AEG Studies Link Stadium, Terrorism

The Los Angeles Times first reported AEG had hired former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge’s company, Ridge Global, to assess the potential Inglewood, Calif., siting of Kroenke’s stadium near Los Angeles International Airport. In its report, Ridge Global found the proposed stadium creates a target for terrorism because it is three to four miles from the airport and directly underneath incoming flight paths.

The 14-page report, issued in December but first reported Feb. 27, concludes the stadium would have a “significant risk profile with the potential to produce consequences that will not only impact the airport and region, but global interests,” and should not be built.

The report includes a litany of previous global terrorism incidents, invokes al-Queda and provides photos of two terrorist bomb-makers and references the shooting of a Transportation Security Administration officer at LAX. It also claims the stadium could be the site of a terrorism “two-fer.” The Times, which says it obtained its copy of the report from a publicist for Ridge Global, called the release of the report a “bold move,” critics pounced on the report, calling AEG’s commission of it “cynical” and “desperate.”

It was made public at a time Congress was considering defunding the Department of Homeland Security and published the day after the city of Inglewood gave its blessing to Kroenke. Inglewood’s city council voted unanimously Feb. 26 to approve the stadium project.

Inglewood, while surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, is a separate city and isn’t bound by the “exclusive” agreement between AEG and L.A.’s city council to build the stadium, just some 10 miles south of AEG’s proposed Farmers Field adjacent to Staples Center and L.A. Live.

Apparently, Ridge’s study isn’t the only commissioned report expected to put a damper on Inglewood’s stadium plans. The St. Louis Dispatch reports AEG also commissioned a report by Mark Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, that echoes Ridge Global’s concerns about the siting of a stadium near LAX.

Rosenker reports that approaching aircraft could be as little as 300 feet above the Inglewood stadium – an unsafe height for aircraft as well as the stadium, according to the Dispatch. The stadium at its highest point would be 175 feet, with the playing field 100 feet below ground surface to meet Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, according to the Times.

Though the proposed height is within FAA standards, “It’s a bad idea, just in general,” Rosenker told the paper in an interview. “Why put something that could be a catastrophic result in a place, where if you put it anyplace else, you take all of those problems off the table?” Rosenker told the Dispatch that safety issues aside, the noise from as many as 68 flights per hour on two incoming runways would diminish the fan experience inside the stadium.

“To put an NFL stadium which will house as many as 80,000 people in a concentrated area – there are better places, much better places to put a stadium than in the flight path of a major airport.” However, critics were quick to point out that there already are NFL stadiums in proximity to international airports, including Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., — just three miles from San Jose International Airport – and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.