San Diego’s Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport still using leaded fuel

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When San Diego rolled out an unleaded aviation fuel at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in 2024, it was billed as a step toward cleaner skies.

Since then, pilots have bought two dozen gallons of it, while more than 1 million gallons of leaded fuel have gone through the same pumps.

The city-owned airfield in Kearny Mesa, known to the Federal Aviation Agency as MYF, is the highest lead-polluting general aviation airport in the country, based on federal data obtained by inewsource through a records request. Last year, it sold more leaded fuel than in any year in over a decade, the news outlet found.

Much of that fuel goes into training planes. Flight schools, including Coast Air, a private company that brings in student pilots from around the world, account for a large portion of the leaded fuel sold at the airport. 

Aircraft release roughly half their exhaust during takeoff and landing. Trainees spend much of their time on touch-and-go drills, repeatedly landing and lifting off again without stopping. According to inewsource, the routes used for those drills pass over or within 2 miles of more than 30 schools.

Since these planes use unleaded fuel, the combustion leads to undeniable chances of lifelong damage in humans. Lead, banned from car gasoline starting in the 1970s and absent from commercial airliner fuel, does lasting harm to the brain and nervous system. 

Children are the most vulnerable. Health authorities say no level of exposure is safe, and even brief contact can stunt growth, impair hearing and speech, shorten attention spans and lower IQ.

The EPA concluded in 2023 that emissions from planes burning leaded gasoline endanger public health. A year later, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the first state law banning leaded aviation fuel, which takes effect in 2031. Federally, the FAA’s EAGLE initiative, targets 2030 for ending its use.

Robert Germann, who has campaigned for cleaner air in San Diego for nearly 15 years, told inewsource that city officials have failed to act while the problem worsens. San Diego “should mandate the use of unleaded fuels that are already on the market, especially for businesses that profit from using the airport like the flight schools,” he said.

Other jurisdictions have gone further. Santa Clara County stopped the sale of leaded fuel at Reid-Hillview and San Martin airports, and Torrance prohibited touch-and-go landings to reduce pollution.

Crownair Aviation, which partnered with the city to sell the unleaded transition fuel, UL94, is skeptical that stopgaps can work. Ray Richmond, the company’s president told inewsource that without a fully compatible, affordable and widely available replacement, products like UL94 won’t change much.

The scale of the challenge is visible in the city’s own master plan for the airport, which says more than 93% of the planes at MYF are piston-powered and therefore burn leaded fuel.

“We’re not going to move the needle on an industrywide level,” Richmond said, adding that a broader shift would have to come first.

More than 500 people have signed a Change.org petition asking for six immediate steps, from limits on flights to monthly public reporting.

“The noise disrupts sleep, work, school, and outdoor life. More alarmingly, piston-engine training aircraft burn leaded 100LL fuel, releasing toxic lead directly over our homes and schools. Even low-level lead exposure permanently harms children’s brain development, IQ, and behavior,” the petition reads.

Additionally, the petition highlights the daily exposure of thousands of children playing and learning beneath these flight paths.

High-risk locations include several local childcare centers, Olive Grove Park, and schools such as James Madison High, Lafayette Elementary, Sequoia Elementary, Clairemont Canyons Academy, Innovation Middle, and Reformation Lutheran.

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