Did you hear that droning noise emanating from the direction of Hanscom Field for more than an hour late Monday afternoon?
You’re not the only one.
Anthony Gallagher, community relations representative for the Massachusetts Port Authority, said Hanscom received several complaints about what turned out to be a turboprop aircraft “running up” its engine.
He added that although the procedure is occasionally necessary maintenance, it shouldn’t have happened when and where it did. The crew involved was confronted by airport management, he said, and there will be follow-up with the fixed-base operator that houses the plane “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
The aircraft was a Beech King 300, Gallagher said. “Sometimes when they do engine work, they have to run up the engine to make sure everything is running as it should,” Gallagher said. “They do that on the ground, obviously. “We don’t see a ton of run-ups and they should have cleared this before.”
The runup should be located in a part of the airfield as far from residential neighbors as possible, he said, during a specific time—and not during a holiday period when a lot of people are at home. “Maintenance needs to happen, but this kind of thing is a bit of an outlier,” Gallagher said.
The Beech King is a common passenger plane, but being a turboprop “there’s a certain tone to them,” Gallagher acknowledged. It is a common business aircraft, he said, as on flights of up to 500 miles it’s just as fast as a jet and more environmentally friendly.
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The noise went on for over two hours. It was non stop and drowned out my TV. This should not have been done so close to our houses. I hope I never have to listen to this horrible noise again.
I live in Bedford Gardens, near family camp. It was for more than an hour, and drowned out our TV volume and brought on a severe migraine (which i have chronic migraines) and no amount of pills would get rid of it.