Letter: Airport noise a longtime problem

I am 64 and grew up at 80th Street and 24th Avenue in Jackson Heights, adjacent to the vacant lots containing the landing lights for LaGuardia Airport ["Heart risk tied to airport noise," News, July 13]. A photograph of the home in which I lived appeared on the front page of Newsday twice recently. Similar photos appeared in the now-defunct Long Island Island Star Journal going back to the late 1940s.

The jet-propelled planes would come in so low that we could see the pilot and passengers from our kitchen window. On rainy nights, the Electras and Constellations would come in every 20 seconds, late into the night. I tell people that I had disco before it was invented, due to the strobe lights that would flash on my bedroom walls even with the shades closed.

Luckily, I was able to leave this situation at 17 when I went to college. Unfortunately, my ability to hear higher frequency sounds has been gone for more than two decades.

I am providing you with this level of detail to inform readers that the Federal Aviation Administration and its predecessors haven't given a damn for the past half century, and the FAA doesn't give a damn now. My advice is, move away.

Dan Pichney, Bayport