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New App to Let NW Side Residents Track O'Hare Planes Keeping Them Awake

By Heather Cherone | June 5, 2015 12:15pm | Updated on June 8, 2015 8:17am
 An advocacy group acknowledged little action has been taken on local jet noise complaints.
An advocacy group acknowledged little action has been taken on local jet noise complaints.
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Flickr/ Jim Wissemes

O'HARE — A new city website will allow Chicago residents to keep tabs — in almost real time — on the planes that keep them up at night, make it impossible to watch television or enjoy their yards, officials said.

The new Flight Tracker app, unveiled Friday by city officials, will allow angry Northwest Side residents — and aviation buffs — to watch on a 20-minute delay as planes take off and land at Midway and O'Hare airports.

The website allows users to zoom within three or four blocks of a location to see exactly where the planes are flying and their altitude, said Aaron Frame, a deputy commissioner with the city's Department of Aviation.

Data on past flights will be available for 90 days, Frame said.

Heather Cherone says the city won't include any noise data:

The website uses radar data from the Federal Aviation Administration, Frame said.

Dozens of other private companies provide similar information with other flight tracker apps.

O'Hare noise opponents frequently use that information to support their complaints about the impact of incessant jet noise on their quality of life.

The city's flight tracker shows arrivals in red, with departures in green. Planes headed to or from O'Hare appear as dark red and dark green planes, while those taking off or landing at Midway are a lighter shade, officials said.

However, the city's flight tracker won't tell users how noisy the planes are — the source of more than 920,000 complaints since Jan. 1, officials said.

City officials decided to disable that function — available in other apps — because there would be no way to distinguish between airplane noise and the clatter of Metra trains or the sound of construction, Frame said.

In October 2013, a new east-west runway opened as part of the $8.7 billion O'Hare Modernization Program, sending hundreds of flights over areas of the Northwest Side like North Park, Jefferson Park Edgebrook, Edison Park and Norwood Park that previously heard little or no jet noise in previous years.

Flight patterns at O'Hare are designed to ensure the airport operated as efficiently and safely as possible, federal aviation officials said.

But perhaps adding insult to injury, delays have been even more common than in the five years before the strip opened, according to an analysis published Friday by The Associated Press.

Through March, nearly 28 percent of departures from O'Hare were delayed, as compared with 22 percent during the five years before the newest east-west runway opened. The number of delayed arriving flights also jumped 6 percentage points to 26 percent.

Nationwide, the number of delayed flights increased only three percent, the AP reported.

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