Res. No. 1552 Title Resolution calling upon the Federal Aviation Administration to permanently ground and discontinue operations of all supersonic Concorde airplanes. Body By Council Members Stabile, Freed, Nelson, Golden and Oddo Whereas, Supersonic Concorde airplanes began regular service on January 21, 1976 with a British Airways flight from London to Bahrain and have been in operation since then; and Whereas, British Airways and Air France are the only commercial air carriers currently utilizing supersonic Concorde airplanes; and Whereas, On July 25, 2000 Air France Concorde flight number 4590 bound for New York from Paris crashed shortly after takeoff from Charles De Gaulle Airport; and Whereas, One hundred nine passengers and crew members were killed in the crash along with four people on the ground; and Whereas, Such crash has been attributed to a fire in engine number two on the left side of the aircraft whose thrust reverser, used to help planes brake upon landing, was repaired just before takeoff because it was not functioning; and Whereas, Investigations by authorities such as the United States National Transportation Safety Board, as well as French and British authorities, are currently being conducted to determine conclusively, if possible, the direct causation of the crash; and Whereas, A total of twelve Concordes remain in the fleets of British Airways and Air France following the unfortunate crash on July 25, 2000, all of which are at least twenty years old; and Whereas, French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot immediately grounded Concorde flights following the July 25, 2000 tragedy and such flights remain grounded until at least October 28, 2000 pending further investigation and testing according to representatives of Air France; and Whereas, In the aftermath of the July 25th Air France Concorde crash, British Airways Concorde flights remain suspended since August 15, 2000 by British Airways upon the advise of the Civil Aviation Authority and the Air Accidents Investigation Bureau in Great Britain; and Whereas, The July 25th crash may be indicative of the deteriorating physical condition of the Concordes as a product of their advanced age; and Whereas, Permitting the operation of the Concordes would present a grave threat to the safety of the communities over which these aircraft fly, such as Howard Beach in Queens, in that such a community would be exposed to the same fate suffered by the suburban area outside of Paris on July 25th; and Whereas, In addition to the danger presented by the age and condition of these aircraft the Concorde also poses a health hazard because of its atypically high noise output, reported by the New York Daily News on July 27, 2000 as being up to four times as loud as the average Boeing 747 during takeoff; and Whereas, Such unhealthy increased noise output in excess of that produced by a conventional airliner results from the need to achieve a two hundred fifty mile per hour takeoff speed in order for the Concorde to generate sufficient thrust to fly at supersonic speeds; and Whereas, The Concordes have been exempted by the Federal Aviation Administration from federal noise limitations due to representations by the manufacturers of the Concordes that it is technologically impossible to reduce the noise output of this type of aircraft; and Whereas, Such high levels of noise created by the Concorde's takeoff activities are harmful to people living in neighborhoods surrounding New York City's Kennedy International airport; and Whereas, Such health hazards created by the excessive noise level of the Concorde in conjunction with the advanced age, physical deterioration and questionable airworthiness of the existing fleet of Concordes create an untenable and immediately hazardous threat to the communities surrounding the Kennedy International Airport, the communities over which such aircraft fly and passengers and crew travelling aboard the Concorde; now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the New York City Council calls upon the Federal Aviation Administration to permanently ground and discontinue operations of all supersonic Concorde airplanes. |1013| MBS-9/22/00 LS#3453