WASHINGTON — Fear and concern linger in Hunters Woods, East Village and other Gaithersburg neighborhoods near Montgomery County Airpark, nearly a year after a twin-engine jet crashed while trying to land, killing six people.
While the National Transportation Safety Board has not completed its investigation of the Dec. 8, 2014 crash, neighbors have been pressing the Montgomery County government for changes in the airpark’s flight operations.
“I’m deeply saddened and disappointed that since the crash the county has done absolutely nothing to address the issue of safety,” Brian Behaim, a resident of the East Village, told a Wednesday night community forum set up by the county so that neighbors could air their grievances and comments.
Last year, 36-year-old Marie Gemmell and her two sons, 3-year-old Cole and 7-week-old Devin, were killed when a twin-engine jet crashed into their home. The pilot and two passengers were also killed.
Neighbors are pressing the airpark to alter flight patterns, including flying at higher altitudes during takeoffs and landings, reducing noise and discontinuing touch-and-go flights — which are repeated landings and takeoffs that pilots use in training.
“I’d like to suggest one thing that I think could make the airport operations a whole lot safer for everyone, and that is to abolish touch-and-go’s and eliminate the practice flights,” Behaim said.
Last December’s frightening crash on Drop Forge Lane has left its mark on the psyche of the airpark’s neighbors.
David Klein told the community forum that his East Village home lies directly under the flight path.
“When some of those planes kind of sputter over my house I say a prayer for you when I’m on my deck,” Klein said.
Twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Edsall of Hadley Farms, a neighborhood north of the airpark, told the forum of her concerns about the impact of the air operations on her 2-year-old daughter.
“It’s really concerning to us especially at night, I’m sometimes in her room rocking her to sleep and those airplanes are so loud and so low over my child’s bedroom, it wakes her up.”
Pilots — some of whom live nearby and utilize Montgomery County Airpark — also spoke out at the community forum. Felix Ortiz of Gaithersburg, a pilot and member of the TSS Flying Club, offered the assurance that the established safety procedures at the airpark are very good, but he is also sympathetic to neighborhood concerns, a year after the deadly crash.
“As well as being safe aviators, we owe it to ourselves, as pilots, to be good neighbors,” Ortiz says.