T-Mobile is one step from murder

I am a soon to be pilot of a small airport in central PA, Mifflintown PA. T mobile built a cell tower over the ridge from the airport that is in the approach pattern. This means it is a route that every planes uses to land. My dad, the owner of the airport, filed a law suite against T mobile. Instead of T mobile being smart. They appealed it and doesn't care at all about peopel's safety. They finished building the tower over three years. A couple pilot's got arrested for trying to stop the construction. A local pilot went flying later that day and was arrested for flying in the pattern that he has always flown in all of his flying career. The reason why he was arrested was because the people with t mobile called the state police on him for flying over the construction site. This is wrong. T mobile does not deserve to do anything. Planes hit cell towers a good bit, and we wanted to prevent it from happening to anybody. If a plane hit that tower, T mobile would be committing murder. All of this when they could've put the tower a few hills over. Please reply so I can get people's opinions. Thanks

Kenny...if anything you should sue the county zoning commission that allowed it to be built there. TM put in a request for a tower there, the county commission/board approved of it, and they put it there. So direct your anger toward your town zoning board if you want to lay blame.

Kenny, you're supposed to be a professional, or at least part of a very professional occupational community. So why the hell did you bring this issue to this community? What did you think would happen or what action were you expecting to be taken with this post? And what opinions do you think you're going to get from a community such as this. While a lot of professionals participate here, the atmosphere is very casual, not at all equipped to tackle a municipal issue such as yours. All you can expect from around here is either "You're wrong" or "T-Mobile sux!". Is this really what you're looking for? The time and energy devoted to posting this here could be much better spent with the civil engineers or the FAA (you didn't mention if the FAA was involved and I can't imagine that with an issue as serious as you allude, they would not be involved to the hilt on this). If they were, they could have shut down this tower endeavor, no questions asked. They are, after all, a FEDERAL entity and while I'm not a pilot, I am familiar with several actions that the FAA has taken in my 2-state area. Hell, about 15 years ago, the FAA sent out an airport police officer to our neighborhood because we were shooting fireworks and we were under one of the flight paths of the municipal airport in Mobile, AL. So I'm QUITE certain that they do pay attention to the goings-on around airports.
There's another part of your post I take issue with. I'm responsible for getting several vehicles to and from a local minor-repair shop and occasionally, I have to hang out in the waiting room where there is a healthy stock of magazines. There is always 2 magazines devoted to the flying profession and I've been reading these mags for several years now. I've read only one report in all this time of an airplane hitting a tower and the situation was blamed on pilot error on a no-instrument landing in bad weather. The plane landed safely with some damage to a wing. No, I don't know all of the details, nor when or exactly where this occured, but my point is that if there were planes hitting cell towers a good bit, the media would have a field day with an issue like this. I'd like to see the info that you refer to while making this assertion.
As for T-Mobile commiting murder, you need to consider the definition of "murder" versus "manslaughter". Murder is the willfull, intentional, pre-meditated killing of someone. T-Mobile, I assure you, DID NOT build this tower with the intentions of killing pilots. Now, if in fact, God forbid, an accident happened and people died and T-Mobile was found negligent in their placement of this tower, then maybe they could be tried for manslaughter. Let's try and keep our emotions in check when we throw around certain terms and definitions in a loose fashion in order to make a point. Yet another thing to remember is that there are 2 sides to every situation and I doubt that T-Mobile or the zoning commission that allowed this tower to be built is going to post here with their side of the story. And while it's fashionable these days to lay the blame of all of society's ill at the feet of Big Corporations, you simply can't do business in a haphazard and careless manner, although there are Big Corporations as well as Small Corporations that try.

Now keep this in mind when you come back at me with a heated response (and I fully expect such a response when I write things like this)...I am NOT dismissing the premise of your post. On the surface, it does indeed sound like a situation that needs some attention. I'm taking issue with how you've gone about presenting it to make your case.
It doesn't seem like a professional presentation of your case. It kinda has the tone of a pissed-off child that didn't get his/her way. I do respect your position and I hope you can get the situation resolved to your satisfaction. You just need to be more professional in your approach to getting it solved. Stick to facts, data, and figures rather than relying on the emotional approach of finger-pointing, name-calling, and abstract accusations.

Good luck.

Respectfully,
Geri O

P.S. To you people here that have given me shit for this kind of post before, you still think I'm a shill for Cingular?

I fully agree with Geri O on this one. If you want my honest opinion the fact that your father owns the airport that is in question is what is fueling your fire and probably your future ownership of the airport is what has you worried. As for the zoning implications the issue here probably is that a tiny privately owned airport which can problably only handle small prop planes does not have the same zoning restrictions of a small airport which handles jets like the gulfstream or the like. I live under a mile away from the airport in NJ that JFK Jr. left from on his last flight, and can tell you that most of the time planes fly overhead on final but everyonce in a while one is so low I can't believe they don't crash. And over at Teterboro , which is along side a state highway and take offs and landings all cross perpindicular to the roadway I would think that a small cell tower in the hills above your airport is not in the way it probably forces a couple of don't want to change with the times piolts the reason to complain unnecessarily and bull around the barbershop on Saturday afternoons. If you can't adjust a small prop plane around a tiny tower maybe you should seek another career.

as long as the antenna is properly lit according to FAA regulations, it shouldnt b an issue. There is a 300 ft tv antenna in the flight path of the rochester, ny airport and they fly close to it. So, a lil cell tower shouldnt b too big of an issue.

Thanks clock. As I am now thinking further on this with your FAA regulations comment I now think that the construction of the tower would have had to pass FAA scrutiny on the possibility of airport to plane radio disturbances and therefore total approval of the FAA. Like I said earlier, this tower probably is causes profit and loss or forcing the airport to spend money in some way and we just have a greedy person looking to inherit an airport, and is a sore loser.

T-Mobile is one step from murder

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