New Flight Patterns Sending More Commercial Jets Over Nassau County
NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- It is the most extensive reshaping of East Coast flight patterns in decades.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday it is now rerouting 200 planes a day. Instead of flying south to go west, these jets will now fly north -- over Long Island's "Gold Coast" -- and residents are crying foul.
LISTEN: 1010 WINS' Mona Rivera reports
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Engineer Leonard Schaier of Port Washington is an expert on airplane noise. He measures decibels and analyzes sound on basement computers, radios, scanners and flight path monitors.
He showed CBS 2's Jennifer McLogan his backyard invention and recorded his wife inside their home as aircraft passed overhead.
"He's right literally over my house at 1,500 feet making a racket," Schaier said.
Now Schaier says he has a lot more noise to worry about. As many 200 western-bound planes a day will fly over Nassau County's North Shore communities. This as the FAA changes flight paths out of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
"'Citizens for quiet skies over North Hempstead,'" Schaier said. "I'm not suggesting that we stop planes or helicopters, but there has to be some judgment so that we spread out the pain."
The FAA said the redesign will allow for more efficient use of airspace and cut flight delays plaguing New York airspace, adding most of the aircraft flying north will be 5,000 to 10,000 feet in the air.
"That will largely be true if they take off as fast as they say they're going to take off from Kennedy," Schaier told 1010 WINS' Mona Rivera. "What I'm concerned about is that the new patterns will force the helicopters to fly lower which will make the noise even worse."
Bridget Forde of New Hyde Park said her family hears planes at 5,000 feet.
"So many planes fly over all the time, so noisy. You're inclined to go deaf at this stage," Forde said.
Under the new routes planes will fly east and then north across Nassau. Previously, those planes going west turned south over the water and crossed central New Jersey. The FAA says noise level increases will be minimal.
But some residents are skeptical.
"Wakes you up at midnight, wakes you at 3 o'clock in the morning," North Hempstead homeowner Warren Lappin said.
The FAA hopes that by 2012 the new route changes will save $7 billion to $9 billion in flight delay costs.
Have you noticed an increase in noise? Let us know below...
