Problems and Potential risks of third runway of Hong Kong International Airport

The Hong Kong Airport Authority will start the consultation on building the third runway of the airport very soon.
Because there is not much space in existing airport region, reclamation is required for building the additional runway.
Some arguments claimed that the existing air traffic in Hong Kong SAR increases and that will reach the maximum airport runway traffic capacity within a few years.
If the additional runway is not built, that will hinder the growth of air traffic and harmful to the economy.
However, there are some safety concerns about the expansion of the airport.
First, there is not too much space in the sea adjacent to the airport and the runway can only be built at the north of existing runways.
The width of Urmston Road will further reduce to about 4km. That will increase the speed of water flow and shorten the distance between ships.
The Hong Kong International Airport and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge projects have already led to reclamation of 10 square kilometres of sea adjacent to north Lantau Island.
Building the runway will cause further pollution of sea water.
But the most important concern is flight safety. Nowadays, there are 40 to 50 flights take off from the airport per hour in peak time and the distance between aeroplanes are often closer than 600m.
If the third runway opens, more and more flights will land on and depart from the airport. The planes will further close to each other and that will greatly increase the potential risk of collision.
In addition, Tai Lam Hill just locates on 9km north-east off from the proposed third runway and high-rising residential buildings in Sham Tseng, 11km north-east from airport, pose a danger for planes.
Since the planes fly at 400m to 600m above the sea level in those areas, they are likely to collide on the hills and buildings and lead to massive deaths.
In order to cope with the growing air traffic, Hong Kong Airport Authority should provide incentives for airlines to arrange planes with larger capacity to fly routes to and from Hong Kong.
The authorities should impose a flat rate for all the planes landing on the airport and reduce the rate for large planes, such as B747-8 and A380.
That will reduce a lot of air space occupied because a 50-seat aeroplane occupies the same air space of a 400-seat aeroplane!
Location of Hong Kong International Airport and adjacent area: http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Urmston_Road&params=22_20_34_N_113_56_50_E_type:waterbody

The original text was distributed on 8:50pm, 22 January 2011.