[Cap'n Wannabe]

Essendon Airport plans to narrow runways with stroke of a pen

Essendon Airport's owners want to narrow its runways by repainting them in order to put new commercial buildings around the airfield, a plan which a peak pilots' body has warned would compromise safety.

The airport is owned by the families of rich-listers Lindsay Fox and Max Beck and its latest master plan reveals a desire to develop retail buildings and officesnext to the Tullamarine Freeway, mirroring where the DFO shopping centre sits today.



The plan proposes painting new lines on runways to reduce their technical width from 45 metres to 30 metres, and downgrading the main runway from "code 4" to "code 3", meaning operators of some larger aircraft would need additional accreditation to use it.

The Australian Airline Pilots’ Association, a union-aligned group that represents pilots on safety matters, says the plan reduces safety margins in the event of a plane going off the runway.

"The proposal ... will reduce the airport's viability as an aviation precinct and more importantly, increase the risk to aircraft operators, passengers and the general public," the association will say in its submission to a public consultation process for the plans.

"In our opinion, approval processes have been abused or ignored to promote non-aviation property uses at the expense of safety for aviation operations."

The association said the pitch to narrow the runways was to make it possible to construct more buildings closer to them.

A spokesman for Essendon Airport said that "the runway characteristics of the new master plan do not in any way reduce safety at Essendon Fields Airport".

"Safety is always the number one priority in our airport operations," he said.

The planning of buildings around Essendon Airport has been in the spotlight since the February 2017 crash of a Beechcraft King Air light aircraft into the side of the DFO building. All five people on board were killed.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau ruled the crash was caused by pilot error, but then launched a separate investigation into how the DFO was approved and built "from an aviation safety perspective".

The findings of that investigation have been expected since the start of this year.

The Age revealed in January that the airport's DFO shopping centre was built within the 300-metre buffer zone recommended by the United Nations' aviation safety body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The airport has maintained that the correct runway strip width, essentially a buffer zone either side of the runway to safeguard planes if they run off the tarmac, has always been 180 metres.

The 2017 incident was the latest in a history of accidents related to planes departing the airport.

In 1978, a plane in a training flight came down shortly after it took off from the airport, ploughing into a nearby house and killing all six residents.

Another tragedy occurred in 1986 when the engine of an ambulance aircraft failed after taking off. The plane narrowly missed houses and powerlines as it came down, bursting into flames as it hit the ground and killing all six passengers.

In 1993, five people were seriously injured and six houses damaged when a plane crashed after taking off.

In 2001, trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox and businessman Max Beck acquired a 99-year lease on the federally owned airport, which is home to Australia's largest corporate jet base and Victoria's emergency air services.

A spokeswoman for Emergency Management Victoria said the fire services aircraft based at Essendon last summer were suitable for use on a code 3 runway.

Public submissions on the airport's master plan close on Tuesday. The plan and any submissions received will then be sent to the federal Transport Minister for approval.