Heathrow noise & safety
In case anyone wants to complain about being woken up in the wee small hours by some snot nosed pilot juggling his throttles on approach, the email addresses are noise@heathrow.com and communityschemes@heathrow.com. And since I was woken up early today and therefore am in a grumpy old combative mood, here’s an email I’ve sent. I added on the safety question as I’ve been meaning to ask it for a while now.Dear SirThere only appears to be these two emails on your website to send an email to. My noise issue below is clearly going to the correct department, but perhaps you can forward my safety one to the relevant manager.Noise:What exactly was 04:42 hrs flight that passed over Kew/Brentford up to this morning? It was sufficiently loud that it woke me up, despite double glazing and closed windows. Was it one of those Russian built planes that don't have proper engines, or just someone playing with the throttles?Once awake of course, I then heard the 04:44, 04:47, 04:54, etc 'heavies' coming in from their overnight transcontinental flights.Within the reports downloadable on your website, you note that noisy aircraft at night are fined £4000 per decibel. Given that you took 1 hour of my sleep, which has made me a little tired and grumpy at work today, can you please compensate me from this fund.Safety:I couldn't find anything in your documentation that puts a quantitative risk figure on the annual chance that an aircraft doesn't make it to the runway and instead lands through the houses or towns on the approach. Can you direct me to the risk analysis report, which I am sure you keep regularly up to date, and am equally sure is available under freedom of information.I ask because there appear to have been quite a few instances of 'fuel emergencies', with aircraft coming in on fumes and not being able to line up in the landing pattern. Indeed, I was on one of these a few years back; commenting to my BA pilot neighbour that a long-haul flight I'd been on had come straight in and landed on a Friday evening, he suggested it had probably been about to run out of gas. We all know about the Concorde that ran out of fuel whilst taxiing to its gate, and the flight that just cleared the perimeter fence before ploughing through the grass verge of the runways, so there's been enough for you to calculate the annual probability that one doesn't make the airport.Similarly, the Russian flight this week that dropped its cargo on take-off, the 747 that took off from Schipol and flew into a block of flats (I was living close to it at the time so remember that one well), the Concorde from Charles De Gaul, and numerous other take off incidents, have allowed quantified risk probabilities to be calculated for all airports for crashes into populated areas on take-off and landing.I'd like to know what the risks at Heathrow are, both for landing and take-off with respect to fatality numbers and property destruction. Specifically, I'd like to know the calculated return period for third party fatalities.I hope you can help on the above two topics With kind regards
Lorne Gifford ● 2710d1 Comments