SHIPS using the ports either side of the Hoo Peninsula could cause a catastrophe to planes making instrument landings at Cliffe Airport. Bernard de Neumann, who has helped to design other airports, believes that large ships entering the Thames or Medway ports would deflect the electronic beams that help pilots to find an airport when flying blind in bad weather or fog. He studied the phenomenon of beam bending in the 1980s when he worked for GEC on airport designs. Prof de Neumann, who now lives on the Essex coast, is "extremely anti-Cliffe". "The Cliffe Airport proposal is unique in proposing a civil airport adjacent to commercial river containing large ships. Big civil airports use instrument landing systems. They beam electro-magnetic energy along runways, making it possible to land blind. Large objects several miles from a runway can interfere with the signals. "Ships in the Thames, and in the container port to be built at Canvey, will act as large electro-magnetic mirrors that may also be moving and turning, causing beam-bend." He says it can cause aircraft to veer unpredictably when landing, and has caused accidents in the past.