As many of us have noticed, it appears that airplane noise over Oak Hill has increased in recent months. The Metro Nashville Airport Authority reports the following:
The MNAA controls where the planes are parked, loaded, and serviced on the ground. However, the FAA controls aircraft in flight - MNAA has no authority over the operation of aircraft in the air.
Runway 20R/2L (generally north/south) was closed for several months this Spring and has seen an increase in flight traffic now that the runway is reopened from planned maintenance and construction activity. Runway 20R/2L is also seeing an increase in traffic because of necessary maintenance on the adjacent Runway 20C/2C (also, generally north/south), which shift aircraft to use the other parallel runways more frequently to maintain safety and flight capacity.
There has been no change to the flight arrival patterns for aircraft into BNA. The FAA is temporarily directing some aircraft, on departure only, to fly alternative departure headings as part of a broader FAA airspace initiative aimed at improving airspace safety and efficiency into and out of Middle Tennessee. This FAA initiative aims to build procedures that are intended to support departing aircraft climb to altitude faster, flying higher over communities more quickly than they do today, and on arrival, the FAA’s goal is to keep aircraft higher for longer as they approach BNA. Both efforts are intended to make Middle Tennessee airspace more efficient while also keeping aircraft higher over more communities, reducing some noise impacts.
These broader, FAA-led initiatives are still in development and the FAA has indicated they expect these procedural enhancements to be further developed and evaluated through at least mid-2025.
You can provide your input and concerns to the FAA & BNA at the following links:
For the FAA aviation noise complaint and inquiry response, click here.
For the BNA feedback site, click here.