Observed arrival · 2026-09-30
SMO After Dark tracks banned touch-and-goes at Santa Monica Airport
A local accountability project uses public ADS-B flight tracks to document touch-and-go landings during hours when Santa Monica’s city code bans them, and offers neighbors a route to report them.
- For
- Santa Monica and Venice neighbors concerned about airport noise
- Worth noticing
- It classifies a pass as a touch-and-go when the aircraft is on the runway for 75 seconds or less before climbing away.
Field notes
The methodology sets out separate tests for departures and touch-and-go passes, including a runway-altitude calibration for each aircraft. The project says it checked raw traces by hand against the FAA registry and compared its findings with 76 city monthly reports. Its page also distinguishes the city’s curfew, touch-and-go, and noise-cap rules rather than treating every late flight as the same kind of violation.
Observed signals
Read the marks
Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.
One card from the complete issue