Our Case

Footnotes

1. Two different restrictions apply. The year-round zone (NOTAM FDC 5/2809, in effect since October 20, 2025): one nautical mile (about 1.15 miles) around Mar-a-Lago, from the ground to 2,000 feet, every day of the year. Aircraft may enter it only with air traffic control’s authorization, on an instrument flight plan with an approved approach or an assigned departure route, using an assigned transponder code (proposed rule, Sections III and IV.A.1). This is the restriction the FAA proposes to make permanent. The presidential restriction (a temporary flight restriction under 14 CFR 91.141), issued for each presidential visit: according to the proposed rule (Section III), “an inner ring with a 10 NM radius extending from the surface up to and including 17,999 feet MSL” and an outer ring with “a 30 NM radius” to the same height. In the inner ring only certain operations may fly: approved law-enforcement, military aircraft supporting the Secret Service and the Office of the President, approved air ambulances, and “regularly scheduled commercial passenger and all cargo carriers arriving or departing from a 14 CFR part 139 airport.” In the outer ring, aircraft may arrive at or depart from the airport, or pass through where air traffic control can accommodate them. During a visit the FAA “layers the § 91.141 TFR over the SSI flight restriction,” and the proposal says the visit restriction’s requirements “would be controlling.” Before October 20, 2025, only the presidential restriction existed: when the President was away, only a restriction on drones remained, and the heavier routing measures applied only during visits (FAA administrative record in Palm Beach County v. FAA, AR 57, 157–58). ↩

2. The restriction in effect since October 20, 2025 is NOTAM FDC 5/2809: one nautical mile (about 1.15 miles) around Mar-a-Lago, from the ground to 2,000 feet. The proposal is docket FAA-2026-10827, 91 Fed. Reg. 56380, published September 2, 2026. The proposed rule makes the airspace restriction permanent; the flight paths came from separate FAA procedures (new headings in October 2025, redesigned procedures in January 2026), and they change only if the FAA changes them. U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel has put the number affected at more than 11,000 homes and 21,000 residents, up from about 2,200 and 5,000 (House testimony, Jan. 14, 2026); her method is not stated. Complaints to the airport rose from 58 in the first ten months of 2025 to 622 between October 20, 2025 and the first week of January 2026, both figures from the airport’s spokesperson as reported by WLRN, Jan. 22, 2026; a later court filing by Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach and the Town of Palm Beach cited more than 6,000, against fewer than a dozen a month before (CBS12, Sept. 2, 2026). We do not question that a restriction should exist; the Secret Service asked for one in writing. Our questions are about its size and about the environmental assessment we believe the rule should have. We would like to work with the FAA to find solutions. ↩

3. Measurements: the method of our Six Homes Flight Noise Record of September 30, 2026 (filed as part of Exhibit D), recomputed on the same saved data and rules at 70 decibels instead of the record’s 65; at 65 decibels the recomputation reproduces every figure in the record’s Tables 5 and 6. Counted: aircraft events whose loudest one-second A-weighted average reached 70 dB or more, measured outdoors, between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., the hours the FAA treats as night when it computes DNL; events not matched to a specific flight, and impulses flagged by the acoustic-shape screen, are excluded; a night counts only if the monitor recorded at least 90% of it. Typical busy-season night (median): Poinciana Park and Prospect Park 12, Estate Section 11, Historic El Cid 10 (April at the four West Palm Beach homes, whose monitors started in early April; February 15 to April 30 at the Estate Section); Everglades Island 9 (April 23 to May 31); Flamingo Park 7. Worst night: 31 aircraft at 70 dB or more at the Estate Section home on Thursday, March 12, 2026. Midnight to 6 a.m., over each home’s whole record: at least one such aircraft on 61% to 72% of nights at five homes, and 35% at the Flamingo Park home. World Health Organization, Guidelines for Community Noise (1999), Table 1 and p. 43: 60 dB L_Amax (“fast”) outside bedrooms at night, set so that, with a window partly open (which the WHO assumes cuts sound by 15 dB), the level inside stays at the 45 dB L_Amax it gives for bedrooms; the same guidelines say that for good sleep, indoor levels “should not exceed approximately 45 dB LAmax more than 10–15 times per night” (p. 28). It is a guideline to protect sleep, not a measured threshold of awakening. The WHO’s 2018 Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region set aircraft targets as night-time averages and make no recommendation for single events, but state that the 1999 indoor values “should remain valid” (p. 28). How we compare: the WHO measures a sound’s maximum with a meter’s “fast” response (an eighth of a second); we count each flight by its loudest one-second average. Our monitors also record each flight’s maximum. With the “slow” (one-second) response, used for most of the record, it was within 1 dB of the one-second average for 98% of night flights at 70 dB or more; with the “fast” response, used at two homes for part of the record, it read higher, by a median of 1.2 dB (our check of the same saved data). So on the WHO’s measure these flights were as loud as or louder than we report. “Twice as loud” applies the rule of thumb, stated by the FAA itself, that “an increase of 10 dB is typically heard as a doubling of a sound’s loudness” (Phoenix Area FAA Modernization Project, Draft Environmental Assessment, Appendix J, p. J-6, May 2026). The 1:52 a.m. departure: United Airlines UA 1395, Palm Beach to Newark, Friday, August 21, 2026, highest 82.7 dB at the Prospect Park home. “Nearly five times as loud”: 82.7 dB is 22.7 dB above the WHO’s 60 dB, and on the same rule of thumb 2^(22.7/10) ≈ 4.8. The record does not measure indoor levels or awakenings. ↩

4. Monitors and methods: What It Sounds Like and pbinoise.com. The Coalition’s comment of October 2, 2026 relies on the monitors’ September 30 data export and per-neighborhood Flight Noise Records (Objection VI). Counsel: Steven M. Taber, Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman. Experts as identified in the Coalition’s comment to the FAA of October 2, 2026, which describes Mr. Freytag as “John C. Freytag, P.E., INCE Emeritus, President of Freytag & Associates, LLC”; the airspace reviewer, a former FAA Airspace and Procedures Specialist with more than 34 years of FAA and military air traffic control experience, is not named, at the reviewer’s request. Our counts include only events matched to a specific flight under Metrics and Computation Methods v1.5 (September 30, 2026); unmatched events are excluded. Extension request: the Coalition’s comment, Conclusion: “PBQS joins the requests of Representative Lois Frankel, Commissioner Gregg Weiss, Mayor Danielle Moore, and the Citizens’ Committee on Airport Noise for a 60-day extension of the comment period and a public meeting in Palm Beach County.” ↩