And residents living near the airfield – who for decades have demanded its closure – say the latest accident provides further proof it is unsafe so close to housing.

Tuesday's tragedy brings the number to die in crashes around the airport to 17 since 1978.

RMIT planning academic Michael Buxton has done extensive research into airports and their interaction with surrounding housing, office, retail and industrial developments.

He said the privatisation of Australian airports from 1997 had seen their leaseholders make "packets of money" by building on vacant land around airstrips.

The plane that crashed on Tuesday hit the Essendon DFO, built since the airport's privatisation in 1998.

Planning decisions on federal airport land are controlled by the Commonwealth government.

Essendon Airport was leased for 50 years to Essendon Airport Pty Ltd, owned in equal parts by property developer Beck Corporation and transport group Linfox.

Professor Buxton said the Essendon Airport DFO was "one of the most extensive commercialisations of any airport in Australia and it has put thousands of extra people daily within the airport boundaries".

He said state governments had failed to strongly oppose bad developments at airports – despite the dangers they introduced.

Premier Daniel Andrews, asked on Tuesday if Essendon Airport should shut after the latest accident, pointed to its importance as a transport hub for Victoria.

Aviation analyst Neil Hansford said the crash raised questions about whether Essendon Airport's operators should have been allowed to develop the site.

"The DFO sits on what used to be cleared land for the airport. If the DFO hadn't been there, [the plane] would have come down on the airport estate," he said.

But Peter Bruce, deputy chair of Swinburne University's aviation department, said there was tight regulation to prevent developments on airport grounds interfering with safety.

"This is a freak sort of thing," Dr Bruce said.

There have been 287 incidents, three serious, and three "accidents" at Essendon Airport in the past decade, according to Australian Transport Safety Bureau data.

The most recent before Tuesday's was in December, when a Royal Flying Doctor Service plane's landing gear collapsed and it overran the runway.

Helen van den Berg was spokeswoman for a campaign to close Essendon Airport for 13 years – but the group wound itself up two years ago after realising the fight was pointless.

"Why argue when nobody will act? You saw today, the premier shut down the argument about closing so quickly because commerce takes precedence over people," she said.

Labor's 1996 federal election campaign promised to shut the airport and turn it into film studios.

Ms van den Berg, who lives in Niddrie, said air safety bureaucrats had warned at that time that Essendon needed a far bigger buffer around its runways.

Approached for a response on the safety of airport development, and resident safety, Essendon Airport issued a statement on Tuesday saying: "Planning on and around airports is subject to an extensive public consultation process including the local community and all relevant authorities."

It was not appropriate to comment further on the incident until safety investigations were complete, the statement said.

Ms van den Berg said the aircraft in Tuesday's accident might have had more chance of reducing the crash severity if there had been open space around it.

"If I buy a ticket for Tullamarine, I know there is a buffer of green space around it. At Essendon, there's nothing."

Arun Chandu completed his PhD last year into the history of Melbourne's airports, which looked at Essendon from its use as a major airfield from 1919. "It was on the outskirts at that time, miles from everything," he said.

He argued that the crash was due to an aircraft issue, and the focus shouldn't be on the development around the airport.

But Essendon Fields residents on Tuesday voiced their concerns about the height of buildings close to the airport.

Stephen Moore saw the aftermath of the plane crashing into the shopping centre. He was surprised "a building of that height that close to an airport" had been allowed.

Mr Moore was also concerned about other surrounding developments, including apartments being built on a hill on Bulla Road, across the Tullamarine Freeway from the DFO. "It seems high for being that close to the airport," he said.

However he said he didn't believe the airport should be shut or buffer zones increased. "It's a rare event so we have to take that into context," he said.

Brian, who did not want to give his last name, called the height of the apartments "ridiculous". The 55-year-old has lived most of his life in Essendon and said if the plane had missed the DFO, it would have hit the apartments.

"I don't know how they got away with building it that high that close to the airport. It's silly. When I was a kid, we were told off for flying kites."