This Day in FAA History: August 24th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19830824: In United States v. The County of Westchester, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down an all-night curfew instituted by Westchester County at its airport. Citing the Concorde case (see October 17, 1977), the court said that local airport proprietors were “vested only with the power to promulgate reasonable, nonarbitrary and non-discriminatory regulations that establish acceptable noise levels.” In instituting its curfew, however, Westchester County had failed to conduct any study to determine the location of noise-impacted areas or to quantify the level of noise from any source. Moreover, the curfew banned all flights at the Westchester County Airport between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m.–regardless of the degree of noise produced by individual aircraft. As a result, in the opinion of the Court, the curfew did not pass the test of reasonableness and was an “over-broad exercise of power.” (See November 5, 1990.)
19890824: FAA established the Charlotte, N.C. terminal control area (TCA), the first new TCA since 1980 (see May 15, 1980). Additional TCAs were established at: Memphis, October 19, 1989; Salt Lake City, November 16, 1989; Phoenix, January 11, 1990; Orlando and Tampa, September 20, 1990; and the Washington Tri-Area (which superceded the Washington TCA and encompassed Andrews AFB, and the Washington National, Dulles International, and Baltimore-Washington airports), March 7, 1991. This brought the total of TCAs to 29. (See December 17, 1991.)
19920824: Hurricane Andrew swept through south Florida, causing devastation that included damage to airports and resulting flight cancellations. Among the worst hit FAA facilities were the Richmond Long Range Radar site and the tower and International Automated Flight Service Station at Tamiami airport, all of which were severely damaged. Facilities at Key West lost communication lines, and other agency installations experienced significant damage, power loss, and outages. By the following day, however, Miami, Key West, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale Executive airports reopened. The hurricane moved into Louisiana on August 26. During the height of the storm, most FAA facilities in the affected part of that state shut down or were placed on standby status, and several airports were temporarily closed.
The hurricane destroyed or badly harmed the homes of about 144 FAA employees in the Miami area, and the agency organized an airlift to provide emergency relief. A committee representing local agency organizations coordinated the distribution of supplies and of funds donated by FAAers throughout the country, while the agency provided such benefits as administrative leave, counseling, and emergency loans. At the same time, FAA rushed the restoration of airspace system facilities and supported the overall Federal relief program.
20000824: After a successful 21-day stability test of the Wide Area Augmentation System signal in space, FAA declared the system immediately available for some aviation and all non-aviation uses. WAAS improved the position signal to augment the Global Positioning System. The test demonstrated that the system could operate without interruption, providing a stable and reliable signal. The system delivered one to two meters horizontal accuracy and two to three meters vertical accuracy throughout the contiguous United States. Raytheon operated the system for FAA on a continuous basis, interrupting it only as necessary to upgrade or test the system. (April 6-9, 1999; April 10, 2001.)
20060824: FAA released an updated air traffic controller workforce plan designed to address the anticipated retirement and replacement of air traffic controllers over the coming decade. The revised document outlined the agency’s plans to hire more than 11,800 new air traffic controllers over the next ten years. The plan was the first update to A Plan for the Future: The Federal Aviation Administration’s “10-year Strategy for the Air Traffic Control Workforce,” which FAA released in December 2004. The revised plan was based on updated traffic forecasts, experience with productivity increases, actual retirements, and improved mathematical models. As part of the revised plan, FAA planned to hire 930 controllers by the end of fiscal year 2006. The plan also addressed the broader need to hire more than 11,800 controllers over the next ten years based on the latest attrition and traffic growth modeling. It outlined how FAA would bring on new controllers using a schedule designed to provide adequate training lead-time and to address changing air traffic demands over the coming decade. In addition to the hiring schedule, the plan addressed steps the agency was taking to improve the training process for new controllers. (See December 21, 2004; March 7, 2007.)
20140824: A magnitude 6.0 earthquake caused damage in Northern California. The quake, the largest in the Bay Area since the deadly Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, struck three miles northwest of American Canyon. Most of the windows were blown out of the air traffic control tower at the Napa County Airport. The structure was unusable and the Oakland ARTCC took over control of the airspace. FAA sent two temporary towers to the airport – one began operations on August 28 and the other was delivered on September 4. (See October 17, 1989.)