By: Las Vegas Now Staff
While the investigations into two deadly plane crashes continue at the North Las Vegas Airport, residents near another airport are worried one day they will be in the same situation.
Henderson Executive Airport is near large communities where there's fear a plane crash may be in their future. They say this is dangerous and one day may be deadly.
“It's just an accident waiting to happen as long as those planes are flying over our homes,” said Seven Hills resident and President of Capistrano Homeowners Association Ron Meek.
Meek and his neighbors, Laird and Jeanne Konker, look up and don't like what they see.
“They've gotten so low, I've even waved,” said Jeanne.
All three love the friendly skies. Ron is a pilot who's even done some wing walking. Laird was an aeronautical engineer before he flew for the FBI and Jeanne works as a flight attendant. But they say the sky above Seven Hills hasn't been too friendly lately.
“They're just so low. I feel like I can reach up there and touch the plane,” said Jeanne.
“It's just like what happened basically at North Las Vegas. If you don't have enough altitude, you can't get to a safe place to put an airplane down with a catastrophic failure,” said Laird.
“If they don't get those airplanes off the top of our homes, it's not a matter of if, it's just when,” said Ron.
Meek says planes from Henderson regularly violate altitude rules, flying well below the required 1,000 feet above residential areas, “They ask them over at the airport, as a courtesy, to fly to St. Rose Parkway before heading east or west. What you're seeing is those planes take off and when they get to the end of the runway, they're still approximately a mile from St. Rose Parkway, and they start making their turn, and that is directly over the top of our homes.”
In July a private plane trying to land in Henderson made an emergency landing on Maryland Parkway. While no one was injured, they fear the next incident could be different, as long as these planes are getting too close for comfort.
“You can actually see their faces and it's a real concern for me for the safety and welfare of our community,” said Jeanne.
Clark County officials say the Henderson Airport had some 80,000 operations last year. That's far less than North Las Vegas, but it's also the fastest growing airport here.
It's not an FAA requirement that the planes avoid that neighborhood. Federal regulations will have to change for that to be done.
Email your comments to Reporter Aaron Drawhorn
If Meek really is a pilot, when he’s not “wing walking” and being an HOA natzi, then he should know the correct procedure to deal with planes that violate the floor. As for the flight attendant and aeronautical engineer, how does that make them experts. I call BS on this entire article.
Comment by Henderson — August 29, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
The 1,000ft minimum altitude dose not pertain to aircraft taking off or landing at an airport. If you don’t like planes flying overhead then don’t buy a house next to an airport, it’s really quite simple.
Comment by Bijan — August 30, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
I’m hoping pilots just don’t know, and not are stupid.
On the Henderson Exec. Airport website it states for pilots NOT TO FLY OVER HOMES IN SEVEN HILLS and even has a “dummies flight map” with BIG LETTERS saying, “ALL TRAFFIC REMAIN CLEAR OF RESIDENTIAL AREAS”.
Here is a link: http://www.hnd.aero/downloads/01_02_08_HNDFlyQuietly.pdf
To be honest, I only see 6-7 planes fly over Seven Hills a week, majority follow the rules.
Can I just shoot them down? I can probably hit them with a bb-gun they’re so close.
- Seven Hills Resident
Comment by Geoff — September 1, 2008 @ 10:13 am