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There is an airport in my city that is relatively low traffic. It has a landing strip that runs north-south, and it looks like if you were to go ten miles straight south from that landing strip, you'd pass over my property.

The noise is infrequent and quiet enough that it isn't very bothersome, but I'm more or less in the flight path. But I'm ten miles away in its airpath. What should I be concerned about?

  • Should I be concerned about jet fuel exhaust or anything as far as my personal health and safety are concerned?
  • Is there any precaution I should take in the event that aircraft were to fall into my property?

What else should I know?

Concerned Landowner
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    Don't be concerned about exhaust, you get a much higher dose spending 10 minutes on a busy street. The only precaution you should take if an aircraft fell on your property would be to call the authorities. Do not move the aircraft, even after everybody leaves. – Ron Beyer Feb 01 '17 at 03:29
  • If you have young kids, it's probably not a good idea to show them Donnie Darko.

    Appart from this, the risks are sufficiently remote so that you don't need to think about it.

     – Antzi Feb 01 '17 at 03:39
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    Well, if the Queen of England can stand living about 10 miles west of one of the world's busiest airports... – jamesqf Feb 01 '17 at 04:41
  • "precaution I should take". What do you mean? A precaution implies prevention. Are you asking what you can do to stop an aircraft crashing onto your property or what you can put in place to deal with the aftermath? – Simon Feb 01 '17 at 07:17
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    What should you know?? Well the wet hire & instructor rates of course. Go learn to fly! – Jamiec Feb 01 '17 at 09:03
  • Take a walk to the airport and ask. How long you been living there? How long airport been there? – user6035379 Feb 01 '17 at 11:28

1 Answers1

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1: At large international airports there has been at least some research to suggest that there may be affects on your health (http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0529-lax-pollution-20140529-story.html) but I'm assuming this is quite a small general aviation airport. With the low traffic, small planes, and far distance away frorm the airport, you are probably not experiencing much as a direct result of exhaust.

2: There is an almost no chance that an aircraft would land on your property. If one did happen to land on your property the NTSB does provide some guidance for public saftey personel: https://www.ntsb.gov/tda/TDADocuments/SPC0402.pdf.

This PDF is aimed at public safety personnel. If you want to be an active participant in this emergency, feel free to follow it and the rest of this post. If you don't want to get involved, please just stay at a safe distance away from the accident and report it to emergency services.

If you are going to try to help you probably want to receive training on first aid before anything happens. Once an accident occurs you can do several things. For the most part, you initially respond just as you would to any other emergency, first by securing the scene and making sure you are not in immediate danger and then calling emergency services. Be careful when approaching the plane, especially if anything is still moving (propeller spinning etc). There are also many dangerous substances that could be present at the site of a plane crash (listed in the NSTB PDF). No one on the ground needs to be injured unnecessarily after a plane crash.

Once everyone is out of the plane, get far away from it and wait for emergency services to arrive.

  • Administer first aid (if trained) to anyone who was injured
  • Call the NTSB at 1-844-373-9922 to report the accident (It is the pilots responsibility to report the accident)
  • Take photos and video of the crash and surrounding area so investigators have plenty of documentation to look through to determine the cause of the crash. This will also be useful for insurance purposes.
  • If you see anyone else around who may have witnessed the accident, try to get their name and contact information to emergency services or the NTSB so they can be contacted if needed in any investigation
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    Welcome to Aviation.SE! I upvoted your answer, but I disagree with a couple statements. First, do NOT act as the "public safety personnel", it isn't your responsibility as property owner, it is the responsibility of the police/fire. It is also not your responsibility to contact the NTSB, it is the pilot's or police. You would want to get owner information for insurance purposes though. Also don't detain anybody at the scene, get names/numbers but it isn't your responsibility to keep somebody from leaving. Also be careful rendering assistance when not trained, it is easy to make injuries worse. – Ron Beyer Feb 01 '17 at 05:18
  • And just as a side-note. The NTSB will very often not show up to the scene of many accidents, especially GA accidents. A statement to the police is sufficient in that regard and the NTSB may contact you if they require more information. Take photos for insurance purposes, but the police/investigators will take their own photos since they know what to focus on. – Ron Beyer Feb 01 '17 at 05:20
  • @RonBeyer Absolutely, I'll try to edit that to make it a little more clear. Of course it isn't your responsibility to do any of those things but I am assuming this person would like to help if they took the time to ask this question. If you don't want to do anything you can of course just stay at a safe distance away and call in help. If you are able and willing to help, those are some of the things you can do. –  Feb 01 '17 at 05:29
  • The "chance", although statistically meaningless, is logically higher 10 miles out roughly on the flight path than 50 miles out since more traffic will be concentrated there. – Simon Feb 01 '17 at 07:13
  • @Simon OK I've taken that part out. I don't know for sure either way but since most GA (assuming that is what the question is talking about) aircraft don't make super long straight in finals, I don't think there is any major difference between 10 and 50 miles away. The point I was just trying to make (badly) was that it would be a much higher chance if you were directly next to an airport. There would be more planes that would crash there trying to make the impossible turn or not correctly following their minimum takeoff distance for example. –  Feb 01 '17 at 07:19
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    @mins you are correct, I had changed it from "an extremely small chance" in a previous edit. –  Feb 01 '17 at 07:32