For alert commuters on the Harbor and San Diego freeways Thursday morning, it must have been a disconcerting sight.
The air show that is a highlight of those freeways--the chain of jets emerging from the eastern sky and descending in majestic formation toward Los Angeles International Airport--had changed. Drastically. Instead of landing from the east, planes were \o7 taking off \f7 to the east.
They were not going the wrong way. Commuters were witnessing an infrequent aerial ballet choreographed by officials at LAX, the Los Angeles Air Route Center in Palmdale and other Federal Aviation Authority traffic control centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
It happens about 30 days a year, usually during bad winter weather when Southern California wind patterns change from the prevailing west-to-east pattern.
It is called "turning the airport around."
"It takes a lot of coordination and communication," said Eiliff Andersen, area manager at the Palmdale center, which regulates air traffic when it is more than 40 miles from LAX. "It's like a freeway. Traffic is constantly running, then you'll have an accident or a traffic jam and things are held up until you get it straightened out."
Freeway problems don't require reversing the direction of cars, however.
Wind is the determining factor. Airplanes have to take off and land into the wind. That is why runways at LAX and most other Southern California airports run east to west, said Richard Cox, manager of Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), the radar facility on Imperial Highway that works with the LAX control tower.
Planes Head West
Usually, planes approach LAX along three major lanes from the east, north and south, with a few approaching from the Pacific Ocean. They are directed into two landing files that descend from the east over Inglewood or Lennox to the airport, Andersen said.
For takeoffs, the normal pattern is for planes to head west over the ocean. Those that have eastern destinations go north or south to flight paths that do not interfere with incoming traffic.
The Palmdale center regulates the flow of incoming planes above 13,000 feet and more than 40 miles away; TRACON tracks the planes between 5 and 40 miles away; and the Los Angeles control tower handles them once they are within 5 miles.
"And we all keep an eye on the weather," Andersen said. "We'll coordinate well in advance. We might say, 'Tomorrow we'll probably be turning the airport around at noon.' "
