Modification of Class E Airspace; Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Kotzebue, AK

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-2423; Airspace Docket No. 23-AAL-10]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Modification of Class E Airspace; Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Kotzebue, 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 E2 airspace extending upward from the surface and Class E5 airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface to optimize instrument flight procedure containment at the Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Kotzebue, AK. This proposal supports 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 January 8, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-2423 and Airspace Docket No. 23-AAL-10 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 7400.11K, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, and subsequent amendments can be viewed online at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> BryantJay Toves, Federal Aviation Administration, Western Service Center, Operations Support Group, 2200 S 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198; telephone (206) 231-3465. </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 Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Kotzebue, 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 E2 and E5 airspace designations are published in paragraphs 6002 and 6005, respectively, of FAA Order JO 7400.11, <E T="03">Airspace Designations and Reporting Points,</E> 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 7400.11K, dated August 4, 2025, and effective September 15, 2025. These updates would be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. FAA Order JO 7400.11K, which lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points, is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 that would modify the Class E airspace at Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Kotzebue, AK. First, the FAA proposes increasing Class E2 surface area airspace radius from 4.3-miles to 4.4-miles to better accommodate the circling maneuvering areas to runways (RWY) 18 and 9. Further, 1.4-mile and 0.6-mile extensions are proposed to the southeast and west, respectively, to contain departing aircraft until reaching the base of the next adjacent airspace when executing the COGAS2 Area Navigation (RNAV) (Required Navigation Performance [RNP]) DEPARTURE and BALIN2 RNAV (RNP) DEPARTURE from RWYs 9 and 27. Next, the FAA proposes modifying Class E5 airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface to remove unneeded controlled airspace to the northeast, east, southwest, and west, and expanding E5 airspace to targeted areas southeast and northwest of the airport. The southeast should be expanded to better contain aircraft until reaching 1,200 feet above the surface on the RNAV (Global Positioning System [GPS]) RWY 27 missed approach procedure and BALIN2 RNAV (RNP) DEPARTURE RWY 9. An additional 1x5-mile area of airspace to the northwest would provide sufficient containment for arriving aircraft that descend to below 1,500 feet above the surface on the instrument landing system (ILS) or localizer (LOC) RWY 9 approach. <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 1050.1G, <E T="03">FAA National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures,</E> prior to any FAA final regulatory action. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 71</HD> Airspace, Incorporation by reference, Navigation (air). </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposed Amendment</HD> In consideration of the foregoing, the Federal Aviation Administration proposes to amend 14 CFR part 71 as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 71—DESIGNATION OF CLASS A, B, C, D, AND E AIRSPACE AREAS; AIR TRAFFIC SERVICE ROUTES; AND REPORTING POINTS</HD> 1. The authority citation for 14 CFR part 71 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 49 U.S.C. 106(f), 106(g), 40103, 40113, 40120; E.O. 10854, 24 FR 9565, 3 CFR, 1959-1963 Comp., p. 389. <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 71.1</SECTNO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 12k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━