Heathrow expansion: Risk of plane crash ‘was hidden by airport panel’

The row over possible plane crashes, which are very rare, erupted ahead of Cabinet ministers meeting on Thursday to discuss airport expansion.

One option they are understood to be considering is delaying a decision until after the mayoral election in May, and ordering more work on air quality.

Tory mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, who has vowed to resign if the Government backs a third runway, signalled he may not quit if the Government asks Heathrow and Gatwick to “prove their plans can be reconciled with legal air quality commitments”.

Some Cabinet ministers are believed to still be pushing for a firm “direction” of support for a bigger Heathrow. The airports panel commissioned a report by the HSL into crash rates if Heathrow or Gatwick expanded.

The HSL experts offered to draw up contour maps, or a “heat” map showing transition from “cool” low risk to “hot” high risk of plane crash likelihoods. But this appeared to have sparked alarm at the commission.

An email from one official, whose named has been redacted, to the HSL on February 17, 2015, states: “Having discussed with colleagues... we are extremely reluctant to use risking mapping as an output.”

The maps would have shown which local communities were more likely to be affected by any aircraft crash. But Londoners were not given this information — and have also not been told by Heathrow which areas could be flown over by planes using a third runway. A confidential draft of the HSL report, dated May 6, 2015, also showed the title as “Assessment of the aircraft crash likelihood around Heathrow and Gatwick airports, with and without runway expansion.” An email from a commission official on May 19 asks for the title to be changed to “Module 14. Operational Efficiency: Crash Risk Analysis”. The next day, an email from the commission to the HSL asks for the word “crash” to be changed to “ground”.

The HSL study was published on the Airports Commission website. The commission stressed its final report had been subject to extensive analysis and consultation. A spokesman said: “The final Airports Commission report and the business case underpinning its recommendation took the points raised in this [HSL] report into account.”