Is It Really Worth $41 Million To Mess With Davis-Monthan AFB's Runway? By Dave Devine A DECEMBER 1947 headline screamed across the top of Tucson's morning newspaper, "12 MEN KILLED IN B-29 CRASH." In December 1967 the message was "Plane Plows Into Tucson Shopping Center--15 FEARED DEAD IN FIERY CRASH." Then in October 1978, the words were "Jet kills 1, spares kids" as the plane barely missed hitting Mansfeld Middle School south of the University of Arizona. Each of these crashes of planes based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson occurred in a different part of town. Given the various crash sites around the community, why do local leaders and the Air Force want to spend up to $41 million to put DM's Accident Potential Zone (APZ) almost exclusively on the base? The APZ is an Air Force-defined area which stretches out a few miles beyond each end of the runway. Such zones are determined by an analysis of the location of crashes at many military airports. Local conditions or crash experiences are not given special consideration in defining Tucson's APZ. But the presence of incompatible land uses, such as homes or schools, in the APZ is considered encroachment on a runway by the Air Force. Encroachment has been a major problem for DM for many years, and a potential reason why the Pentagon could one day revoke DM's flying mission. Estimates of the loss to the community if the base were closed hover around $500 million in federal spending annually and 11,450 jobs. In an effort to prevent this from happening, a few years ago a new runway parallel to the existing one was proposed for DM. However, while Arizona Governor J. Fife Symington III and Tucson Mayor George Miller got very excited about the idea, cost and other factors killed the proposal before it went very far. Now the idea of extending DM's runway more than 8,000 feet to the southeast is being considered. Kendall Bert, the city's director of Economic Development, says the project would remove all residential land uses and places of public assembly, like Julia Keen Elementary School, from the APZ at the northwest end of DM's runway. Instead, most of the APZ would be on the base itself, thus eliminating almost all encroachment. To implement the project, state government would contribute $10 million, and the Pima Association of Governments $13 million to acquire land and realign Valencia Road south of DM. The Air Force would spend up to $18 million to extend and improve the existing runway and make other needed changes on the base. According to Bert, once the Air Force gives the go-ahead, it should take about three years to complete the project. But Richard Corzine, longtime critic of the Air Force's flight practices and the city government's relationship to DM, sees the project differently. He believes the real problem of the continuation of flights over central Tucson is ignored in this proposal. Plus, he charges, the $41 million this project could cost is being wasted, since most crashes in Tucson haven't occurred in the APZ. Corzine insists this project will not do much to reduce the Air Force's noisy, low-flying jet traffic over Tucson. He told the City Council recently, "Encroachment will not be reduced one iota until flight tracks are taken away" (from the city). Corzine has become somewhat of a gadfly at Council meetings over this issue. In a March 25 petition to the City Council, Corzine argues that more use by the Air Force of Tucson International Airport would be much cheaper and more effective in reducing overflight problems. In addition, citing the location of 11 plane crashes in Tucson over the past 50 years, Corzine points out only three happened in the APZ. He claims that when he presented this information to City Manager Michael Brown, he was told it was merely anecdotal data. As Corzine wrote in one communication, "Spending approximately $42 million for a short southeasterly extension does nothing but squander taxpayer dollars to make political leaders look like they are saving DM." City Councilman Steve Leal disagrees. He represents the area north of the base, and was one of the first to propose the runway extension idea several years ago. He thinks it's the best possibility for solving noise problems caused by military flights over the city. Leal says he has personal reasons for supporting the idea. He once lived in the neighborhood just off the northwest end of the runway near Julia Keen Elementary School, along with "a cat that had a twitch in its eye" caused by the jet noise. When he moved to another neighborhood farther from the end of the runway, the noise problem abated. He expects the proposed runway extension to do the same for those people now living in the APZ. The noise problems for Julia Keen Elementary School and the hundreds of residents around it can not be underestimated. A 1985 Arizona Daily Star article on the school quoted a longtime teacher as saying a new student could be spotted "because he jumps when jets from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base fly overhead, and he thinks they're coming through the window." The runway extension project will decrease this noise problem somewhat. But is Corzine right when he insists that after the relatively quiet, but aging, A-10 planes that now make up most of the fleet at DM are replaced in a few years with a louder aircraft, the noise problems will just return for the school and its neighbors? Is he correct in arguing city officials should know how much the extension would reduce the noise over Julia Keen before they support the project? Is he reasonable when he says the only real solution for the students at Julia Keen may be to move the school? Given local officials' hands-off attitude toward asking tough questions of the Air Force, it's doubtful any of Corzine's issues will be answered fully. But if the A-10 is replaced by a new plane at DM, and the noise returns to the neighborhood around Julia Keen, people may wonder where their $41 million went.

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