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| Friday, 6 February 2009 |
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10 airports to avoid
7:42 PM ::
2 Comments ::  :: Airport News, Travel
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SYDNEY: A list of the world's 10 most scary airport runways has been compiled.
As well as out-of-the-way places, it even includes major cities, Reuters reports...
1. Paro Airport, Bhutan: Tucked into a valley surrounded by 4900m. Himalayan peaks and tree-covered hills, Bhutan's only airport can be tackled only by specially trained pilots.
2. Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten: Just 2180m. long, the runway is fine for small or medium-size jets, but as the second-busiest airport in the Eastern Caribbean it regularly welcomes wide-body jetliners like Boeing 747s and Airbus A340s, which fly in low over a beach and skim just over the perimeter fence.
3. Reagan National Airport, Washington, DC: With the airport in the centre of two overlapping air-exclusion zones, pilots must follow the Potomac River while steering clear of sensitive sites such as the Pentagon and CIA headquarters; and on taking off, pilots need to climb quickly then bank steeply to avoid flying over the White House.
4. Gibraltar Airport: Pinched in by the Mediterranean on its eastern flank and the Bay of Algeciras on its western side, the airport's truncated runway stretches just 1828m. and demands pinpoint precision.
5. Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho: The 399m.-long runway is perched at the edge of a couloir at 2300m. Planes drop down the face of a 609m. cliff until they start flying, says bush pilot Tom Claytor. “The rule in the mountains is that it is better to take off downwind and downhill than into wind and uphill, because in Lesotho the hills will usually out-climb you.”
6. Barra Airport, Scotland: On the tiny Outer Hebridean Island of Barra, the airport is actually a wide shallow bay on to which scheduled planes, the roughness of the landing being determined by the tide.
7. Toncontin Airport, Tegucigalpa, Honduras: After negotiated rough-hewn mountainous terrain, pilots must execute a 45deg. last-minute bank to the left just minutes before touching down in a bowl-shaped valley on a 1862m. runway (at an altitude of 1000m., the airport can accommodate aircraft no larger than a Boeing 757.
8. John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York: Pilots need to avoid interfering with flights into New York's two other airports nearby, LaGuardia and Newark, forcing them to have a 457m. ceiling and 8km visibility before lining up with runway.
9. Madeira Airport, Funchal, Madeira: Wedged in by mountains and the Atlantic, Madeira Airport needs a clockwise approach for which pilots are specially trained, and despite the runway being extended to 2743m., the approach is still hair-raising (pilots must first point their aircraft at the mountains, then at the last minute bank right to the runway.
10. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Netherlands Antilles: Perched on a precipitous gale-battered peninsula, the airport requires pilots to tackle blustery trade winds and occasional spindrift as they maneouvre in for landing on a 396m. runway.
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| Comments |
 By
John @
Friday, 6 February 2009 9:27 PM
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You seem to be confusing 'interesting' with 'dangerous'.
Barra is very interesting - it is not however, in any way, dangerous.
Gibraltar is very interesting, it is not however, in any way, dangeorus.
Having flown to both of these on many occasions (and working in the aviation industry) and can tell you that neigther of these are dangerous.
While I don't know about the rest of the list, Barra and Gibraltar are far from airports to avoid - in fact they are airports I would go out of my way TO visit.
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By
madeira @
Tuesday, 10 February 2009 1:29 AM
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i agree, dangerous give the wrong impression, hair-raising but in no way dangerous!
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