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AIRCRASH
ON A NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE
An extraordinary account of an incident at Hatfield Forest NNR by Vicki Forbes, National Trust Property Manager of Hatfield Forest
On 22nd December at 6.45pm a Korean Airlines 747 Cargo aircraft crashed on a farmer’s field 100 metres from the western boundary of Hatfield Forest National Nature Reserve, sadly killing all four crew. The explosion was huge and resulted in aircraft debris and cargo being spread over half of the Forest. All of us living on site, heard and felt the impact and immediately got in touch with each other using our radios (which we all had at home) and arranged to meet up with the vehicles to go in search to find out what had happened and where. I rang the emergency services, although I feel sure air traffic control had seen the incident happen. We posted one of our volunteers at the main entrance to the Forest, which is locked to ensure the emergency services could gain access if required. When we found the area, we came across a wall of smoke. We got out of the landrovers and took our first aid kits, not knowing at this stage what type of plane had crashed or whether there were injured passengers.
We made our way across the crash site to where the emergency services were accessing the area; to see if we could be of any assistance, given that our vehicles are much better equipped to deal with the incredibly muddy conditions. It became clear, that we were not required, so we returned to one of our houses and began the process of talking to our regional staff. This was around 9pm and was also when the press started contacting us, trying to obtain information about what was going on. I did an interview over the telephone for Anglia News at around 9.30pm, describing what had happened. This was quite challenging, as they were asking very probing and sensationalist questions."The explosion was huge and resulted in aircraft debris and cargo being spread over half of the Forest".
The local police contacted us around 10pm, requiring help to secure the area from the press and souvenir hunters. This involved a co-ordinated effort of patrolling. We found a significant number of press, trying to obtain new pictures. Later on that evening our colleagues from Wimpole (one of our other properties in Cambridgeshire) offered to come down the following morning to help us out with all of their emergency kit.
It quickly became clear that we would have to close the Forest, as the debris was spread over such a large area it would be impossible to control access to the crash site or guarantee the safety of the public. The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) was keen, as were the police that nothing be disturbed in order that they could fully assess what had happened and why. The police agreed that closure of the Forest would be extremely helpful in keeping people away. All of the gates were padlocked and all the stiles had a fence-post nailed across them to try as far as possible to make access difficult. A sign was put up at every access point (more than 30) informing the public that the Forest was closed for safety reasons. For the first week or so we drafted in a large number of staff and volunteers to assist us with actually manning the main access points. The Forest is always busy with visitors at Christmas. It would have been impossible to manage without the extra help, which was thoroughly appreciated; given it was Christmas and the Millennium! Staff came from Wimpole, Wicken Fen, Dedham Vale, Essex Wildlife Trust and from the local National Trust Centre.
From a practical point of view, the next step involved discussing with the clear up team their plan of action and to try and ensure that damage to the Forest was kept to a minimum. Initially the site was managed by the AAIB, using the RAF military crash team to do the clearing and searching. At this stage, all of the work was carried out with a great deal of sensitivity to the site, given that Hatfield Forest has probably never been ploughed and the area worst affected was intended for minimum intervention management! We provided some assistance in terms of small clearance to provide access tracks through the scrub and woodland for their vehicles. They were using Supercats to remove and drag out the debris. At the end of January, the management of the site was handed over to ADAS working on behalf of Korean Airlines and the AAIB and the RAF pulled out. Liaison continued with ADAS in the same way as it had with the RAF.
The Forest re-opened on 7th February after seven weeks. Before we were happy to re-open to the public we ensured that a series of steps were carried out.
In order to publicise the re-opening, we called a press briefing and sent out a press release in advance. We met all of the local papers and the TV – BBC and Anglia, on site and took them to the fenced area, in order to highlight to the public that the Forest was safe outside of the fence. This went well overall and we got good coverage, inevitably however, many people even now are ringing up to check if we are open again.
Since the re-opening we have continued to liase closely with the contractors ADAS, which has involved regular meetings on site and off site. The whole clear up operation has been chaired by Essex County Council Emergency Planning Department and there have been regular meetings between all affected parties e.g. all landowners, Stansted Airport, District Council, Environment Agency and the NT. The clear up is a huge operation and is likely to continue until at least October of this year. In the past ADAS have had experience of light aircraft crashes in farmers' fields, where the course of action has been to remove the soil and replace it with grade 1 agricultural soil, and re-plant all the trees! This, however was not an option on Hatfield Forest.
From the start we agreed standards of work on site for each stage and then made regular visits to ensure we were happy with the quality of clear up. ADAS employed sub contractors to actually pick up all the debris and it is an extremely time consuming and slow process, which you might expect, given it was a 747 fully laden with cargo. Work stopped on the Forest at the end of April, when the contractors were disturbing the wildlife, which returned quickly following the crash. ADAS have agreed that the contractors will have to return after the vegetation has died down towards the end of the year. It is likely to take a further six months before the site will be considered cleared, and then there will be a period of monitoring by ADAS. The site will never be completely clear, we expect that debris will come to the surface for years to come, especially when you consider the force of the impact. Overall, the majority of the cargo was pretty inert and was made up of printer cartridges, CD roms, jackets, socks, wigs and rolls of material, to name a few. We have specified the use of metal detectors on the rides to ensure that any metal is removed, although this would be impossible over the whole area. Some of the cargo is biodegradable into non-harmful materials, and therefore is not really a worry, however some items, such as plastic cases and wires from the hard disk drives we have specified to be removed as they will not degrade and the wires are made of heavy metals.
The aircraft fortunately landed on an area which is lower than the Forest, which meant that no fuel contamination came our way in the watercourses. In fact there has been very little pollution on the Forest. The main damage from the crash has been done by the clear up! The ground compaction and disturbance has been significant, more so due to the heavy rains we had over the winter and then again in April and May. Some trees were badly scorched, however they appear to be shooting from the base.
In the early stages, we found ourselves keen to get quite involved with the clear up. It was almost a form of therapy after being exposed to such an awful disaster. It felt better if we could see something positive happening. However, this led to a number of unpleasant experiences and with hindsight we should really have maintained an advisory role. After these experiences we concentrated on advising and providing specialist work only, such as tree surgery, which we preferred to do ourselves, rather than ADAS employing a contractor and this also meant that we could save as much of the trees as possible. It was well into February before we were able to get on with our own normal winter work, such as coppicing and scrub management.
So far, the most challenging part has been having to make decisions without much information, mainly because fortunately not many 747’s crash and therefore this was a new experience! Decisions therefore had to made based on a best guess! Fortunately the National Trust has an excellent advisory department at Cirencester, who provided a great deal of support whenever we needed it. The best help we received followed a visit by some independent consultants. It was so good to receive advice and information independent of the airline and ADAS. In fact they both reassured us greatly that there was no contamination on the Forest and overall we were extremely lucky.
The amount of time it has taken up is quite incredible. Not a week goes by without some contact between us and another organisation involved in the clear up. From the time it happened until the day we opened, two of us did nothing else, but deal with issues relating to the aircrash. We are now into the realms of claiming for losses with the airline’s solicitors. Hatfield Forest is a self-financing property and it is clear that our income is well down on previous years, which can be directly attributed to the aircrash. We still get calls from anxious parents, wondering if their child will be safe visiting the Forest and from fishermen who think that our lake is the one affected by the crash (the lake affected is on the farmland very close to the crash site, more than a mile from the one on the Forest).
Vicki Forbes: National Trust Property Manager of Hatfield Forest