By Robert Went
AMSTERDAM — Sunday, October 4, 6.42 p.m. A disaster occurs. According to the head of the fire brigade at Schiphol Airport, the chances of such a tragedy were "less than nil".
A Boeing 747-200 El Al cargo plane loses two of its four engines and crashes into a pair of 10-storey blocks of flats in the Bijlmermeer, one of the most densely populated areas of Amsterdam. An immense explosion. And then fire, everywhere fire, fed by the plane's 150,000 litres of jet fuel.
Panic-stricken residents are forced to flee for their lives, many leaping off their balconies in a desperate attempt to escape the flames. Amid the confusion they begin a desperate search to locate relatives, friends and neighbours.
Later, survivors are carried to special shelters set up in the wake of the disaster. A young woman from Ghana, almost nine months pregnant, sits silently on the floor, unable to speak. Another survivor, a woman from Surinam, sits by her side and explains: "She lost everything, everything is gone with the plane".
One hundred and fifty apartments were destroyed by the immense blast, leaving many inhabitants no chance to escape. It will never be known just how many people died.
A week after the crash, officials drop their estimate of the death toll from 250 to 75. But everybody knows that there are many illegal immigrants in this part of town, a neighbourhood where immigrants from all over the world live side by side. The names of these "illegals", who are often subject to police harassment, are nowhere to be found among official records. A representative of the Ghanaian church estimates that 50 to 60 unregistered persons died in the flames.
Three hours later, a young Surinamese inhabitant of the Bijlmermeer tells a television reporter: "We knew one day this was going to happen. Every three minutes a plane flies overhead; one of the main routes to Schiphol airport goes over the Bijlmermeer. It is a scandal. Why do they insist on always flying over such densely populated areas?"
The minister of transport refuses to discuss the question:
"This is not the right moment", she insists. "Right now we must do all we can to help." What a hypocrite! There are no emergency plans for catastrophes like this; they are not supposed to happen. And so inhabitants complain that in the first hours, help arrived late and proved badly organised.
Schiphol Airport is expanding dramatically. The number of cargo flights is expected to grow 400% between now and the year 2015. In the same period, the number of passengers per year will go from 15 million to 50 million.
Already there are growing reports of mid-air collisions narrowly avoided in the overcrowded skies around Schiphol; exactly how many is a well-kept secret.
Each day there are times when planes fly over the Bijlmermeer at a rate of one per minute. The planned boom in air traffic will of course increase the risks dramatically. Everybody understands that, but all official bodies emphatically deny it. The document which lays out the approved expansion plan contains only 15 lines on airport safety.
The least one might expect after such a disaster would be an immediate halt to all Schiphhol construction and expansion projects while planners reassess the risks involved. But that will certainly not happen.
As always, huge economic interests are at stake. Schiphol is trying to compete against airports in Frankfurt, London and Paris. And so federal and municipal officials, led by the Social Democratic PvdA, did everything they could to force the airport expansion plans down the throats of those who had expressed doubts or who had openly opposed the idea.
Officials from small communities near the airport were pressured into approving the plan without having sufficient time even to read the relevant documents. Environmental and civic groups were granted a single day in which to glance over the official plan, and their very moderate alternative proposal to expand rail and ferry services was brushed aside without discussion.
The offical Central Council for Environmental Hygiene wrote a devastating report about the environmental consequences (noise, toxic substances etc) of the expansion plan, but local, regional and national government officals had already committed themselves.
Economic interests also dictate that the full truth about the Boeing crash will never be known. Insurance companies
will have to pay millions of guilders, and the reputations of Boeing and El Al are at stake. Many questions remain unanswered. Is it true that the 13-year-old Boeing had been a "problem plane" for years? Did it record a slower than normal take-off because it was overloaded? Is it true that similar problems with engines of other Boeing jets had been reported?
Another key factor is the growing competition between the world's major commercial carriers. Ambitious expansion plans in the last 15 years have led to a situation in which there are simply too many flights, while one of six planes in the world sits idle.
Competition has led to a continuing round of fare wars accompanied by massive lay-offs and major cuts in the wages of those who manage to keep a job. As commercial airlines look for ways to slash expenses, maintenance and safety costs are curtailed. In the war for profits, the lives of passengers and of those who live near airports are increasingly endangered. Every day unacceptable risks are taken throughout the world, and kept secret. The catastrophe in Amsterdam will certainly not be the last.