Originally Posted by
Jenbel
It's a pretty basic tenet of airport design that one should not build them where there is an identified, and impossible to manage, safety risk.
If you want to ignore that and risk people's lives for convenience, then so be it. We got our lucky break on the Hudson. I've read the transcripts from planes which crashed as a result of hitting birds, in which everyone on board was killed. I've met survivors of crashes due to bird strikes. To deny the very real risk that a estuary based airport in the Thames would have is to put your head in the sand and hope that neither you, nor your loved ones, are killed when the accident happens.
If the Thames Estuary even came close to fitting into into your category of being an "identified, and impossible to manage, safety risk" it would not be continually promoted by so many proper experts as a way forward. There is an excellent report that was published in the New Civil Engineer by Douglas Oakervee (a hugely respected engineer of HKG construction fame) and some key points from it are as follows:
"Therefore, this data indicates that although bird strikes are a real issue there are ways to overcome the problem without being aggressive towards the birds. Whilst much is written on how best to resolve the problem and should be reviewed in detail, I believe the issue should be addressed with the RSPB to find the right solution for the Thames Estuary which must be regarded as both unique and precious"
And goes on to say...
"MetroTidal in their studies have produced a map of the flight paths across the estuary and is included as Figure 20 below. If this is representative of the actual situation it would appear that the likely location is relatively free from bird movements"
There is also an interesting comparison of the number of bird strikes that LHR, LGW and STN currently suffer annually - interestingly LCY suffered none.
http://www.testrad.co.uk/aboutus/oakervee.html