A History of
Stansted Airport.
Photographs:
Airport from Bassingbourn Hall Yard.
Bassingbourn Hall. Coopers End.
The first builders at Stansted knew a good site when they saw one. No aircraft noise, no environmental lobby and no planning regulations. Life was less complicated 4000 years ago when an Iron Age village was established.
Americans introduced Stansted to the airplane when it became a war-time base for the United States Army Air Force in 1942. Their legacy was one of the UK's longest runways which opened the way to civil development.
The fledgling airport expanded modestly until its future was re-shaped by a government decision. It was earmarked as London's third airport. Unlike the Iron Age project the proposed development met with so many protests the government retreated and found another site at Maplin Sands in the River Thames estuary. Stansted seemed to be heading for obscurity.
All that changed in the 1970's when a world oil crisis and hard economic times made the Maplin option too expensive. The British Airports Authority, anticipating better times ahead, revived the idea of major growth at Stansted and in 1979 it was, once again, designated London's third airport.
After one of the longest Public Inquiry's on record the go-ahead finally came in 1985, with initial approval for Stansted to handle up to 8 million passengers a year. In 1991 a new and widely acclaimed terminal was opened but that is now under pressure as Stansted became the fastest growing London airport.
The modern Stansted may be expanding but one piece of the airport will not change. A unique wildlife area for plants and animals has been created in the shadow of the big jets and those Iron Age villagers who started it all would, no doubt, have approved.
The only major problem with all this talk of wonder is that ‘proper’ engineering jobs, which pay a worthwhile wage, have more or less ceased to exist.
All the many and varied aircraft maintenance companies have been pushed off the airfield, in the name of progress, and all you are left with are menial and poorly paid dead end jobs, against a risky background of the vagaries of budget airlines.
Stansted Airport started life the same way as many other UK airports as a military base in the Second World War. Stansted airport was established as an American bomber base during the war, it played a role in liberating Europe. The planes from Stansted were the amonst the first ones over the beaches to support the D-Day landings.
After being part of such a major turning point in modern history Stansted airport spent many years stagnating. Only over the last 6-7 years has Stansted developed into what it is today, one of the busiest airports in Europe.
The turning point for Stansted Airport was in 1991 when Sir Norman Foster's , would you want this man to design your garden shed, new terminal opened, which tends to leak if it rains, and most people find it difficult to find their way round it. Prior to that there was only a small and rather drab terminal, actually, it was nice and friendly, easy to use and more that most sane people require.
During this period only a few hundred thousand passengers used Stansted Airport each year. With the arrival of the low cost , airlines the number of passengers passing through Stansted has increased dramatically, even if quality of service has declined.
Most airports grow organically where as Stansted Airport has been purpose built, which is not always a good thing.
The future is looking very bright for London Stansted Airport. The Low cost airlines are continuing to grow even though other airlines are struggling in the current economic and political climate. Back in the early railway age, people wondered about the logic of ‘Lunatics from Stockton getting to Darlington, with the idiots of Darlington going the other way’.
Crashed Korean plane contained DU.
The Korean Air Boeing 747 cargo plane which crashed near Stansted airport in Essex, just before Christmas, contained depleted uranium (DU) counterweights. The plane is from the same type as the El Al Boeing, which crashed in Amsterdam on October 4, 1992. According to a spokesman of Boeing, the Korean 747 contained about 300 kg. "If no precautions were taken at the crash scene, people will have been exposed to hazards that could prove fatal," Malcolm Hooper, professor emeritus of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, told BBC News Online.
Several hundred kilograms of DU were routinely used in 747 Jumbo Jets until the 1980s when it was replaced by tungsten. According to the UK Department of Environment and Transport only about half of the DU carried by the Boeing 747 has been recovered by contractors working to clear the site for investigators. It is possible some of the uranium was burnt in the intense fire when the aircraft crashed and this could have caused health concerns if the crash had been in a heavily populated area. The missing 150 kgs of DU from the El Al Boeing 747 which crashed in the suburbs of Amsterdam has been considered as one of the potential causes for a number of illnesses which have been suffered by rescue workers and those living near the crash site.
