Hawthorne Press Tribune Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - June 16, 2016 South Bay Digital Arts Media Consortium Features Guest Speaker Director Rick Famuyiwa, who was born and raised in Inglewood, with film credits such as The Wood, Brown Sugar, Dope, and Confirmation to his name, addresses an audience of about 50 students from Lawndale High School’s Academy of Media Arts and Hawthorne High School’s Tech Theater Department at Lawndale High School on June 1. Photo provided by SBWIB Plane Crash Rattles Residents as Claims of Flight Path Violations Come to Light By Derrick Deane Last week’s airplane crash dominated the public conversation in Tuesday’s City Council meeting as shaken residents addressed the council members with their concerns about aircraft flying over their residences. The plane crash occurred shortly after 5 p.m. on Friday in the 4600 block of West Broadway and killed the two people on board. The aircraft crashed into two units of a townhouse complex near Hawthorne Airport. “It happened in front of my house and to some friends of mine,” resident Mario Chiappe said. “Certain things jump out at you when you start to hear the specifics of the accident.” Among those specifics that Chiappe pointed out included that the pilot was 90 years old and the flight instructor was 71 years old. Despite their age, the cause of the accident appears to be more of an issue with the airplane. Pilot and resident Patrick Carey says that the air traffic control tower released the doomed aircraft without radio communication and instead relied on “light signals.” “It was not because he couldn’t turn and avoid the building. He couldn’t climb,” Carey said. “The airplane wasn’t running right. It also didn’t have radio contact. The tower had released it without the ability to talk. That shouldn’t have happened but they did it anyway.” The accident brought forth concerns from residents in the Ramona area of the city who say that planes have been regularly disregarding the flight pattern that has been mandated for aircraft leaving Hawthorne Airport. “Literally every half an hour, a plane turns on Inglewood and El Segundo, not on Hawthorne Boulevard,” Alex Monteiro, home owners association president for the affected town homes, said. “Especially those jets that Elon Musk flies at midnight, taking off right on top of us.” Chiappe echoed Monteiro’s concerns about pilots not obeying flight path rules. “I would say probably 80 percent of the people don’t do that,” Chiappe said of pilots not making the proper turn away from the city as they head west. “It wouldn’t be a problem if they were flying at an altitude that was safe for the community, but it’s not. It’s pretty close to the roof of the houses, especially when you have a two-story house like I do, and it’s highly unsafe.” Chiappe implored the City Council to become more proactive on the matter of enforcing the laws at Hawthorne Airport and added that, “I don’t want the airport to disappear, even though, as you may know, I lost my run for City Council because I was against the airport.” Montiero says that the family that lived in the townhouse that was crashed into arrived home five minutes after the accident. “The dad that lived there worked from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m. so he was just arriving home from work and said that he normally taken naps on the couch where the plane went through the living room and the kitchen,” Monteiro said. Other residents who witnessed the accident said they were traumatized from the event. “Since that accident happened on Friday, I’ve been traumatized. I can’t sleep at night,” resident Carol Horton said after she witnessed the entire accident unfold before her. “I’m really scared to live in this residence and we’re sticking together right now, neighbor to neighbor.” Horton pointed out a couple of other recent plane accidents adding that she was, “scared to live in this area now. I’ve been having nightmares every night.” Carey says that he had met the pilot before and described him as “a nice guy.” “The gentleman who was flying the airplane, I’ve met him. I actually have a scar on the front of my truck that’s from when he taxied into my truck on the airport,” Carey said. “The flight instructor, no one knew who he was. He came from Compton Airport. Carey said that he was on the phone with Police Chief Robert Fager and City Manager Arnie Shadbehr late into the night discussing the accident. “We’ve been dealing with a few problems, one of them being our airport tower manager didn’t agree with our noise abatement procedures,” Carey said. “It was only two months ago that he finally came to me and said, ‘Gee wiz Pat, the noise abatement procedures are in the airport facility directory! It’s the law!’” Carey says that when he catches a pilot who is breaking the noise rule, their response is usually that they did not know about the law. He says that when the law first went into the books, they printed out more than 2,000 copies to be passed on to flight instructors at all the local airports. “The downside of that was that there is a tremendous hiring spree going on right now and the flight instructor turnover is tremendous,” Carey said. “Instructors that we talked to just five months ago are already airline pilots.” The accident is currently under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board who will ultimately determine the cause of the crash. Meanwhile, residents continue to look to the City Council for enforcement of flight rules. “If we don’t enforce the rules that govern the flight regulations, we’re doomed to have many more accidents and tragedies,” Chiappe said. • “We’ve been dealing with a few problems, one of them being our airport tower manager didn’t agree with our noise abatement procedures.” Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................5 Classifieds............................3 Community Briefs...............3 Finance..................................4 Food.......................................5 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Legals............................4, 6-7 Pets........................................8 Police Reports.....................7 Weekend Forecast Friday Sunny 73˚/63˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 77˚/64˚ Sunday Sunny 82˚/66˚ The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne
Hawthorne_061616_FNL_lorez
To see the actual publication please follow the link above