The assessment and management of third party risk around a major airport

Abstract

Schiphol, the main airport of the Netherlands, is growing rapidly. The aircraft movements, also growing in number, place a considerable environmental burden on the surrounding population, notably, noise and odour nuisance and risks. In the process of deciding on how to extend the capacity of the airport to accommodate the anticipated twofold growth in the number of movements with respect to 1990, environmental problems form a major concern. The concern about risks for the surrounding population was enhanced after the crash on 4 October 1992, in which a Boeing 747 cargo carrier bored into a block of flats in a suburb of Amsterdam near Schiphol. In this accident, the four crew members were killed, together with 39 inhabitants of the flats/apartment building. These risks were studied as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). To make these studies useful for decision making necessitated a major improvement in the available techniques for risk quantification. The results of the quantitative analyses, using several different methods, have all indicated that the activities of Schiphol pose a considerable risk compared to other major industrial activities in the Netherlands. This paper describes the development of the methodology from 1990 in the light of the policy context in which it took place. Use of the methods in the decision-making process is illustrated by describing the current status of this process.