Frequently Asked Questions

This statement is not true for airports like Chatham, which accept Federal and State Funding for capital projects to maintain and improve the airport. 

According to Aviation Expert Attorney Mina Makarious, partner at Anderson Krieger, LLP:

"FAA requires all airports that have taken any federal funding, like Chatham, to make the airport available to all types of aircraft capable of landing there on a not unjustly discriminatory basis.  FAA, not airport owners, decide what those aircraft are.”  For further details, see Attorney Opinions.

Having such rules in place is very common in government funded projects.  For example, Chatham cannot dictate the types of vehicles which can utilize State Route 28.

Katie Buckley Waters, Captain Southwest Airlines (ret): "Article 56 proposes to reduce the distance that aircraft can land by 800 feet. That is a 26% reduction. Why does this pose a safety risk?

Using a relatable analogy, if you were driving on a highway at 100 mph and traffic was stopped ahead, would you like to have 3,001 feet to come to a stop before disaster struck or would you prefer only 2,200 feet to stop? 

Allowing pilots to utilize the entire runway, using normal procedures and standard maneuvers, as they have trained to do, affords a greater margin of safety for all."

Below are comments made by Town Counsel, Aviation Attorney, and Airport expert Consultant Gale Associates at Select Board and Finance Committee meetings to evaluate Articles 56 and 57:

Patrick J. Costello, partner at Louison, Costello, Condon & Pfaff, LLP and Town Counsel for Chatham: 

"I don't believe that the Town has the legal authority to regulate the type of aircraft using CQX,  nor can it deviate from FAA regulation regarding runway dimensions/ configurations by local bylaw. Each of these subject matters has been preempted by federal law"

Mina Makarious., Partner at Anderson and Kreiger, LLP. - Aviation Expert Attorneys:

“Our view is that these Articles are outside of the purview of Town Meeting… when cities or any airport owner takes federal money they commit to certain grant assurances and they cannot change … airport layout without going back to FAA, and FAA strongly disfavors that …so should this pass Town Meeting it would either be of no legal effect because it wouldn’t be enforceable or if the Town attempted to enforce it … the Town could … be subjected to a loss of future federal funding, a clawback of  funding that’s been provided to date as well as potential litigation with users of the airport and the Federal Government.”

Matthew Caron, Director of Aviation, Gale Associates (expert consultant to the Airport Commission):

“First and foremost the proposed article references the federal aviation administration advisory circular 150 5300–13 B which is the FAA’s design manual for airports. So essentially all the facilities at the airport follow this manual in terms of their design criteria and I noticed that the Article [56] takes this design manual out of context and ignores the basic requirement that’s listed in section 3.5.3.2 which states ‘Consider a displaced threshold only after a full evaluation establishes that displacement is the best available alternative. While threshold displacement is a convenient solution for constrained airports the evaluation needs to weigh the trade-offs and consequences of a displaced threshold’.

I have been following the article very closely and I’ve been listening to the presentations that were made during the select board meeting and not once have I heard or seen a full evaluation prepared by the authors of this article weighing the trade-offs and consequences of displacing the thresholds. I’m unaware of any correspondence or coordination that the proponents of the article have had with the Federal Aviation Administration or MassDOT aeronautics division. 

I personally discussed with FAA New England region regarding this proposal and it is not supported by the FAA for the following reasons … It introduces an even greater safety issue which is the limitation of available runway for landing at Chatham. In accepting federal funds over the years the town has a contractual obligation that it won’t make or permit any changes or alterations in the airport or any of his facilities which are not in conformity with the airport layout plan as approved by the secretary and which might in the opinion of the secretary adversely affect the safety, the utility, and I want to emphasize that word utility, or efficiency of the airport. 

So having personally worked with the airport commission in preparing its airport layout plan I can assure you that this proposed change to the utility of the runway is not on an approved airport layout plan supported by the Secretary. The FAA is also crystal clear in appendix H of that design advisory circular that I referenced, that a full operational use of the paved runway is ‘optimum’.  In short, Mr. Chair … this article in my opinion is asking the Town to blindly support and engage in ‘any and all legal proceedings’ without having conducted a full evaluation of the trade-offs and consequences of the proposal as clearly stated in FAA 150 5300-13B.”

Aside from the direct (and unlimited) legal and administrative fees, and the possible repayment of past grants, Chatham would suffer from a reduction of the Economic Benefits enjoyed by the Town stemming from aviation activities.  This reduction affects the many businesses that benefit from thousands of aviation visitors.  Ultimately this results in a weaker tax base and higher tax rate for our citizens.  Also, loss of grant money would place an increased burden on taxpayers to maintain airport infrastructure.

The measures proposed in Articles 56 and 57 are unrelated to any of the accidents which have occurred in the vicinity of Chatham.  These measures would not have prevented any of those accidents.  There are, however, FAA approved plans that the Airport Commission is pursuing which have a proven record of improving safety and reducing noise.  These plans keep the runway at 3001 feet, neither expanding nor contracting the existing runway.

According to Lonnie Pickett, former manager of Chatham Airport:  "I don’t understand why Chatham would even consider trying to place restrictions on our airport.  As airport manager in Chatham during the 1980’s and 1990’s through to 2010, I experienced years when there were airplanes lined up waiting to take off in the summer, much busier than today.  It seems that certain airport neighbors have a strong objection to the noise, especially coming from turboprop aircraft (like the Pilatus PC-12) which occasionally visit our airport.  Most of these folks were not here when much noisier warbirds such as the P51 Mustang made frequent visits, and the older twin-engine aircraft with loud piston engines were more common.  These Folks are complaining about the airport becoming “commercialized” when in fact there have been commercial operations at the airport going back to the 1960’s when Nauset Airways had scheduled service to Boston and New York.  The aircraft they used were Douglas DC-3’s, which had powerful and very loud twin engines and a wingspan of 95 feet, almost double that of the PC-12! In the 1980’s and 90’s we even had two charter operators that operated twins and were based right here in Chatham.  All this without a single incident over these years! And, as it turns out, the PC-12 generates a lower noise profile than those old noisy twins and others operating today.

If you move to a home next to a highway, can you expect that the highway will have less traffic over time?  Can you expect to ban the trucks on the highway because they make more noise?  Let’s just leave Chatham airport to be what it has been for a long time – a small airport with a diverse set of users and benefits to the Community."