FAA Review Practices and Standards
FAA JO 7400.2K has a
number of requirements for the performance of their reviews. Section 5-2-2 a. states that “Obstruction
Evaluation Group (OEG) personnel must administer aeronautical studies with the
coordinated assistance of Airports, Technical Operations Services, Frequency
Management, Flight Standards, Flight Procedures Team, Department of Defense (DOD) and
Department of Homeland Security Representatives”. All of these organizations were “coordinated”
in less than a week. This is quite an
impressive array of Federal agencies to respond
in such a timely fashion.
Section 6-2-2
requires that a completeness review of the submission must be done
before the review starts. Exceptions may
be made for emergency situations, but it is not clear whether an upcoming
county planning agency meeting would qualify as an “emergency”.
Section 6-2-3 discusses the coordination of the work among
the various Divisions that are involved, and it exempts several organizations
from certain reviews of temporary structures or from non-substantive changes,
but it is not clear how this tower could
benefit from any of the exemptions.
Section 6-3 discusses the various types of adverse effects
that could result from construction of Hazards to Navigation, and how they can
be evaluated and mitigated. The list of
hazards is quite extensive, as is the list of possible mitigation actions. The FAA was able to complete this
review in less than one week, rather than the 2 months that would normally be
scheduled.
Chapter 7 discusses the procedure for making the
determination itself. Section 7-1-1
states that “All known aeronautical facts revealed during the obstruction
evaluation must be considered when issuing an official FAA determination. The determination must be a composite of all
comments and findings received from interested FAA offices. …” Again quite a bit of work to do in one week.
Section 7-1-4 describes the content and options for issuing a
Determination. The letter is required to
include a full description of the structure, its location and height, and
whether marking and/or lighting is recommended. Additional language relating to optional lighting is also discussed, as
is the expiration date of the recommendation and the need for a supplemental
notice to report start and completion of construction.
Section 7-1-7 a.5. also says that "Copies of the determination must always [emphasis added] be
accompanied by a copy of the submitted map and, if
applicable, a copy of the surveys." The FAA did include a map as page 4 of the original determination, but did not include it in the second Determination, which was only 3 pages long. Perhaps they thought that the first map was sufficient. If so, then this Determination is relying on the first one and therefore the Determination is deficient.
There is also an important note that if
construction cranes will be needed and they are higher than the facility that
is proposed, an additional FAA Determination letter will be needed to address
the construction cranes. So, if DTI gets
permission to construct this tower, we can expect to see yet another huge
structure looking over our back yards, with flashing red lights to warn away the
airplanes. For as long as it takes to build the tower, and then, when some maintenance issue arises, to fix it
Lingering questions
Given the quick turnaround that the FAA provided to DTI, we
wonder whether the FAA actually did a second, independent review of the
hazards for the second tower site, or whether it just used the results from the
first site. FAA guidance specifically
does not allow this.
Section 7-3-2 of 7400.2K
discusses corrections to a determination, and says "… Editorial changes that do not involve a
coordinate change (of one second or more in latitude or longitude) or elevation
change (of one foot or more) may be issued as corrections. In this case, no change to dates could be
necessary. Adjustments or corrections to
a proposal that involve one or both of the above coordinate or elevation
changes must be addressed as a new and separate obstruction evaluation study."
It is clear from this guidance that the FAA
policy does not allow evaluations to be re-used if they exceed this
criteria. They are too site-specific and
the results could be very sensitive to small changes. Unfortunately for DTI, the
second tower site is 100 yards away from the first – much more than one second
of arc. Therefore, the FAA should NOT
have used the results of the first study to approve the second.
Curiously, the Determination of No Hazard that was
issued for the second tower references the study done for the first tower (see
the
upper right corner where is says “Aeronautical Study No. 2014-ASO-14040-OE,
Prior Study No. 2013-ASO-1479-OE”). Why
would the FAA include this reference to the prior study if it performed a “new
and separate obstruction evaluation study”?
Are they following their own procedures, or do they do favors for
telecommunications tower construction companies?
It must have been very tempting for a
reviewer to use the simple Notice Criteria screening tool and see that the
locations are only one foot apart, so it should not really matter. If you don’t read the actual application
and carefully consider what you are
told, it could be an easy mistake to make, especially under pressure from a frequent
client in a difficult situation.
If you are the bureaucrat, you can say that it doesn’t
really matter, because we can fix this later. We will just wait until they put up the tower, then go out and inspect it
(required by their own procedure), and then if we really think it is a hazard,
we can make them put a few lights on it.
This is fine for the FAA, but to the neighbors, it will be a
nightmare. One that can come to life at
any time, triggered by something as simple as a student pilot flying out of Martin County Witham Airport who gets lost during his first solo flight at night. He gets lost, loses altitude, and has a
heart-pounding close encounter with a tower that doesn’t have any lights on it
(because the neighbors don’t want it lit up with flashing strobe or red lights into
their bedrooms). The new pilot files a
report of the near collision with the FAA, who orders a new aeronautical study,
and decides that lights are necessary. What happens then?
On March 6, 2105, the intervenors filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request pertaining to the telecommunications tower at Sailfish Marina. It will be interesting to see what documentation the FAA
releases, in response to our FOIA request that relates to these two
Determination letters.
We will be
looking closely to see how the FAA coordinator presented the case to DOD and Homeland Security and what comments
they provided back to him/her, as well as all the other parts of the FAA that should have been involved in this
application.
