Sleepless in Seattle -- FAA Anticipates
Cutting Night Curfew

As part of the Duwamish Flight Track Study for Sea-Tac (see related article in this issue p. 2), the FAA was asked by the Port of Seattle to look into extending the existing 10 p.m. - 6 a.m. night time noise abatement curfew for north flow departures.  The FAA concluded that extending the curfew hours would result in "a significant increase in delays to maintain safety during heavy traffic periods."
Not only did the FAA essentially reject offering Seattle residents a bit more sleep, but they went on to say "it is highly probably that increased traffic volumes... will soon require that the [noise abatement] curfew be shortened on week nights to accommodate those increases".  Much to the dismay of affected neighborhoods, multiple reports of northbound departures using the east turn after 10 p.m. have been recently documented and confirmed by the Noise Abatement Office at Sea-Tac.  It would appear the FAA is already taking another hour of peace and quiet away from tens of thousands of area residents.
If you're affected by east turn departures, and need to sleep beyond the hours of 11 p.m. - 6 a.m., you might want to write the FAA and/or Port of Seattle and let them know your feelings.  If a jet disturbs you after 10 p.m., at the very least call the Sea-Tac noise hotline at 206-433-5393 and register your complaint.  Perhaps if Seattle residents make enough noise of their own, they can hang onto this

precious bit of quiet.   Consult the SCAA website at http://www.airportnoise.org for more info.

The Rattle in Seattle Paralyzes Airports

When one thinks of possible damage from earthquakes, images of collapsed bridges and viaducts come to mind, along with piles of debris shaken off Nineteenth Century brick buildings (at least in Seattle), and total destruction of shoddily built apartment buildings in Third World counties. But damage to airports?
Yet, the two busiest airports in Western Washington were both shut down by damage from the Feb. 28 'quake, 6.8 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter near Nisqually in Thurston County.
Sea-Tac's big problem was the FAA's rather antique air-traffic control tower, which had not been adequately retrofitted in light of recent earthquake experience. The tower shook furiously, the windows shattered, the work areas were littered with debris, and vital equipment was unusable (see photo, Pg. 4). The controllers on duty handled the emergency with professional calm, carrying on with operations as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
Fortunately for Sea-Tac, this earthquake did not involve the Seattle fault, which essentially runs under the Airport. 
The FAA, with commendable foresight, was ready with a portable temporary control facility, and restrictions on landings and take-offs were lifted in a few hours. In 1999, the Air

Cont. on p. 4  -  Earthquake