When Kelly Insana moved to Nashville's Crieve Hall over a decade ago, it was a quiet, close-knit neighborhood. Now, quiet is the last word she would use to describe it.
"The frequency and the noise level of flights over our neighborhood shot up," Insana said. "The disruption is what caught our attention. We're talking all day, every day, very low, very loud planes. It's unlivable."
Planes wake them up in the early morning hours and shake their walls as late as 11 p.m. Neighbors have to pause their front yard conversations for minutes at a time to wait for the aircrafts to pass, and those who work from home apologize regularly for the noise on business calls.
Encouraged by her neighbors who were equally frustrated, and by complaints from people
in nearby areas like Oak Hill and Radnor Lake State Park, Insana launched Course Correct Nashville, a community group dedicated to holding the FAA accountable for its decisions impacting hundreds of Nashvillians.
Through an analysis of publicly available flight tracking data, Course Correct Nashville found that more than half of the jets that left BNA on an average south-flow day from July to September of this year traveled over the Crieve Hall and Oak Hill neighborhoods, compared to just 3% of daily flights in 2023 and 2024. Before the FAA changed the flight paths for southern departures, this area saw approximately six planes over it per day. Today, it sees around 198 planes each day out of about 400 daily departures from BNA, according to Course Correct's analysis.
After numerous attempts to get answers from the FAA through state and Nashville airport officials failed, Insana said she escalated her efforts. On Sept. 4, she filed a lawsuit against the FAA demanding a review of the flight path changes and the decision to forgo an environmental assessment.
"The FAA just decided to make a change like this without following processes that should have taken place and engagement that should have happened," Insana said. "It could be any neighborhood in Nashville next. We're not talking about homes that are right next to the airport. It's homes that are five, 10, 15 miles plus away, and suddenly, you feel like you live right under the runway."
In a statement to The Tennessean, an FAA spokesperson said the agency is always working to reduce the number of people exposed to aviation noise in communities around airports.
“Addressing this concern requires collaboration among the FAA, air carriers, airports, aircraft manufacturers, research universities, local communities, and elected officials,” the FAA spokesperson said. “If a community is concerned about aircraft noise, the best course of action is to contact their local aviation community roundtable or airport operator. The FAA can then work with airport operators to determine if the aircraft noise can be mitigated through changes in air traffic procedures.”
When and why the FAA made its changes
The change started in 2024 when the Federal Aviation Administration began testing out flight path changes for departures out of Nashville International Airport. Since the 1980s, planes leaving BNA have taken the same few paths, but as the airport grows and draws in more planes, the FAA decided it needed to reevaluate the situation.
"These changes are essential to meeting the region’s growing aviation demand while prioritizing safety and efficiency,” FAA Southern Regional Administrator Michael O’Harra said in a March 2025 meeting.
Despite having filed numerous complaints about the noise, Insana said she wasn't informed of that meeting. The next month, changes were finalized, but they didn't stop there. In July 2026, the FAA added new departure routes out of BNA, and this was the final straw for Insana.
“There are so many moving parts with all things BNA these days that it is really hard to keep them all straight,” FAA employee Lisa Favors said in an email obtained via a public records request on Nov. 1, 2024. “An environmental noise screening was completed for the headings and showed there were no reportable or significant noise increases."
An FAA virtual model generated projected noise outputs if the changes were implemented and found that Crieve Hall would go from no significant air traffic noise to projected levels of 45-55 decibels. But the agency categorized the change as "no impact."
“We believe that public awareness is a powerful tool, and it’s imperative that the public understand why the FAA is proposing these new headings,” Metro Nashville Airport Authority President and CEO Doug Kreulen said in 2025 of the new departure headings. “These changes are not just technical adjustments. They represent a significant step forward by the FAA in optimizing air traffic flow, ensuring that Nashville’s air space continues to operate smoothly and safely.”
How other neighbors are responding to the disruption
Kellee Johnson estimated that she has filed at least 400 complaints to BNA about the noise concerns. She bought her house in Crieve Hall two years ago, and tracking the decibels of air traffic above her has become part of her daily routine.
The peak recordings she has from the last year range from 84 to 114 decibels, substantially higher than the 45-55 decibel range that the FAA estimated.
"I just keep thinking: Don't mess with Nashville," Johnson said. "It's important to protect our city before this gets out of control."
After months of logging the noise from her home, Johnson said the noise is near-constant.
Johnson's neighbor Denise Hoffman said the planes are like her alarm clock. She noticed they start around 5:30 most mornings when she wakes up to go to the gym. Hoffman estimated about eight flyovers by the time she walks out of her front door.
"They're so close you can read the tail numbers off the planes," she said. "It's not a bunch of rich, white people not wanting noise in their neighborhood. It's a real issue that's affecting multiple neighborhoods."
Throughout the years-long process that led to the lawsuit, state Sen. Heidi Campbell got involved to help advocate for the residents.
"My constituents in Crieve Hall, Oak Hill, Forest Hills and around Radnor Lake were told these new flight paths would spread air traffic out, and they're experiencing the opposite," she said. "They've asked reasonable questions and deserve clear answers and a genuine public process. I've raised their concerns directly with the FAA, and I support Course Correct Nashville's call for a fair, transparent review of alternatives that protect our neighborhoods and one of Tennessee's most treasured natural areas. Nashville can grow without leaving the people who live here out of the conversation."
For Insana, the purpose isn't to exempt Crieve Hall from flight paths or return to a totally quiet neighborhood.
"The FAA can't say one thing and do another," she said. "We want responsible growth."
Hadley Hitson covers business news for The Tennessean. She can be reached at hhitson@tennessean.com. To support their work,subscribe to The Tennessean.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Is Nashville airplane noise getting worse? Some communities say it's unlivable
