TNAG-0642-FCO40-790-Kowloon-Walled-City-and-aircraft-safety-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 128

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certain factory and medical regulations are deliberately not enforced.)

4.

Conviation

More than 70% of the Walled City is built up in privately- owned multi-storey blocks of flats. The Walled City stands close to Kai Tak airport. Hong Kong is required by ICAO to restrict the height of buildings near Kai Tak airport in accordance with an internationally-agreed formula. 31 Buildings in the City exceed, to a greater or lesser extent, the height limits imposed by this formula. Thirteen of these buildings exceed the height levels permitted by at least a storey: one building, 16-18 Tai Chan Street, exceeds the permitted height by 291 feet.

5. It would be rash of me to argue that the existence of these over-height buildings in the Walled City increased substantially the risk of an air disaster. The Hong Kong Government claim that

the airlines that use Kai Tak airport know of the over-height buildings and can live with them: at any rate the airlines are not, to my knowledge, pressing strongly for their reduction or destruction. However simple logic dictates that the risk of disaster must, to some slight degree be increased or ICAO would not have agreed that Convention they have. Furthermore 'this slight increase of risk' should perhaps be set in context: the danger is not merely that of one aircraft coming down and its passengers being lost - though this itself is very frightening: the 'slight increase' is to the risk of an aircraft coming down in one of the if not the most densely populated parts of the world. You will agree that the thought of an aircraft coming down on 30,000 people in 6 acres of high-rise development is appalling beyond words.

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6. There are political dangers too. If an accident, or a near accident, were to draw attention to the fact that the Hong Kong Government (and its Civil Air authorities) have now for some time tolerated a situation which, at the then presumably proven danger to life, contravened international regulations then the outcry, both public and parliamentary, would be massive. The failure of the Hong Kong Government to be bound by regulations it had agreed would be clearly seen and could threaten the Governor's position: the failure of the British Government to ensure that the Hong Kong Government lived up to its word would focus attention on the nature of the constitutional link between the two Governments and, (if it was an accident rather than a near-accident), might well shake Ministers.

7. When I raised this matter in Hong Kong and outlined some of my worries, I was assured that:

(a) the Hong Kong Government was living with many other

such dangers (some assurance!), e.g. that some of the older housing in Hong Kong could not survive an earthquake (a point subsequently denied by the Director of Housing);

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/(b) that