Originally Posted by
philipat
Regarding terrain, it seems a no-brainer to me that this area should have smoothed and the stream diverted or submerged. This is not a huge project and really shoud have been done IMHO. THe comparisons with LHR are not entirely relevant because, as a legacy field, there are many things which cannot now be chnged. Also, one poster suggested that they normally build hotels in such places. I am not aware of any airport anywhere with hotels built between parallel runways. Again, please correct me if I am wrong.
There are many, many airports all over the world that have all kinds of obstacles, buildings, and even water hazards very near the runway.
I think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to mandate that all unused lands near a runway must be perfectly flat. If you could, how far out would you consider safe?