§ Dr. CableTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment. Transport and the Regions what studies his Department has undertaken of the numbers of cases at international airports over the last 10 years when civil airline accidents on take-off or departure have resulted in ground fatalities. [105981]
§ Mr. HillIn 1995 the then Department of Transport commissioned NATS Ltd. to advise on the scope for detailed modelling of the size and shape of risk contours around airports, in connection with its review of Public Safety Zone policy. In preparing its advice NATS used the CASE (Client Aviation System Enquiry) database of aircraft accidents maintained by Airclaims Ltd. to identify132W information on crashes between 1979 and 1995 involving western-built airliner jets and turboprops. It used this information, in conjunction with data about aircraft movements, to calculate crash rates which would be relevant to the UK. From this information NATS used its own location model to determine the statistical distribution of crash locations in the vicinity of an airport. NATS also developed a consequence model to determine the size of the areas on the ground destroyed by aircraft accidents.
The crashes used for the purpose of this work were not limited to those which resulted in ground fatalities. The most useful approach was considered to be to draw upon the most reliable data available to calculate crash rates and model crash location and consequences, and then to apply those results in defining new boundaries for Public Safety Zones at airports.