Some noise abatement measures for the DCA

Published on: Tuesday, May 09, 2017

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By Ex-pilot
KOTA Kinabalu is now the 2nd busiest airport in Malaysia.

Numerous planes, especially charter ones, make landings and takeoffs in the early hours of the morning.

Jet engines make a lot of noise. In the middle of the night, the noise seems louder.

During the day the noise is loud enough to be disruptive to ordinary telephone conversion – especially to those living on Signal Hill. As the city grows and flight frequencies increase, the noise disturbance is likely to increase.

In this respect,can we request that the Dept. of Civil Aviation look into this matter of noise abatement for the International Airport of Kota Kinabalu?

In all noise sensitive cities in the world, there is in place some kind of noise abatement procedure.

For KK, may we suggest that for departures using runway 02 (takeoffs towards the north), that:

1. An Area Departure be drawn out incorporating noise abatement.

2. All flights make a left turn, say after passing 300 feet, to a heading of 330 degrees.

3. In the event of an engine failure, an escape route can easily be plotted by each airline concerned.

4. For flights wanting to make a right turn to the east, they can do so after passing say, 3000 feet.

It will also be noted that the flight path comes fairly close to QE 1 Hospital (around 600 metres) – another noise sensitive area to be avoided. This noise abatement procedure will also have an added benefit to airlines wishing to save fuel and flight time when flights to the south make an early turn.

Of course there will also be an added benefit to the city’s future development of high rise buildings – IF the need arises.

Ex-pilot