A 25-percent increase in the number of commercial airline passengers at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA), making the airspace surrounding Phoenix some of the busiest in the nation, is raising concern about flight safety in the Southeast Valley.
An ad hoc organization known as The Phoenix Airspace Users Working Group has been studying the issue for about 1 year, and recently asked the Phoenix Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), which controls much of the airspace in the area, to distribute information about the level of congestion. Among the information are images depicting a complex web of controlled and uncontrolled flight operations surrounding IWA.
The AFTW this month also met and agreed to begin discouraging practice VOR holds over IWA, as well as practice NDB holds over the transmitters of radio station KCKY-AM.
Download a PDF of the Dec. 14, 2012, Letter to Airmen. (4.5 MB PDF, requires Adobe Reader.)
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