The Mast-Head: No Longer Unthinkable

There was a time when no one spoke of closing the East Hampton Town Airport. At a minimum, I believed that and would tell pilots so when they said the elimination of the airfield was the ultimate goal of the anti-noise faction. Whether or not I was wrong about my observation then, they are talking about it now.

In the 1990s, the struggle was over jets and what size could land there. The measure of pavement strength was a, if not the, big issue. This would determine how heavy an aircraft could be to safely use the airport, and, as a consequence, how loud operations would be. Joanne Pilgrim, who had the KHTO beat for many years, kept a chunk of Runway 4-22 on her desk, the best reportorial souvenir ever of anyone on the Star staff, in my opinion.

Also in the air in those days was a fear that allowing large jets would lead inevitably to scheduled commercial service. There was a credible allegation of a doctored airport layout plan, lawsuits, and endless hours of hearings. Then came the helicopters. 

They started arriving slowly at first. A few of the ultrawealthy would charter helicopters to get from the city to their houses in the Hamptons. At first they were almost a novelty not worth worrying about. But as Manhattan got richer, helicopter travel became more frequent, and companies sprang up to offer semi-scheduled flights from there to here and back again.

I believe Patricia Currie was the first person I know of who publicly suggested that East Hampton Airport should be closed if nothing else was successful in quieting the helicopters. She was, and is, among the most faithful airport critics, which, as a Noyac resident, really says something about how widespread the noise is.

In more recent years, callers from the pilots side would complain to me about something they had read, and I would tell them that they might not actually want to align themselves with the helicopter companies. It would take only three members of the town board to agree to close the airport, and while that did not seem immediately likely, it had become a possibility. Local aircraft owners would in a sense be the ultimate victims of the helicopter problem if it got too great and there were no other answer.

On Tuesday, I filled in for Chris Walsh covering a town board meeting at the Montauk Firehouse. When I got there, it already had been underway for a few minutes, and Pat Trunzo was at the podium. Mr. Trunzo, a builder and former town board member, has for a long time struggled with airport issues. He was a leader in the anti-expansion fight and has continued to press for safety improvements and reductions in noise, which seem nearly impossible as long as the town remains under the heavy thumb of the Federal Aviation Administration.

And so there he was, representing the Quiet Skies Coalition, denouncing the F.A.A.’s idea that shuffling helicopter routes around would spread the noise more equitably. If Washington would not give the three East End airports the right to impose curfews and ban loud aircraft, shutting down the bane of so many summer days on the South Fork was the only choice.

Members of the town board, while not outwardly agreeing, did not blanch at the mention of taking the land and using it for new, valuable purposes. What was once unthinkable has now become a real possibility, whether the pilots and helicopter companies want to believe it or not.