The £250m island airport where jets can't land because it is too windy (and guess what, your aid money is paying for it) 

  • Jets can't land at airport built with £250m foreign aid because it's too windy
  • Royal opening at airport on the island of St Helena postponed indefinitely
  • Landing strip built with UK Department for International Development cash
  • Aim was to boost Britain’s most remote overseas territory in South Atlantic

An airport built with £250million from the ballooning foreign aid budget risks becoming a white elephant because it is too windy to land there safely, it was claimed yesterday.

A royal opening at the airport on the remote island of St Helena has been postponed indefinitely after test flights raised safety concerns.

The cliff-top landing strip was built with £250million from the Department for International Development to help boost the tiny island in the South Atlantic, which is Britain’s most remote overseas territory. 

An airport built with £250million from the ballooning foreign aid budget risks becoming a white elephant because it is too windy to land there safely, it was claimed yesterday. It is on the island of St Helena (pictured)

Remote: St Helena in the South Atlantic (pictured) has to be supplied by sea. It is home to around 4,000 people

Remote: St Helena in the South Atlantic (pictured) has to be supplied by sea. It is home to around 4,000 people

It is home to around 4,000 people. It was due to be opened by Prince Edward last month but the start of commercial flights has been delayed after trials with a Boeing 737-800 revealed a problem with turbulence and windshear on the runway approach.

Windshear is a sudden powerful change in wind direction which can destabilise or even flip large aircraft and has been responsible for crashes around the world. Former Tory party treasurer Lord Ashcroft said he was recently forced to abandon a planned visit to the island because of ‘serious concerns that the airport is too dangerous to use’.

Writing on the Conservative Home website, he said: ‘Although aviation experts are working hard to try to find a solution to the windshear problems, there is a real danger that the airport could become a hugely expensive white elephant and a terrible embarrassment to the British Government.’

The airport had been touted as a lifeline for residents and businesses on St Helena, which is about a third of the size of the Isle of Wight and lies in the South Atlantic, some 1,200 miles west from the African mainland and 1,800 miles east from Brazil.

It can currently only be reached by sea, and the ageing Royal Mail ship St Helena is to be retired, leaving the islanders cut off. It was hoped the airport, with a weekly service from Johannesburg and a monthly flight from the UK, would boost tourism and prevent job losses and population decline.

But video of the first test flight by Comair, a British Airways subsidiary in South Africa, shows the 737 lurching from side to side and it was forced to abort its first attempt at landing.

The airport was to be opened by Prince Edward last month but the start of commercial flights has been delayed after trials with a Boeing 737-800 revealed a problem with turbulence and windshear on the runway approach

The airport was to be opened by Prince Edward last month but the start of commercial flights has been delayed after trials with a Boeing 737-800 revealed a problem with turbulence and windshear on the runway approach

Lord Ashcroft said the pilot of his private jet, Larry Erd, had flown in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan but had warned against trying to fly to St Helena.

The pilot said windshear was one of the biggest causes of fatal air accidents and told Lord Ashcroft: ‘St Helena clearly has a serious problem with windshear.’ A test pilot who had made the landing was said to have described it as ‘hair-raising’.

Plans for the airport were approved by the Labour government but put on hold by Gordon Brown in 2008 after the financial crisis. The Tory-led coalition approved the scheme soon after it came to power and it was funded with £250million from DfID, the largest single investment it has made in any of Britain’s overseas territories.

Officials had hoped encouraging tourism to the island would make it less dependent on aid. It currently receives more than £25million a year under Britain’s obligations to its overseas territories. Work on the airport began in 2012.

Lord Ashcroft said delays to the project had left many of the island’s businesses struggling, and had affected the delivery of food and other vital supplies.

He said one resident, Hazel Wilmot, 60, had invested more than £2million into buying and renovating an 18th century hotel which now lay empty.

The St Helena government said it was taking ‘specific steps’ to combat the problems with turbulence and wind shear. It added: ‘Every effort is being made to start airport operations at the earliest opportunity'

Former British Airways pilot Brian Heywood said he had warned David Cameron and the then International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell about the windshear problem, and said trying to run scheduled flights would be an ‘operational shambles’.

In a letter to the St Helena Independent, he said: ‘If an airport is built on the edge of a near-vertical 1,000ft cliff, the prevailing wind is bound to cause problems.’

He added: ‘To grumble about windshear at St Helena airport is a bit like grumbling about the heat in a newly built Sahara airfield in the summer. It is entirely predictable.’

The St Helena government said it was taking ‘specific steps’ to combat the problems with turbulence and wind shear. It added: ‘Every effort is being made to start airport operations at the earliest opportunity.

‘However, safety is paramount and we will not commence commercial operations until we are satisfied with every aspect of airport operations.’

Since 2004, Britain’s foreign aid budget has rocketed by 144 per cent to £13.2billion to meet the Government target of 0.7 per cent of GDP. This means that, proportionally, it spends almost twice as much of its national wealth on aid as any other G7 nation.

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