Lower, louder more frequent flights have residents calling for changes in flights out of MSP.

More than 130 people jammed a Metropolitan Airports Commission hearing room Tuesday night to complain, sometimes emotionally, about a recent increase in jet noise over their homes and neighborhoods.

The MAC's manager for noise, environment and planning, Chad Leqve, told the group that a change in Federal Aviation Administration flight routes has increased the number of flights on the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport's north runway by almost 33 percent, sending more traffic north and west.

The FAA's Carl Rydeen explained that takeoff patterns were changed after a control tower mistake in September 2010 almost caused a mid-air collision between two planes taking off on parallel runways.

Those speaking at the public input hearing said they wanted a more complete explanation, answers about why the planes are lower, louder and more frequent, and action to change the FAA routing plan.

"I still don't understand why there are 4,000 more flights over that neighborhood," Minneapolis City Council Member Sandy Colvin Roy said. "We need some answers and we need some solutions."

South Minneapolis resident Jason Stone said the FAA's explanation that safety concerns are the reason for the flight changes is disappointing.

"The density, frequency and the amount of planes that are being forced through is the safety issue," he said. "It seems like airport officials have no idea what changing flight patterns does to people's lives."

Others told the MAC's Noise Oversight Committee, which held Tuesday night's open forum:
- Plane noise and sound vibration is so bad it has set off car alarms in their neighborhoods.
- Planes are flying lower than they used to and making turns earlier, often under 1,500 feet, increasing the noise levels.
- Recordings made in the neighborhoods just north of the airport show noise levels of several flights at 80 decibels (about the level of sound a garbage disposal makes).
- Flights often run only minutes apart.
- The MAC's sound-monitoring system is inadequate and misleading because it doesn't take the pitch of jet noise into account and the monitoriing stations have an eight-second delay that doesn't allow them to record noise at its highest levels.
- At least 26 people attended the meeting from the Powederhorn neighborhood in Minneapolis, far north of the neighborhoods usually affected by noise.
- Flighs are now directed over neighborhoods that haven't been sound-proofed by the MAC.

Many people who testified complained that the FAA and the MAC didn't inform residents of the changing noise patterns and continued to blame the flight changes on wind patterns and the weather even after they knew the real reason for the changes.

Leqve, the MAC's noice, enviroment and planning manager, said the MAC wasn't informed of the changes, either.

"To be very honest with you," he said, "we at the MAC did not know it happened. We did not know about the change the FAA had made until there was a spike in complaints."

Richfield's representative on the oversight committee, City Councilman Tom Fitzhenry, said the city experienced the same type of complaints.

"Richfield has been aware of the change in departures through taking complaints from citizens and monitoring departures and has been meeting with the MAC," he said Wednesday. 

The MAC is "in the process in developing RNAV departures, which will be a more precision exit over the less noise sensitive areas like the Crosstown Highway. This procedure is still in the development stages and will be reviewed by the (noise committee) sometime in the future," Fitzhenry explained.

Dan Boivin, who was apointed to chair the commission last February, told the group there's only so much the MAC can do about the noise because the flight patterns are set by the FAA. But he promised to call another meeting after Tuesday night's testimony is analyzed and studied and to work with residents to fix the problem.

One woman in the audience responded: "We're not going away."

The airports commission has a noise website with information about the issue at www.macnoise.com.