Runway farce cuts off Falklands

BRITISH scientists are among dozens stuck on the Falkland Islands after the runway on Ascension Island was put out of action.

Urgent repairs are needed to the surface of the runway on the British-owned “stop-off island”, in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Ascension Island is 1,000 miles from the coast of Africa and 1,600 miles from the coast of Brazil.

The closure of its runway, which played a crucial role in the Falklands War in 1982, has disrupted military and civilian access to the Falklands and to the island of St Helena, also in the South Atlantic. The Ministry of Defence has now been forced to reroute what is known as its strategic “air bridge”.

A flight today from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, one of two “essential” flights a week, has been rerouted via Senegal, West Africa.

The United States owns the runway, which was built in the Second World War and extended in the 1960s as an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle. While the US is responsible for maintenance the UK owns the taxi ways, hard standing and airport terminal.

Ageing cargo ship RMS St Helena had been brought out of retirement to service the two mid-Atlantic islands, but the vessel is currently out of action in South Africa with a leak.

Former international development minister Lord Foulkes said the plight of the islanders had become a “farce, bordering on tragedy”.

It comes a year after officials admitted that large aircraft could not land at a newly-built £250million airstrip on St Helena because it was too windy.