Airspace

It is undeserved to describe private pilots as opposing the enlargement of the LAX Terminal Control Areas, just because we are "unhappy about losing uncontrolled airspace." Your article talks about how the FAA's regulations are largely reactionary, not preventive. The result is that when an accident such as Cerritos happens, the FAA imposes more restrictions. What is needed is for the FAA to redesign the airspace so that it can safely accommodate all of the traffic in the L.A. Basin.

U.S. high-altitude reconnaissance planes violated North Korean airspace on spy flights more than 130 times in 1987, Pyongyang's official news agency said Tuesday. The Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, said the latest intrusion came when an SR-71 spy plane flew deep into North Korea's airspace above its territorial waters east of Kosong for three minutes Tuesday.

Two years after a Soviet fighter downed a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet in Soviet airspace and plunged 269 people to their deaths in the Sea of Japan, a handful of skeptics claim to have unearthed tantalizing new evidence that the airliner's fatal course, far from accidental meandering, had a far more sinister purpose--spying.

The Soviet Union admitted today that an unarmed Soviet target missile might have strayed into the airspace of Finland and Norway. The Soviets said they regret the incident. Moscow's ambassadors in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, and in Helsinki, capital of Finland, expressed their regrets in meetings with the two countries' foreign ministers, the governments of Norway and Finland announced.

Peter S. Greenberg's story Jan. 5 about near-misses between aircraft was incredibly one-sided. Aren't all students of basic journalism taught that there are at least two sides to every issue? Greenberg presented the airspace congestion issue from the airlines' point of view only, while completely ignoring the military's side and passing off general aviation, by far the largest group of airspace users, as "Sunday fliers." I invite Greenberg to take the time to discover general aviation's side of the story.

Indian authorities today released two American and two West German pilots 10 days after they were detained and questioned for flying over restricted airspace, the U.S. Embassy said. "I can confirm that the four pilots . . . were unconditionally released (today)," said a U.S. Embassy official. He refused to elaborate, citing the U.S. Privacy Act. The State Department identified the two as Frank Haile Jr. of Dallas and Carson Gilmore of Rocksprings, Tex. The two, flying a Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, were forced down by Indian fighters June 16 for intruding into restricted airspace over Bhuj area in western Gujarat state.

President Reagan and French President Francois Mitterrand went to unusual lengths Tuesday to patch up their relationship, which has been especially strained since France refused to allow American F-111 warplanes to fly through its airspace on their way to last month's bombing raid on Libya. "Let this be the first day of the rest of our lives," Reagan told Mitterrand in a private meeting at the residence of U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield.

A Canair Cargo plane crashed on the side of a mountain near here, killing both crew members, authorities said. Air traffic controllers lost radio and radar contact with the plane Wednesday night as it flew in U.S. airspace from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Hamilton, Ontario. The Convair Trader 401 was chartered to Federal Express.

As a passenger involved in the near-miss incident between the airliner and light plane over Santa Monica (Part I, Aug. 12), I feel fortunate to write this letter. Safe negotiation of the airspace above the Los Angeles basin is a complicated process which taxes the ability of many an inexperienced pilot. In addition to handling the distractions involved in operating an aircraft, pilots must be on constant watch for other planes and also avoid inadvertent entry into the restricted Terminal Control Area surrounding each of the basin's commercial airports.