A1 8 SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1980  
THE PLAN for National Airport, now pending before Secretary of Transportation Neil Goldschmidt and FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond, is a .disaster. It would enshrine Dulles as the worldÛªs greatest secondary airfield and it would destroy the last trace of any hope that someday people will be able to live and work and walk along the Potomac River in comfort.</br></br>Dulles was built, as those who have been around this city for 20 years will remember, to become WashingtonÛªs major ÛÏjetport.Û The decision to pour $120 millionÛÓin 1960 dollarsÛÓinto it was predicated on the belief that National Airport was too crowded, too noisy and too dangerous. Now, with National handling almost four times as many passengers as it did then, generating more noise and presenting equally serious safety problems, the planners are urging that it-become ever larger and that it remain this cityÛªs major airport indefinitely.</br></br>The answer is that almost everyone has fallen into the .habit of believing that National is and must always be this communityÛªs major airport. We fell into th^e trap ourselves a few weeks ago when we described the plan for NationalÛªs future as not too bad ÛÏas long asÛ that airport is to be No. 1.</br></br>'ButÛÓas the National Capital Planning Commission asked yesterdayÛÓshould National continue to be WashingtonÛªs major airport? It is handling hundreds of planesÛÓjetsÛÓeach day for which it is too small. It isTcbping with a passenger load that would destroy most other airports. And it is a terrible neighbor to tens of thousands of people who live and work and play under its flight paths. No community that had control over its own destiny would have tolerated National during all these years when Dulles has stood in isolated splendor. National would haveÛÓshould have ÛÓgone the way of the in-town airports in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City long ago.</br></br>National has remained inviolate, however, because of the belief that air travelers, especially if they are members of Congress, have an inalienable right to fly into the middle of Washington. ThatÛªs why the first opportunity to make Dulles the major airportÛÓthe proposal to bar jets from NationalÛÓwas ignored for 15 years. ThatÛªs why the second opportunityÛÓputting a-500-mile limit on flights in and out of NationalÛÓ was repudiated after the FAA seized it briefly. And thatÛªs why the current and probably last opportunity ÛÓthe introduction of wide-bodied, small jetsÛÓis about to disappear. All the thinking of FAAÛªs planners concerns what to do with the passengers who will be ÛÏturned awayÛ from National if limits are placed on its growth.