Prediction of the month

As you will all no doubt be aware a plane crashed in Farnborough in Kent on Sunday and an accident investigation is under way. This has come at a very inconveniant time as Heathrow airport steps up the campaign to build a third runway and bring the entire road system in West London to a complete standstill.

I predict that this air crash will be blamed on human error, whatever the real cause. You see, should it turn out to be a defect in the planes engines or some other mechanical failure then the campaign for the third runway will suffer a serious blow as people realise that even more air traffic overhead can only end in one way, a huge air crash that kills hundreds. But a human error is not deemed quite as serious and people will asume that the pilots of jet airliners are better trained so it is not likely to happen at Heathrow.

And there is already too much money involved to let safety interfere with the desire to make a fast buck. Bribes have already been paid, shares in companies promised and contributions to election campaigns have already been spent. The third runway will get the go ahead whatever happens. Even if that means fiddling the results of an accident investigation.