With its current press release, the Hamburg Airport Emergency Association has addressed an issue that urgently deserves more attention in the security and aviation policy debate: the real dangers posed by the operation of an inner-city airport for densely populated urban areas – particularly in the event of technical or human incidents shortly after takeoff or during approach.
The tragic accident involving a Boeing B787 in Ahmedabad, India, which hit a hospital and killed numerous people, makes it clear: even the most modern aircraft types and seemingly routine operational procedures do not guarantee absolute safety. If the flight path of the ill-fated flight were extrapolated to Hamburg, the Volksparkstadion, large shopping centers such as the AEZ or Hamburger Straße, or entire residential areas in Niendorf, Alsterdorf, or Winterhude could potentially be affected. These examples are not scaremongering, but rather an expression of legitimate concern: Runways 05, 15, and 23 directly over densely built-up urban areas with high population density—a risk that can neither be statistically dismissed nor institutionally ignored.
Hamburg is familiar with this danger. The history of urban aviation provides striking evidence: The 1971 plane crash, in which a botched emergency landing on the A7 near Schnelsen cost the lives of 22 people, is still fresh in many memories. Or the dramatic incident in March 2008, when a Lufthansa Airbus A320 carrying 131 passengers narrowly avoided disaster during a storm – the jet landed at an angle, its left wing almost skimming the runway. Near misses like this are quickly forgotten, but they demonstrate: The danger is real – even in Hamburg.
The Hamburg-based environmental association BIG Fluglärm therefore welcomes and supports the emergency association’s call for an external, independent risk and accident impact analysis for Hamburg Airport. Such an assessment is long overdue – not just since the incident in India, but given the airport’s structural location in the middle of an urban conurbation with extensive development below the takeoff and approach paths.
We make it clear: Safety precautions are not just a technical or aviation law matter, but a challenge for the entire city. It’s about determining how great the potential risk to life and limb is in the affected neighborhoods – and how viable the current emergency and intervention plans really are. The responsible authorities have been pointing to the existence of internal risk analyses and disaster management plans for years. If these actually exist, it’s high time they were made transparent – for the public, for the responsible authorities and emergency services in the areas overflown, and for the democratically elected city bodies.
Referring to internal documents isn’t enough. Other countries have long since advanced: Amsterdam Schiphol and Tokyo Haneda have commissioned comprehensive risk analyses that not only assess technical risks and accident probabilities, but also include urban vulnerabilities, operational scenarios, and impact assessments. Hamburg, on the other hand, still hasn’t conducted a comparable, publicly accessible risk assessment—despite the airport’s location being even more exposed.
We therefore demand that Hamburg finally accept this responsibility. An externally commissioned, methodically sound, and publicly transparent analysis of the risks posed by airport operations is needed – in addition to existing disaster management, not in competition with it. Only in this way can we clarify whether existing emergency plans are sufficient, what vulnerabilities exist, what protective mechanisms are lacking – and where planning or organizational adjustments are needed.
Because one thing is clear: security is not a state, but a process – it is created through control, review, and the courage to question existing structures. Anyone who refuses to comply with this process risks not only the credibility of the authorities, but also the safety of those living within the airport’s sphere of influence.
The Hamburg Senate now has the opportunity to set an example – for a responsible safety culture in air transport, for transparency and participation, for the protection of the public. We appeal to the responsible authorities not to let this opportunity slip away again. The time has come for a serious reassessment. And it begins with a simple step: the disclosure – and independent review – of the risks that have been ignored for far too long.
