The Real Impact of Aircraft Noise, Part 1

Third in a series of reports about the Federal Aviation Administration and its flawed approach to managing aircraft noise across the country.

The  presentation provides the first national pespective on the real impact of harmful levels of aircraft noise across the country by  leveraging the FAA's own data that I acquired via a Freedom of Information Act request. That data was then compiled, analyzed and mapped in cooperation with the University of Minnesota's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs.

Once the data was processed, we applied the internationally accepted definition for the threshold of harmful and annoying levels of aircraft noise to it. The result is shocking - instead of the 340,000 people the FAA reports as being significantly impacted by aircraft noise, we show that figure to be 20 times higher - or almost 8 million people.

Furthermore, we show how as part of implementing its NextGen program, the  FAA has been systematically "hiding" noise by placing many more flights over residential areas that never before had aircraft traffic. Yet since even 150 low level departures a day does not meet the FAA's outdated standard for harmful or annoying noise, it can simply put a Highway in the Sky over your house with no discussion or compensation.

You can also view an interactive map of the results, which show aircraft noise levels beyond 55 dB DNL at the census block level at more than 30 major airports in the US.

With support from the MSP FairSkies Coalition and the University of Minnesota's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs.

17 minutes