by Dan Bloom and Jess Banham

kentishexpress@thekmgroup.co.uk

"Fukushima in the making" - that is how anti-airport campaigners branded the air crash risk to Dungeness power station this week.

Despite being branded "scaremongering rubbish" by pro-airport groups, campaigners likened the dangers posed to the nuclear plant to the tsunami-hit Japanese station Fukushima Daiichi and even the Titanic.

The claims emerged during the government inquiry into Lydd Airport's plans for a runway extension and new terminal.

Former nuclear researcher John Large was due to tell the inquiry: "An apposite analogy is that SS Titanic was a small dot in an expansive ocean, but it collided with a small ice floe and, as a result, the unsinkable ship sank."

But Tim Crompton, of Supporters of Lydd Airport, said: "It's absolute scaremongering rubbish. If the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) were concerned there was a danger of aircraft crashing into the nuclear power station, they would have had an objection and they didn't.

"The reactor is built to withstand an air collision with a Boeing 707. Okay, you'd damage the generator, but you wouldn't get anywhere near the core."

Mr Large is one of four experts due to speak on nuclear safety for the Lydd Airport Action Group (LAAG) over four days, ending on Tuesday.

LAAG campaigners crowded outside Folkestone's Civic Centre for the first day yesterday (Wednesday), with t-shirts bearing the controversial slogan "60 seconds to disaster".

Runway safety expert David Pitfield was due to question the accuracy of the government Health and Safety Executive's crash risk data, devised in 1997.

He said the number of birds at the nearby RSPB reserve, together with no-fly zones around Dungeness and Lydd Ranges, meant crash risks were higher then official estimates.

He admitted they would still be confined to about 0.000016 crashes per two million passengers - but called this "an unacceptable rate."

Consultant Malcolm Spaven, also for LAAG, was due today to question yet more data from 1988 by the NII.

Meanwhile a LAAG statement stood by the "Fukushima in the making" claim, adding: "Even though John Large believes the reinforced concrete vessel of each reactor at Dungeness B would withstand an aircraft crash, subsidiary equipment failures could lead to a very significant radiological release, mirroring the situation at Fukushima."

But Mr Crompton said: "You wouldn't be able to hit the power station without breaking the plane. The end of the runway is actually at right angles to the station."