UK: MPs deride ‘disastrous’ St Helena airport where landing is unsafe

No one has been held responsible for the Department of International Development’s decision to build a GBP286m airport on the island of St Helena that is unusable because wind conditions mean planes cannot land safely. The airport was funded from the UK’s overseas aid budget and has provided ammunition to critics who argue that money would be better spent at home. MPs on the public accounts committee said it was “staggering” that the airport had been commissioned and completed before the department had ascertained how changeable winds would affect commercial aircraft safety. St Helena, a British overseas territory located in the south Atlantic, can currently be reached only by ship from Cape Town. A commercial flight did travel to the island in April but managed to land only on its third attempt, leading to the opening ceremony being scrapped. In a report published on Wednesday, the MPs said Dfid had been “evasive” on who bore responsibility and was yet to hold anyone to account “internally or externally”.“We asked the department how, if Charles Darwin could have experienced and described the problem of wind shear on St Helena in 1836, it commissioned a £285.5m airport, paid for by the British taxpayer, without properly appreciating the danger of this effect,” the report noted.<br/>