Norman Mead, chairman of Great Hallingbury parish council, who has campaigned against the expansion, said: "Safety has been one of our considerations. There's always this nagging fear at the back of our mind. This was an accident waiting to happen."
The phenomenal growth of the airport - for long the poor relation of Heathrow and Gatwick - has been driven mainly by the increase in no-frills budget air travel and the fact that its bigger rivals are bursting at the seams.
The British Airports Authority estimated earlier this year that Stansted was likely to handle 9m passengers, compared with 5.5m just two years ago.
In the last 18 months, the number of destinations served from Stansted has mushroomed from 23 to 65. By the time a £200m expansion is completed in 2002 - which includes improvements to road links - passenger numbers are likely to have reached 11m, compared with a capacity of 15m.
Alan Dean, councillor for Stansted village on Uttlesford district council, said: "The airport has been given permission to double its number of flights. We need a moratorium on expansion of flights, especially cargo flights which are not regulated at all. That loophole should be tightened."
Plans to urbanise the area around the airport would be a disaster, he said.
"We want that plan halted. I wrote to John Prescott today to throw the report the expansion plans are based on in the bin. If the area had been urbanised it would have been a more horrific incident," he said.
It is all a far cry from the airport's early days in the second world war when it was used to service US bombers.
Even after the Queen opened the £400m terminal building designed by Sir Norman Foster in 1991, the airport was often only half full and some international airlines pulled out because they wanted to make Heathrow their hub.
American Airlines, for example, incurred huge losses from direct services to the US and eventually closed them. Stansted was branded the white elephant of air travel until low-fare airlines - notably Ryanair and Go, the BA subsidiary - starting operations there.
International carriers wanting to expand have also been forced to look to Stansted.
