| Topic: | Re:BA Flight Lands Short of Runway at Heathrow | |
| Posted by: | Martin Whaley | |
| Date/Time: | 17/01/08 17:34:00 |
| "Surely the important point is that this airliner lost power and glided in just making the Heathrow runway." This, at the moment, is conjecture. We ought to remain open minded for now and let the accident investigators tell us what happened. An airport working apparently speaking to the pilot confirms nothing. "Do we really need a catastrophe to prove that London has no additional sensible site for another runway?" This was hardly a catastrophe, and in any case even when crashing in dense residential areas ground casualties historically are low (ignoring 9/11). Even the Queens accident in 2001 resulted in only 5 ground fatalities and that plane crashed on a housing estate (albeit, the housing was not that dense). There is no evidence to suggest London has no "sensible site for another runway", the statement has no grounds at all...if this plane had crash landed in Toronto, or Vietnam, or Timbucktoo would we even be having the debate right now?!! Aircraft, as a mode of transport is still very safe and as i suggested in the earlier post, this accident is bound to cause completely unnecessary alarm amongst the doom mongers against runway 3. The fact is, noone was even seriously hurt by this, other than the airline (and insurance industry) finances and the 777 was brought down safely. Nothing that happened today makes building a 3rd Runway in any way "unsafe". |