Airport staff have announced their action plan for major plane crashes at Gatwick.

They revealed a series of measures that would be introduced in an emergency at a training conference at the airport yesterday.

Airport workers teamed up with church leaders from Sussex and Surrey who met to work out ways to help distressed families after a crash. Some of the measures included setting up a casualty bureau at the Sussex Police headquarters in Lewes.

Information about fatalities and the injured would be sent there by officers posted at hospitals and mortuaries. There would also be reception areas at the airport for survivors and their families. Roads around the airport would be closed and carers and helpers would be bussed in from meeting points outside Gatwick.

Caroline Nicholls, public affairs director at the airport, said: "Everyone here spends a lot of time contingency planning for the thing we hope will never happen. It is important if there is an accident that we are able to deal with it efficiently and professionally and with sensitivity."

The only major accident at Gatwick was in 1969, when an Ariana Afghan Airlines plane crashed east of Balcombe Road, near Crawley, demolishing a house. Forty-three of the 54 passengers were killed and 11 were seriously injured.

PC John Goulding, of the Gatwick police training unit, said families of passengers believed to have been killed would be taken to Gatwick hotels to give personal details to help identify bodies.

There would be survivor reception areas in both the South Terminal and the North Terminal. Centres for friends and relatives would be set up in the staff canteens and there would also be reunion areas.

Barry Owen, Gatwick's contingency planning manager, said in the event of a crash, staff would be encouraged to stay at home to prevent roads becoming gridlocked and those who needed to come in would have to travel by train.

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