California FAA Tower Closures/Understaffed Towers

The Federal Aviation Administration has announced 238 FAA Control Towers will be closed because of sequestration. Criteria are airports with less than 150,000 takeoffs and landings per year. Date of closure will be 7 April 2013, according to last report. The FAA also announced 72 airport towers will be understaffed while remaining open. Of air traffic control towers managed by the Federal Contract Tower Program, 75% will be closed.

The California towers to be closed are:

Brackett

Brown Field

Camarillo

Castle

Concord

El Monte

Fullerton

Hawthorne

Lancaster

Livermore

Napa

Oxnard

Palmdale

Riverside

Ramona

Sacramento Executive-KSAC

Santa Monica (The hostile city council will go nuts over this)

Salinas Municipal

San Carlos

Sonoma County

Stockton (The city went into bankruptcy last week)

Victorville

California airports which will be understaffed:

Edwards AFB

Fresno Tower

Ontario Tower High Desert TRACON

Sacramento Tower-KSMF or KMCC? need clarification here.

Unannounced, but I'll bet Air Force One will not be affected in any way by sequestration.

Torsten, the FAA ATCT closure situation is fluid, to say the least. Today, AOPA is reporting it is now up to 149 towers to be closed, and news that Texas will state-fund 14 of their towers on the list to remain open, despite the FAA intended closure of those 14.

Newest report from our FAA is that the closure of 149 air traffic control towers at "small" airports is being delayed until June 15, as the agency needs more time to deal with mounting legal challenges to their action. These 149 towers are operated by private contractors for the agency and are expected to be closed all at once on June 15, rather than being phased gradually in over time, as was their original plan.

The FAA has not responded to two letters from an aviation committee of the US Congress for more justification for the closures. The second letter berated the FAA for it's lack of response to the first letter.

Locally, Oxnard Airport OXR had been slated for closure on May 5. Ventura County, it's owner's officials are considering options, including joining a lawsuit to try to prevent the closure or to fund the tower operation itself, according to the Ventura County Director of Airports, Todd McNamee.

Meanwhile, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, one of our nation's busiest is slated for closure by the FAA of one of its TWO towers, which would halt all traffic on two runways and create many travel problems. KORD's towers are O'Hare Tower Center and O'Hare Tower North. Stay tuned to this never-ending potentially dangerous saga.