To the Editor:
This is to address all of the Great Barrington Airport neighbors who think that there is a “Runway Safety Area.” A Runway Safety Area is something that pertains to “Airports serving scheduled air carrier operations in aircraft designed for more than 9 passengers but less than 31 passenger seats,” FAA Title 14 CFR Part 139. So therefore no abutting neighbor to Great Barrington Airport owns any “Runway Safety Area” because the Great Barrington Airport is unable to accommodate aircraft that large. Nor does GBR currently service scheduled air carrier operations.
Joseph Solan
Great Barrington
A “Runway Safety Area” may be something that is only needed for “scheduled air carrier operations,” but try saying that without the capital letters and quotes and it sounds foolish.
An airplane went off your runway and into a neighbor’s property. Call it what you want, but obviously there needs to be some space for pilots to make mistakes, and that space shouldn’t be a neighbors home.
Also, it isn’t just the airport neighbors who are concerned so please stop trying to characterize all concern about your operations as NIMBY. I live in Housatonic.
Your opinions assert facts that are either wrong or absent from your assumptions, which is logically problematic when making the deductions you conclude here. The airplane was 400 to 500 feet from the dwelling, which sat upward in a considerable enough slope to make the airplane hitting the home impossible. You missed Mr. Solan’s valid point — the small size of the Great Barrington airport’s runway assures that no aircraft that could pose a tangible threat to life or property could feasibly do so because they wouldn’t have the performance capability to utilize the airport. In that way, those individuals owning property at either end of the runway are in fact considerably SAFER than neighbors at metropolitan airports where the need for a safety area is legitimate and the risks are real and considerably higher. These airports include Chicago’s Midway Airport, among many, many others. As Kevin stated below so eloquently by Kevin and Nan, being a good neighbor is a two-way Street. The Great Barrington Airport is a fair and generous neighbor to the community at large, do its neighbors have no responsibility to be equitable in turn?
This letter shows total ignorance of aviation at small airports throughout the United States. I suggest you install a guard rail on your property that abuts any road. You will sleep better knowing that no car can end up in your yard.
Each and every day, a car slides off the road due to ice. It will happen today, and tomorrow as well. In fact a couple years ago, a car slid off the road and onto my property due to ice. Nobody got hurt. I choose to be a good neighbor and help the folks out with the incident…and even gave them a ride home. ..
I agree with John. All too often anymore, people have seemed to forgotten to be good neighbors.
Good neighbors? An airplane ended up in a neighbor’s yard and the airport owners are blaming the neighbor. If not a guard rail, maybe warning lights? Maybe an apology?
No apology. Instead, a lecture to the neighbor via a letter to the editor.
Go ahead, tell me about being a good neighbor.
Just how are we blaming the neighbors?
There are lights, the pilot failed to turn them on.
I was so shocked to discover nursing homes have no policy concerning putting a dying patient in a private room. With 2 people in a room this to me is abuse to have a person in a room 24 hours a day with a dying person. Has anyone else had this experience with a nursing home.??