Part of our research recently has involved the story of the development of inter-city helicopter travel in the UK during the 1950s. As such we have been trawling the collection of the National Archives at Kew. One informative document we have come across concerns the proposed siting of heliports (helicopter stations) in the capital, 1961. (REF:DSIR 23/34668)
Amongst the proposed sites are two for the area around Nine Elms Lane, precisely where yesterday’s tragic collision occurred. There are many reasons for the non-arrival of mass inter-city helicopter transport, but safety was one of the big issues, particularly around the heights of structures in proximity to landing sites, as the splays superimposed on the plan below suggest.
One of nine proposed sites in the report.
[re_map] 