Modification of Class E Airspace; Wrangell Airport, Wrangell, AK

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0182; Airspace Docket No. 22-AAL-75]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Modification of Class E Airspace; Wrangell Airport, Wrangell, AK</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action proposes to modify the Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet to more appropriately contain instrument flight procedures, remove redundant Class E airspace extending upward from 1,200 feet, and to make administrative updates to the legal description for Wrangell Airport, Wrangell, AK. These actions would support the safety and management of instrument flight rules (IFR) operations at the airport. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before May 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-0182 and Airspace Docket No. 22-AAL-75 using any of the following methods: *  <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. *  <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. *  <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. *  <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. FAA Order JO 7400.11J, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, and subsequent amendments can be viewed online at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/.</E> You may also contact the Rules and Regulations Group, Office of Policy, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeffrey Drasin, Federal Aviation Administration, Western Service Center, Operations Support Group, 2200 S 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198; telephone (206) 231-2248. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules regarding aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code. Subtitle I, Section 106, describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. This rulemaking is promulgated under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart I, Section 40103. Under that section, the FAA is charged with prescribing regulations to assign the use of the airspace necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficient use of airspace. This regulation is within the scope of that authority as it would modify Class E airspace to support IFR operations at Wrangell Airport, Wrangell, AK. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites interested persons to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written comments, data, or views. Comments are specifically invited on the overall regulatory, aeronautical, economic, environmental, and energy-related aspects of the proposal. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. To ensure the docket does not contain duplicate comments, commenters should submit only one time if comments are filed electronically, or commenters should send only one copy of written comments if comments are filed in writing. The FAA will file in the docket all comments it receives, as well as a report summarizing each substantive public contact with FAA personnel concerning this proposed rulemaking. Before acting on this proposal, the FAA will consider all comments it receives on or before the closing date for comments. The FAA will consider comments filed after the comment period has closed if it is possible to do so without incurring expense or delay. The FAA may change this proposal in light of the comments it receives. <E T="03">Privacy:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Availability of Rulemaking Documents</HD> An electronic copy of this document may be downloaded through the internet at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Recently published rulemaking documents can also be accessed through the FAA's web page at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/airspace_amendments/.</E> You may review the public docket containing the proposal, any comments received and any final disposition in person in the Dockets Operations office (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section for address, phone number, and hours of operations). An informal docket may also be examined during normal business hours at the Northwest Mountain Regional Office of the Federal Aviation Administration, Air Traffic Organization, Western Service Center, Operations Support Group, 2200 S 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class E5 airspace designations are published in paragraph 6005, of FAA Order JO 7400.11, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, which is incorporated by reference in 14 CFR 71.1 on an annual basis. This document proposes to amend the current version of that order, FAA Order JO 7400.11J, dated July 31, 2024 and effective September 15, 2024. These updates would be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. That order is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. FAA Order JO 7400.11J lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 to modify the Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface due to insufficient controlled airspace containment of instrument flight procedures at Wrangell Airport, Wrangell, AK. The proposal would expand coverage to the north-northwest and southeast, remove unnecessary coverage to the west-northwest, and remove redundant Class E airspace areas that extend upward from 1,200 feet, and higher, above the surface. Class E airspace extending upward from the surface was considered, but regional equipment limitations preclude meeting the surface area communication requirements outlined in FAA Order JO 7400.2R, paragraph 17-2-10. The terrain-driven airspace proposal would better contain departing IFR operations until reaching 1,200 feet above the surface to the south and southwest on the LASOE TWO Area Navigation (RNAV) (Required Navigation Performance [RNP]) Runway (RWY) 10 and RWY 28 DEPARTURES, KAJBU FIVE RNAV (RNP) RWY 10 DEPARTURE, LEVEL ISLAND THREE DEPARTURE (OBSTACLE), and the SUMNER TWO (RNAV) DEPARTURE. Additionally, the proposal would better contain arriving IFR operations that descend below 1,500 feet above the surface to the north on the RNAV (Global Positioning System [GPS]) P RWY 10 and RNAV (GPS)-E approach procedures. Additionally, this action proposes removal of redundant Class E airspace areas that extend upward from 1,200 and 5,700 feet above the surface at Wrangell Airport, as the Southeast En Route Domestic Airspace Area provides sufficient airspace containment. Finally, references to the Wrangell nondirectional beacon, Wrangell localizer, and Level Island very high frequency omnidirectional range/distance measuring equipment should be removed from line three of the legal description's text header as they are no longer needed to describe the proposed airspace. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Notices and Analyses</HD> The FAA has determined that this proposed regulation only involves an established body of technical regulations for which frequent and routine amendments are necessary to keep them operationally current. It, therefore: (1) is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866; (2) is not a “significant rule” under DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures (44 FR 11034; February 26, 1979); and (3) does not warrant preparation of a regulatory evaluation as the anticipated impact is so minimal. Since this is a routine matter that will only affect air traffic procedures and air navigation, it is certified that this proposed rule, when promulgated, will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Environmental Review</HD> This proposal will be subject to an environmental analysis in accordance with FAA Order 1050.1F, “Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures” prior to any FAA final regulatory action. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 71< ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 12k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━