The government has denied any wrongdoing in its initial answer to a lawsuit alleging the Air Force illegally approved expansion of training for visiting aircraft at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
Three Tucson residents filed a federal lawsuit in January, alleging the Air Force failed to follow federal law and Pentagon policy in finding that the expansion of the Total Force Training program would have no significant impact on the community.
The plaintiffs, represented by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, want the court to rule the expansion plan illegal and order the Air Force to conduct a more complex analysis and an environmental impact statement.
In its answer in the U.S. District Court in Tucson, the government denied any violations of the National Environmental Policy Act or any other law, and said the plaintiffs arenβt entitled to any relief. No hearings have been set in the case.
The plaintiffs allege they have suffered physical and emotional injuries and loss of home values from military jet overflights, that the Air Force failed to adequately study noise and health effects of increased overflights, and that lower-income residents were not properly informed of the expansion plans.
The plan approved by the Air Force in April 2015 would allow training sorties to increase up to 65 percent from a 2009 baseline, to 2,326 annually, with some aircraft that are louder than those regularly flown from D-M. One sortie is a flight operation by a single plane, from takeoff to final landing.
D-M officials have noted that even if the base reached the new cap on sorties, they would constitute about 6 percent of D-Mβs overall flight operations.
