns of the residents and seek mitigation of noise problems created by its application. They disregarded the health and safety of those whom they would effect. For example, jet fuel would affect air quality, safety would be jeopardized by using simultaneous approaches on arrival and decreasing separation between arriving aircraft from 5 to 3 miles. Further, using FAA decibel levels, the decibel level over my home would increase from 34.6 to 42.7 for an 8.1 decibel increase. Mr. Carpenter of the FAA corroborated that a 10 decibel increase alone doubles the sound from a human perception point. In fact, the FAA said the new plan would reduce delays caused by the weather!!! Finally, delays could be reduced by bringing air traffic control systems into the 20 century. The Long Island still uses equipment that relies on TUBES rather than radar, GPS and computers. This plan is a failure and creates a dangerous condition to residents who lie under the proposed path.--------------------
6. Every couple of years the FAA personnel that work in planning and procedures must come up with a new idea to keep their position viable weather the plan is beneficial or not for the public. The idea of saving a few minutes per flight over hundreds of flights a year sounds like a good idea when all you are looking at is one side of the coin. This does nothing but add noise pollution and jet exhaust over populated areas. Causing long term stress to the households the flight paths proceed over. If the FAA was truly interested in saving airlines fuel and time which are one in the same then they would need to make sure their own house is in order by staffing correctly the workforce that facilitates the expedited handling of air traffic. Case in point: when a facility is not staffed correctly then planes in the air are slowed in mid flight, this is done to create extra spacing so the arrival sectors understaffed controllers can handle the work load. This will eat up 45 minutes of fuel per aircraft, now multiply that by the several hundred planes arriving at a busy metro airport and your savings created by inconveniencing the public on the ground is lost in only few weeks. That takes into consideration only one arrival sector in one facility!--------------------
7. The FAA has other very credible ocean route options that support safe air travel that will not pollute the air, nor create noise pollution over very populated residential areas. This FAA Airspace Redesign will fly about *600 planes per day* above homes whose owners, like me, moved away from southern Bergen County where living near Teterboro Airport has proven to be both unsafe and environmentally unhealthy. Further, FAA administrators such as Bobby Sturgell have been widely and justly criticized as being inept regarding many, serious FAA actions and inactions. And, importantly, there are not even enough runways at Newark Airport to land these planes!!! Once again, the administration of the FAA shows that they’re in business to cover for the airline industry, ease a scenario for possible plans to sell airspace, and be incorporated into a North American Union transportation structure, while repeatedly ignoring what is sound, sensible, and safe both in the short and long term.--------------------
8. Not sure what is meant by “the FAA has been willing to bend?” Many citizen groups throughout NJ/NY/CT/DE regions provided intelligent alternatives to the proposed over-ground routing of these flights, including ocean routing. The FAA refused to consider this and other alternatives, and was forced to consider these only after pressure from “politicians.” The other viable alternatives would offer less noise, reduced pollution, and more safety to the people on the ground.--------------------
9. Political Special Interest Groups??? How about informed citizens and supportive legislators that are not satisfied with the answers they have been getting (or lack thereof) when they critique this so called wunderplan. If you doubt the validity of this statement just look at what has transpired in less than a year. Bobby Sturgell was all set to be appointed head of the FAA. A few courageous senators challenged this appointment and asked Mr. Sturgell some pointed questions. Mr. Sturgell not only dodged the questions he made it a point to be rude to the senators asking him these questions. As time passed, Mr. Sturgell proceeded to demonstrate how ineffective he was in the position until finally in July he agreed to resign by November 2008. From hero to zero in less than a year. Need more proof that the leadership of the FAA is defective and dangerous? How about the fact that the House passed H.R.6439, by 392-0 vote. This legislation compelled Mr. Sturgell to do things he stated in testimony did not need to be done. All this started because two courageous senators, Lautenberg and Menendez, saw through the lies and refused to be intimidated. They fought for what was right. The sad truth is the FAA has become more like an adjunct of the airlines then a true government watch dog. We need people to demand accountability not to roll over like a trained dog.--------------------
10. A CNN newscast which aired 3/8/08 reported that congressional investigators talk about a cozy relationship that has developed between the FAA and the airlines, (i.e., permitting passenger planes to fly with dangerous mechanical defects.) The FAA is pandering to the airlines who contribute to the delays by saturating the number of flights for monetary gain. The FAA’s “preferred redesign” is an ill-conceived band-aid solution which dismisses that which as a governmental agency they are mandated to do -- and that is to address the valid safety and health issues raised by thousands of residents of the proposed fly-over areas, all for a “possible” 3 minutes savings off flights. The FAA has lied, held back information we are entitled to by law, and distorted the truth concerning the impact of their redesign upon the fly-over public. They have dismissed alternate and more viable solutions, such as flights over non-populated parklands and/or waterways, maximum utilization of advanced technology, permanent flight caps at airports, etc. In this case, the “redesign cure” is certainly more dangerous and potentially more deadly than the “flight delay disease.”--------------------
11.A) What good was it to put more planes in the air if you did not have enough gates on the ground?
B) The reason why more politicians were “getting on board” in opposition was because the FAA failed to honestly answer the most basic of questions posed by Congress- the wrong side is being accused of obfuscation.
C) How much credibility can/should one assign to an editorial board in support of the re-design whose paper’s largest circulation base is from airlines giving away their paper for free?
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12. The redesign plan moves all traffic that is now evenly distributed across the state to a very concentrated lane of traffic over the most populated section of the state. Residents will experience up to 400 arrivals a day over their heads. A veritable overhead turnpike will be established to save no more than 3 minutes per flight. In addition the planes will not be flying high they will be using gradual descent which will lay a carpet of noise that will effect education, health and the environment. The FAA is manipulating statistics to say that emissions have been reduced, but they really have been concentrated in a long slash of noise and emissions. Now there is a small area of concentrated emission over areas of concrete and industry around airports. With the new plan emissions and noise will be carpeted over residential areas where thousands of families in suburban and urban communities are concentrated. Wealthier, more rural areas of New Jersey avoided this concentrated turnpike of airspace by claiming that it will harm the bird sanctuaries. Think of the harm it will do to children in more populated areas!--------------------
13. So the plan has been in development for 10 years. What took FAA so long. Rather than crowing about this, I’d be ashamed to admit that it has been in development for that length of time. Boeing could design, test, and get certified a new aircraft type in less time.--------------------
14. The “progress” you speak of will benefit the airlines pocketbook, not the nation as a whole, not the folks who will still be sitting in airports for hours since the new flight plan will save a mere 3 minutes off flight time, and it certainly will not benefit the communities over which this new flight plan intends to re route the airplanes.
