The NextGen proposal to delete the waypoint near the tip of Point Loma will allow eastbound airplane traffic departing San Diego International Airport (“SAN”) to intersect Point Loma, flying directly over the point as they turn to the left from the westbound runway to their easterly route.     

According to Exhibits provided by the FAA, the proposal includes the elimination of a waypoint currently located approximately 1.5 miles southwest of the tip of Point Loma (“LOWMA”) that eastbound departing planes must pass to its south.  The elimination of LOWMA shortens the required turn radius allowing planes to travel closer to and/or over the top of Point Loma.  This results in a shortcut that will reduce the distance traveled in an eastbound direction by approximately 650 yards (0.12 miles).  As the Exhibit shows, the revised path would allow planes to travel over the top of Cabrillo National Monument, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and Point Loma Nazarene University.  The reality of this is that the distance “saved” equates to a rounding error, generates no fuel savings on even the shortest eastbound destinations and without question would have a negative impact on these and other Point Loma properties.

Any alleged benefits or the attainment of the program’s goals for fuel savings or carbon savings expected to result from this specific SAN departure flight path realignment will be negligible, if at all, and come at the significant cost of, among other issues, noise, visual, air and water runoff pollution to those residential, public grade schools, college, national park and national cemetery areas of Point Loma not already impacted and an increase of these symptoms to those areas already impacted inside the radius of the departure flight path.

Therefore, for the above concerns and highly questionable benefits, we urge the FAA to exclude any modification of the SAN departure flight path, including the proposed elimination of waypoint LOWMA from any FAA or NextGen proposal.