Residents complain about frequency of Teterboro flights

By Roman J. Uschak, Staff Writer
Jim Riccio has a problem with airplanes.
The longtime Nutley resident does not have a fear of flying. He just doesn’t like having planes flying over his home on Margaret Avenue at all hours of the day and night.
“I have a right to complain,” he said at a meeting of the Nutley Board of Commissioners last month.
He called the noise from nearby Teterboro Airport “relentless” over the previous five or six months, and came to the commissioners for help. He also said that he had been referred to the Federal Aviation Administration by Congressman Bill Pascrell, D-8th Dist., but was told his petition would be ignored.
“It’s an old problem, I know, but it’s annoying,” said Riccio, who has lived on Margaret Avenue for 27 years and in Nutley Township for 37 years.
“It seems like an ongoing problem since I became mayor,” said Nutley Mayor Joanne Cocchiola. “It’s a nuisance.”
Pascrell helped prepare a flight plan and air space redesign manual three years ago with Assemblymen Fred Scalera and Gary Schaer and state Sen. Paul Sarlo.
Several Nutley residents asked back then about the possibility of closing Teterboro Airport, which they said had greater noise impact on the township than the larger Newark Liberty International Airport. Scalera told them that the airfield in the New Jersey Meadowlands was here to stay. Large commercial jets have been permanently banned from Teterboro, even though the facility has runways sufficient to handle them.

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