Dear Fellow Palm Coast Residents and Petition Signers,
Thank you for your continued support of our mission at PeaceforPalm.com to advocate for a quieter, healthier community free from excessive aircraft noise and pollution. Many of you have signed our petition calling for mandatory noise abatement procedures and restrictions on disruptive flight training operations over our residential neighborhoods.
Recently, we have been sending complaints through our website link, highlighting ongoing issues that affect thousands of us:
- Planes flying low (well below 500-1000 feet violating 14 CFR 91.119) over homes and commercial buildings in residential areas.
- Our blissful days turn into a war zone with loud, constant noise, making our life investment unlivable.
- Requests for days off from training flights (especially Sundays), more reasonable flying hours to allow peaceful sleep, and rerouting flights away from neighborhoods.
- Noxious odors from aircraft, particularly concerning leaded aviation fuel.
- Hundreds of flights within hours over our neighborhood.
These concerns echo what we've heard from so many of you — the constant touch-and-go operations from flight schools using lead fuel above our heads -- are disrupting our quality of life, with noise and lead pollution that makes it hard to enjoy our homes, sleep, spend time outdoors, or even indoors.
Airport Director Roy Sieger (“Where Service Soars”) has been responding with what appears to be standard, boiler plate replies. While acknowledging voluntary noise abatement measures (such as a nighttime curfew for training flights from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM Monday-Saturday, and 9:00 AM on Sundays/holidays), the acknowledgement is ineffective as the voluntary noise abatement is largely ignored by ATC and flight schools. The response largely dismisses the core issues:
- No disclosure or warning stating these neighborhoods are serverely overridden by flight schools for hours and hours and days at a time.
- It claims the airport cannot restrict flight paths or operations due to federal FAA regulations and grant obligations, but they CAN tell them to go higher and disperse flight patterns over wooded areas, avoiding neighborhoods.
- Denying the sheer volume of hundreds planes at over 80 decibels per pass.
- It downplays leaded fuel and odors, stating small piston-engine aircraft "typically do not produce odors that are easily detectable."
- It offers no new commitments to meaningful changes, such as making voluntary procedures mandatory or working with flight schools to avoid residential overflights.
- Denying a NOISE STUDY or NOISE MONITORS that do not rely on the outdated 65 DNL model, but use spiked noises instead
- No NOISE PORTAL or HOTLINE.
This response is disappointing but not surprising. For years, residents have raised these same valid concerns, only to receive similar explanations that prioritize airport growth and flight school profits over community well-being. As a public-use airport funded in part by federal grants, Flagler Executive must comply with safety rules — but it can (and should) do more to be a good neighbor through stronger voluntary enforcement, better pilot education, and collaboration with the FAA on feasible adjustments.
We appreciate individual complaints, as they create an official record. However, **the more complaints we file, the harder it is for officials to ignore us**. Collective action has power — your voices have already helped raise awareness, prompt discussions at county and city levels, and push for noise studies.
**We urge every petition signer and concerned resident to keep reporting incidents when these planes are wreaking havoc on us for hours and days at a time**:
- Use our easy email complaint tool on PeaceforPalm.com: Simply click the link, add the date, time, and your street — it automatically sends to the FAA, Flagler County Airport, and relevant officials (putting it on record).
- Report specific events (noise, low flights, odors) promptly — ideally within a week.
- Track flights yourself using tools like ADS-B Exchange to log details.
Together, we can demonstrate that this is not an isolated issue but a widespread problem affecting our health, property values, and peace. Let's continue gathering data, signing petitions, and holding officials accountable until real improvements are made — such as mandatory noise abatement, restricted training patterns over homes, and a transition away from lead fuel.
Thank you for standing up with us. Stay informed by visiting PeaceforPalm.com and share this update with neighbors.
In solidarity for a peaceful Palm Coast,
The PeaceforPalm Team