By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — The U.S. Air Force is denying access to records about plans for new low-level training flights above several large swaths of Arizona, a new lawsuit charges, including supersonic flights in some areas as low as 5,000 feet.

In new court filings, the Center for Biological Diversity said it began requesting various documents in December 2022 related to what is known as the Regional Special Use Airspace Optimization to Support Air Force Missions in Arizona. To date, according to attorney Trisha Sharma, it has received no records or even an estimated date of completion for the request.

What makes all that important, she said in a statement, is the impact that the changes being proposed will have.

"These deafening flights pose a serious threat to the people and animals who call these remote wildlands home," she said. "Jets thundering overhead create health problems for people and harm imperiled animals, so it's disappointing that the Air Force has gone radio silent in providing this crucial information."

More to the point, her organization said the public lacks key information about the proposal.

"The Air Force has been shockingly uncooperative every step of the way, even though the public has a right to this information," Sharma said in her statement. "Air Force officials should do the right thing and give people the info they need to understand what might happen to the places they live."

What's behind the plan, the lawsuit charges, are arguments by the Air Force that it needs to address "training deficiencies associated with insufficient airspace."

To deal with that, Sharma said, there are proposals to lower permitted flight attitudes.

Consider the Tombstone "military operation area" that spans an area along the border from Bisbee far into New Mexico. Plans being considered would allow flights as low as 100 feet above ground level.

But it also would permit supersonic operations at 5,000 feet. A typical commercial jet, operating subsonic, normally flies between 35,000 and 40,000 feet.

It also would allow the release of both flares and "chaff"  —materials that include small pieces of metal or plastic designed to confuse radar — at just 2,000 feet, versus the current 5,000-foot restriction.

And in that Tombstone training area, at least under one option, the military operation area would be expanded by nearly 800 square miles to 4,766 square miles.

Some other areas have smaller changes proposed like the 1,410-square-mile area around Yarnell, Congress and Bagdad. There, flights could be 500 feet above ground, though there would be no change in current rules that allow supersonic operations at 10,000 feet. But there would be a 2,000-foot restriction on flares and chaff.

In the 6,200-square-mile area that runs from Three Points and Arivaca through most of the Tohono O'odham Reservation, the biggest change appears to be to allow training flights from 6 a.m. through midnight; now the cutoff is 7 p.m.

And the MOA from just east of Florence, through Miami, Safford and Clifton into New Mexico would see supersonic authorization at 5,000 feet and regular flights at 500 feet in the 2,627-square-mile area.

The Air Force, on its website describing the proposals, said  failing to make the changes would mean "training requirements would remain unmet" for pilots stationed at Davis-Monthan and Luke air force bases as well as the Morris Air National Guard Base, which is located next to Tucson International Airport.

On one hand, the Air Force said it isn't creating any new military operations areas. But it says that changes in how training can be conducted within them is necessary.

"Capacity of low-altitude and supersonic operations is needed to ensure pilots have the training they need for real-world environments," the agency says.

"Because of limited capacity of the military operations areas, certain aspects of training are either curtailed, delayed or restructured to occur over several training events," the report says. "This requires more time at a greater cost and results in reduced quality of training."

The lawsuit sees the changes through a different lens.

"The proposal seeks to authorize low-level fighter jet maneuvers and supersonic flights that would cause sonic booms above rural and tribal communities, important wilderness and conservation areas, and national monuments," Sharma said in the legal papers. "The proposal threatens to impact millions of acres of federal public land, increasing risk of wildfire and pollution and disrupting sensitive wildlife and ecosystems."

More immediate is the failure to respond to the request for information under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
"USAF's failure to comply with FOIA harms the center's ability to provide full, accurate, and current information to the public on a matter of significant public interest," Sharma said. "Without this information, the center cannot advance its mission, with its members, to protect native species and their habitat."

The lawsuit asks U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez to order the Air Force to conduct a search "reasonably calculated'' to locate all the records responsive to the request. It also seeks cutoff date for getting the records.

There was no immediate response from the Air Force. No date has been set for a hearing.