Residents demanding changes at Centennial Airport expressed frustration and confusion, mainly with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), during the airport’s Jan. 4 community noise roundtable meeting.
Nearly 20 people spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, expressing similar concerns as residents did during the December meeting about increased air traffic, noise and lead pollution from aircraft fuel.
“We knew when we purchased our home that there was an airport nearby, and that didn’t bother us,” said Nathan Winger, who moved to the Sundance Hills neighborhood in Greenwood Village about a year ago.
“I remember standing in the backyard during the inspection of our home and commenting to our Realtor that it’s pretty quiet here,” he said. “It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I really began to notice the additional noise and the additional flights.”
Some residents have formed a group, “Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County,” to advocate for changes to be made to address safety and noise concerns. The group has a website, bit.ly/quietskies, that includes links to YouTube videos of aircraft flying over homes.
During her public comment, Audra Dubler, a leader of the resident group, said the FAA’s silence has been “deafening.”
Members of the Centennial Airport Community Noise Roundtable, which aims to work with the airport to reduce and mitigate the impact of aircraft noise, highlighted the need for FAA involvement during their December meeting.
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper signed a letter in December encouraging the FAA to attend the monthly meetings in person.
However, the two FAA representatives present at the January meeting attended virtually.
Leslie Lardie, senior advisor to the FAA’s regional administrator of the northwest mountain region, said she is based in Washington state and will not be able to come out due to travel restrictions.
Michael Valencia, general manager of the FAA Denver District, said he was unable to attend in person because he was working in Florida at the time.
He said he will attend in person at the next noise roundtable meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 1 at 6:30 p.m. at the airport, 7565 S. Peoria St.
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Did the aircraft traffic patterns change?
During the January meeting, a few people said flight patterns had changed due to two planes colliding in midair over the Cherry Creek State Park area in May 2021, leading to more aircraft traffic above neighborhoods. They asked if this change can be undone.
Valencia disagreed that there has been a pattern change.
“There has been no literal change of a traffic pattern at Centennial,” Valencia said. “I’m in charge of all air traffic control for this Denver district, and I never, ever, made any decision or direction to change (the) traffic pattern for Centennial after the midair collision.”
However, Valencia said the FAA did change “an operating procedure” to help prevent collisions, saying the administration essentially adjusted how it separates planes that are on the parallel runways.
In a Dec. 16 letter, Grady Stone, the regional administrator of the FAA’s northwest mountain region, said that following the midair collision, air traffic controllers “were directed to use more active control when managing pattern traffic with arriving aircraft.”
Centennial Airport Executive Director and CEO Mike Fronapfel previously told Colorado Community Media that after the collision, the FAA Control Tower changed how it manages the pattern of traffic, now sequencing the aircraft as they come in on parallel runways. This change was to enhance safety, but it also resulted in “more aircraft flying out over the neighborhoods.”
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Chris Thompson, the public information officer and manager of communications at Centennial Airport, confirmed in a Dec. 20 email that one of the changes the FAA made was extending the flight pattern for Runway 17R/35L.
“The general consensus is that the midair collision was the deciding factor to extending the flight pattern for the touch-and-go runway,” Thompson wrote. “This results in more of a staggered operation on the runways (i.e. plane lands on 17R and then next plane is on 17L) instead of concurrent landings.”
Regarding the discussion on whether the flight patterns changed, Fronapfel said in an email on Jan. 5 that he thinks it’s a matter of semantics.
“When the FAA directed the controllers to ‘use more active control when managing pattern traffic with arriving aircraft’ it effectively results in more instances where the traffic pattern will be extended,” Fronapfel said in the email.
Fronapfel said, from the FAA’s perspective, the traffic pattern “is always subject to expanding or contracting based on several factors” such as the number of planes in the pattern, spacing of the aircraft and sequencing of pattern traffic with arriving aircraft to the parallel runway.
He expects to learn more during the Feb. 1 meeting, “when we hopefully get their response to our questions and they present information on how they are ‘more actively managing/controlling the traffic pattern,’” Fronapfel wrote.
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Airport leadership asks FAA three questions
In Stone’s Dec. 16 letter, he said that if the FAA is asked to attend a meeting to provide technical information and responses to questions, then the administration requests “that a maximum of three questions be submitted in writing no less than 30 days in advance of the meeting.”
Fronapfel sent a letter Dec. 31 to Stone, Lardie and Valencia with three questions the airport would like to have answered either before or during the Feb. 1 meeting.
He noted the questions were compiled through participation of airport leadership and staff, the noise roundtable, the City of Greenwood Village and community members.
The first question states residents north of Arapahoe Road are “severely impacted by the increase in aircraft over their homes due to the extended traffic pattern implemented after the midair collision.”
It asks if the FAA considered the environmental impact on residents as a result of the change, and if the administration met its National Environmental Policy Act obligations “before changing how the traffic pattern is managed at Centennial Airport.”
The second question explained that Stone’s letter said traffic patterns cannot be confined based on noise abatement. It asks what criteria can be used by the FAA or Centennial Airport now to confine the pattern area or limit how many aircraft are in the traffic pattern at once.
The final question explains safety concerns have been expressed by the community and by flight schools “that are being directed to extend the traffic pattern over the residential areas.”
“Because of the new procedure, the pattern is extended so frequently that their students aren’t getting sufficient training on flying a non-extended pattern,” the letter states. “This becomes a safety concern if the student is expected to fly a normal pattern at other airports and they are unable to stay ahead of the aircraft while transitioning to and from their landing or departure.”
It also notes another safety concern, which is that pilots have limited options in an emergency for safely landing their aircraft when they fly over dense residential areas, which may mean “that now it’s more likely a midair collision could occur over a neighborhood.”
“In our opinion having an extended pattern doesn’t enhance the safety of the operations when there has been one midair accident in over 16.2 million operations at Centennial Airport. Were these factors considered by the FAA prior to the change and if not can they be considered?” the letter states.
During the meeting, Lardie said the FAA is currently working on a response to the questions.
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FAA removes three-question limitation
During the public comment portion of the meeting, one resident asked the FAA for clarification about its request that a maximum of three questions be submitted, wondering who the questions should come from and if the community is permitted to ask three questions as well.
“I’m not sure where that came from,” Lardie said. “We do answer all the questions that come through. There’s, as far as I know, there’s never been a limit.”
Fronapfel explained what people were referencing was Stone’s letter that said to only submit three questions at a time.
In response, Lardie said she now understood the reference and that it takes time to answer questions, as the FAA does a thorough analysis before responding.
“So that’s why we limit those large questions to three, because they do take time,” she said.
She said the questions should come from the noise roundtable, since “how we communicate to the community is through this roundtable.”
The response created some confusion and concern for a few members of the roundtable.
Brad Pierce, the chair of the roundtable, asked if they would have to wait until February to submit questions, since Fronapfel already submitted questions Dec. 31, meaning people may have to wait until March for answers if the response time is 30 days.
“The red tape, to be honest, is just going to take forever to get the response to all the questions that everybody has,” Pierce said.
Lardie said Pierce can collect and send to her all the questions the noise roundtable and community has, removing the limitation of three questions. However, she said the FAA cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered within 30 days.
Pierce said a process was needed to send questions to Lardie, to which resident Audra Dubler volunteered to collect community questions to send to Pierce.
Lardie asked that Fronapfel review the questions Pierce receives first, to determine if any questions can be answered by the airport, before the questions are then sent to the FAA.
“I am very bothered that the FAA is saying that they will only take questions from this roundtable,” said Centennial City Councilmember Candace Moon, a member of the noise roundtable. “You should not limit the acceptance of questions only from a roundtable of people who are listening to constituents.”
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The push for FAA’s in-person attendance
A few residents expressed frustration that the FAA representatives were not in person at the meeting to have a dialogue with them.
Moon said when she first joined the roundtable, there was an FAA representative who attended every monthly meeting.
“And that has slowly dropped off to no representation,” she said.
Valencia said he received his first invitation to the roundtable meeting last month, which he attended virtually.
“I not only empathize but sympathize with noise, and want to hear more about it and see what this great organization of the FAA can do to support this city and the airport authority … and the processes that are available to mitigate these issues,” Valencia said.
He said there are more than 30,000 private airports with public access to them throughout the United States.
“For us, as the agency, to address every single noise issue at over 30,000 airports is just unreasonable. We just can’t do it. But we can take certain airports that are unique, like Centennial, and hopefully partner and continue to work together,” he said. “You have my commitment to do that. I look forward to seeing you all on Feb. 1.”
Moon said she looks forward to the meeting. She thinks the FAA’s physical presence will do a lot to assure residents that the FAA is working on their behalf.
“I know that everybody wants a solution quick. This is not anything that’s going to happen quickly. It has to be done very thoroughly,” Moon said. “But it’s not like it’s gonna be put on the back burner and nothing happens, because we understand the urgency that you have in getting this resolved.”