The Point Loma pause; If you live there you know what it means. Residents who live near Lindbergh Field’s flight path have to pause their conversations so often due to airplane noise that there’s actually a term for it.
AirNoise, a new invention, can help those bothered file a noise complaint with just a click of a button. The small button can be carried on a keychain and allows the user to file a complaint every time the sky gets noisy that goes directly to the San Diego Airport Authority.
“Sometimes it's really bad,” William Kreth who works in Liberty Station told NBC 7. “Every once in a while you get these massive planes – I saw one over earlier –it seemed like a C-130 size."
Chris McCann invented AirNoise. He lives in La Jolla and says the problem is getting worse. “It actually causes the windows of our house to rumble if it’s really low, which we never had before,” he says. “Those airplanes actually have woken me up from a sound sleep before. It’s very loud and since it's coming towards us it just gets louder and louder."
When a user clicks AirNoise’s button, the system starts looking for nearby airplanes in a cylinder around and above the user. “If it finds an airplane close enough it will then grab all the information about that plane and send it off to the San Diego Airport Authority."
McCann says San Diego users have already sent more than 120,000 complaints since the button was created early last year.
“We've seen about 6,000 to 8,000 come through on a non-airport authority app, and we respond to as many as staff can - approximately 80 to 100 a month.”
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McCann says the FAA's NextGen program is to blame for the increase in complaints. The program has modernized air routes to create tighter flight tracks that sometimes go above homes that didn't see this problem before.
The FAA released a statement saying in part: “The agency tries to address noise impacts by designing procedures over water and industrial areas when safety and efficiency permit. However, options in and around major metropolitan areas are often limited due to the complex and highly congested airspace, with numerous routes serving multiple airports that are in close proximity to one another.”
The FAA also says its NextGen program decreases travel time, lowers aircraft operating costs and increases safety.
AirNosie is not the only tool you can use to file a complaint – the San Diego International Airport released its own app.
