The Board of Advisory of a Publicly Owned and Run Company

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The board approves an extra 13 point nine million uros for last minute changes to the fire safety system. Martin dalius: The problem with ed was that the board members always said, we asked the company, the company said, everything is in order,. We will open and we trusted the company. A thes you can name the him. He not only always was saying, everything is right, but he also told the advisory board that there are problems. "We later found out that almost all of those so called solutions were bushed," martin says.

Days away from the planned 2012 opening party, nothing seemed wrong at BER. What was really going on? On this episode, we look at how the airport managers and politicians were messing with the plans, even as construction was underway.

They demanded a 70% increase in terminal space to add hundreds of extra shops, and requested special double story boarding gates for the supersized Airbus A380, even though no airline requested it. Instead of a working fire safety system, they planned to hire up to 800 people to act as human fire alarms.

Despite multiple warnings, the airport board pushed ahead with opening party plans right up until May 8, 2012, when the first major delay was announced. We meet the man who put a stop to it all – Stephan Loge, the administrator of the Brandenburg building department.

Also on this episode, Joel and Jöran visit the Schönefeld S-Bahn station in search of the empty train that runs nightly to the unfinished airport to keep air moving through the tunnels.

Presented by Radio Spaetkauf and RadioEins Producers: Joel Dullroy, Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik and Daniel Stern Music: Ducks! Artwork: Jim Avignon