Landing at LAX?
 

Ok, DH and I had a little quarrel tonight regarding this matter: do planes landing at LAX <u>always</u> land headed West? (Even those coming in from the West- i.e., coming in from long-hauls over the Pacific?)

And a point that we think we're clear on, do flights headed out of LAX always take off over the ocean? We're pretty sure they do.

Thanks!

Direction of take-off and landing depends on wind directions. They would like to land and take-off <b>into the wind</b>. Therefore, if there's a strong eastery winds (i.e. east to west, which is probably rare), then planes would land and take off towards the east.

Oddly enough, I have only flown to LAX in the winter, and we have always flown out to sea and landed to the East. I assumed this was partly a seasonal change in prevailing wind direction and partly a noise abatement procedure.

The usual pattern of winds in the LA basin is west-to-east, off the ocean (hence the cooling breezes that make coastal real estate so desirable and expensive). The four LAX runways are situated to allow takeoffs and landings into those winds-- meaning that, during normal wind conditions during normal hours of airport operation, planes lands from the east and take off to the west.

When does LAX switch air traffic?

-- During Santa Ana wind conditions, where the winds blow hot from the desert

-- During winter rainstorms (if the weather is clear, the air traffic pattern is normal)

-- Late at night due to noise abatement regulations

That was a good summary rjw_lgb_ca. Just one more piece of info.

Late at night for noise abatement they do make changes, but then planes land and depart in opposite directions. The departures go west over the ocean and the arrivals come in to the east, also over the ocean.

bh: Well, I was half-right, anyway...!

Thanks for the correction/clarification.

Very interesting!! So we were both right, kind of. Darn ;)