MESA, AZ — A neighborhood near Sloan Park deals with near-constant airplane noise as the FAA delays decisions on new flight paths.
Residents say flights of all sizes streak through the skies overhead at all hours — noisy during the day and worse at night.
The roar from airliners making their final approach into the Valley's largest airport can be booming. More than 1,000 flights come and go daily.
Cheryl Ross has lived in the neighborhood for seven years. She tracks engine blasts on a noise meter app on her phone, which sometimes hit the 70-decibel range. That’s about as loud as a lawnmower.
"Every minute of every day, there's a plane over my house," Ross said.
Ross says she used to send complaints to Sky Harbor and the FAA about the noise, probably 100 of them in all, but it has been a while since she received a response.
A couple of doors down, David Smith feels it too. Smith says he is hearing impaired on one side, and still, the noise gets to him at a home he has owned since 2004.
"It's unnecessarily loud," Smith said. "One of the main points of why I moved out of my master bedroom was because the air traffic come down towards the window, and it was so loud, I couldn't sleep.”
Ross and Smith believe flight volume has grown over the years and that pilots aren't sticking to noise abatement rules. Federal agreements require flights to stay above the Salt River until they reach the intersection of State Routes 101 and 202, but Ross and her neighbors don't believe that's happening.
The FAA is delaying decisions on new flight paths. It last redrew approach routes in 2014 with little public input. However, this time, feedback has been much higher.
An FAA spokesperson says residents with noise concerns can contact their local aviation community roundtable. The city of Mesa says there isn't much city leaders can do to hold down the noise, and concerned citizens should keep contacting the FAA. Mesa isn’t tied to the 4MDE agreement, which is meant to curb aviation noise in nearby Tempe.
The FAA’s statement sent to ABC15 on Thursday includes links where community engagement options can be found, as well as the agency’s regulations for noise abatement near airports.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
