Daniel Andrews ‘ready for Essendon Airport changes’

Daniel Andrews says governments “ready to make any changes” to Essendon Airport: new dashcam footage shows fireball.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says the state and federal governments “stand ready to make any changes” to Essendon Airport following yesterday’s aviation tragedy that killed five people, but has urged local residents calling for its closure “not to lose perspective”.

With the commercialisation of airport land under scrutiny, Mr Andrews said it was important “not to lose sight of the fact” that Essendon Airport was a “big part” of Victoria’s transport infrastructure puzzle, which employs 6000 people and is a base for police, ambulance and firefighting services.

But the premier said he was “alive” to residents’ concerns the airport has no runway protection zone and is located 100 metres away from the closest homes.

“That’s a perfectly natural concern for people in the wake of a terrible incident like this. Obviously safety is paramount and we’ll await the findings of those important investigations,” Mr Andrews told ABC radio.

“If there are changes, if there are learnings from those investigations and the circumstances around this tragedy then we I’m sure, and I can speak for the federal government as well, they actually regulate airports, but all of us together would stand ready to make any changes.”

Mr Andrews said the decades-old airport was “very safe” but his government would use the results of various investigations into the crash — the state’s worst aviation disaster in 30 years — to implement any necessary changes to make it “even safer”.

“The important point here is to not lose perspective. We have an airport that’s been there for many, many years. The area where the factory outlet or the shopping centre is used to be an area that had sheds on it so the notion there’s never been a structure there, well that isn’t quite right,” he said.

“Let’s let the facts unfold, let’s let the investigation come forward, let them do their work and then dealing with those facts we can make rational and logical assessments about any improvements that can be made to safety.”

The airport and the nearby Essendon Direct Factory Outlet will remain closed for as long as air investigators need, Mr Andrews said.

“Like atomic bomb”

Dashcam footage captured the crash as the plane exploded into a fireball metres from the Tullamarine Freeway. Witnesses compared the sight as like “an atomic bomb”.

Angelo Tsatas, who was working at a nearby jetski factory, said he could hear the plane’s engine “revving” before it wen down.

“I looked up and saw the plane banking to the left,’’ he said.

“It hit the roof and then exploded — the flames were that high they were above the roof of DFO. Cars were on fire, tyres were exploding.

“The heat was so intense and the smell of jet fuel was so strong.”

Workers at the DFO described how they ran for their lives as the plane hit.

A worker from furniture store Nick Scali was starting the day with a quiet coffee outside when the shuddering plane flew above her head.

“If it had been a metre lower I wouldn’t be here to be honest,” Grace Martin, 28, told reporters.

“It flew over the top of me and it was shaking on the way down and a metre from the top of the roof.

“That’s when I ran away and heard the big crash and saw all the flames.”

Another witness, Carmel Brown, watched in horror as a massive fireball exploded into the sky.

“There was a big crash and then a big red fireball, like a mushroom,” she said.

Peter Scullin and his wife Fran were returning from Daylesford when they turned right on to Bulla Road in Essendon, about 10km northwest of the Melbourne CBD. They saw the body of the plane pass overhead and crash into the DFO shopping centre.

Moments after it crashed, the aviation fuel caught fire and led to a series of explosions which ­destroyed what was left of the warehouse. Either in the crash or the explosion, one of the wheels from the aircraft was sheared off and flung into the right lane of the southbound Tullamarine freeway. Thick, black smoke poured into the air.

From the sky, Luke Holdsworth saw the telltale signs of a jet-fuel fire as his flight from Hobart approached Melbourne airport. “My heart sank as soon as I saw it,” he said.