HACKENSACK — City officials are protesting the FAA's decision to postpone a change to the flight path of planes landing at Teterboro Airport.

The FAA had agreed to divert the path away from Hackensack University Medical Center and high-rise apartment buildings along Prospect Avenue. But last month agency officials announced that the change, which was planned for August, would instead be delayed until March 2020.

“We’re very upset. We believed we were making progress and working cooperatively toward a solution,” said Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino, who represents the city on the Teterboro Airport Noise Abatement Advisory Committee, a group of airport and municipal officials who oversee aircraft noise and recommend changes to the FAA and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

City Council members asked the public Tuesday night to urge the FAA to act sooner by calling in noise complaints when planes fly low overhead and appeal to their federal and state representatives. Some residents suggested protesting outside the airport or filing a lawsuit if nothing is done.

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The conflict between the airport and the surrounding residential communities has been building for years.

Traffic into the airport, which opened in 1919 to accommodate single-engine planes, has increased, and residents have complained of noise from the larger private jets that now use the runways.

Teachers at Hillers Elementary School, which sits along the flight path, have to close classroom windows to be heard, Mayor John Labrosse said. On weekends the airplane noise is so loud and frequent that Labrosse said he cannot sit outside his home.

“It’s brutal,” he said. “Most of these planes have maybe two pilots and two or three passengers on them. It’s a lot of pain for the gain of a few people.”

Concern has also grown over the possibility of a crash in the densely populated area along the flight path.

In 2017, a plane bound for Teterboro crashed in Carlstadt, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

“We’re concerned. God forbid there is an accident. Why risk it?” said Soheila Spaeth, who lives in a 26-story building on Prospect Avenue. “Preventative measures are always better than acting after a catastrophe.”

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City officials thought a solution was at hand when an agreement was reached more than a year ago to direct incoming flights west of the current approach, away from the hospital and high-rise buildings and over Maywood and Rochelle Park — two communities without tall apartment buildings.

In 2016, the FAA implemented a six-month test of a flight path that would take planes along the Route 17 corridor.

But that path, which was dubbed the “quiet visual approach” and required pilots to use visual checkpoints like Garden State Plaza and a sports dome in Waldwick, was barely used by pilots, who preferred to use instruments to land their planes.

The plan that was to be implemented in August would have allowed pilots to use instruments to land their planes while avoiding the hospital and high-rises.

The proposed flight path, called the GPS option, would only be used during good weather with clear visibility, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Authority. Planes would continue to use the current approach to runway 19 at Teterboro in stormy conditions or when there is heavy air traffic.

FAA officials announced that the flight path change was delayed until March 2020 at the noise abatement committee’s quarterly meeting last month.

Officials blamed the delay on the federal government shutdown in January.

The agency was unable to hire a consultant to perform environmental testing as part of the work because of the shutdown. When the federal government reopened, the person lined up for the job had taken another position, pushing the project's timeline back.

The agency has restarted the process to award a contract for an environmental assessment of the new flight path, which must be completed before pilots can begin using it, Peters said.

Canestrino said she was told the Teterboro work had become a lower priority to the agency than other areas with safety concerns.

“As residents of this city, where we are seeing the most noise, the most air traffic and planes flying the closest to the most densely populated street in all of Bergen County, I think we have a right to have a very high priority,” she said. “We have a flight path, we know what we want to do, let’s just get it done.”

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