a few months ago someone sent me a video of the 10 most dangerous airports in the world obviously
i was interested so i started watching it and realized that every airport in there the ideas and
their explanations of why it was dangerous made no sense at all but the video got so long i decided i
was gonna have to do a part two this is the part two now you don't have to watch the part one it
doesn't need to be in any specific order and a lot of people were asking me in the comment section of
the last video what are you calling this series because it seems like every video that i'm doing
now has some type of a series in it i hadn't come up with it there was a bunch of different ideas
and uh youtuber takes on aviation fear monger didn't really seem to fit it seemed to be too
long so i don't really have a name for this series and by the way a fearmonger is someone who tries
to make people afraid of something intentionally when it's not rationable or reasonable
so since i don't have a name for this series yet pilot versus aviation fear-monger coming up
hey 74 crew welcome back if you don't know me my name is kelsey i'm the 747 pilot my channel
74 gear is all about aviation i appreciate all of you in the 74 crew and those of you who've
been sending me videos sending me memes sending me things that you want to see on these different
series i appreciate all of you thank you very much you already know what this video is about so
let's get into it Paro airport this airport is so dangerous that there are only eight pilots in the
world who are qualified to land there the runway is surrounded by mountain peaks that are 18044
feet high to make matters worse the runway is only 6499 feet long because airplanes need to make such
a quick descent to get to the strip only the best of the best can land or take off from this airport
only the best of the best can take off and land at that airport okay you heard him talk about there
only being 8 qualified pilots to go in there is so dangerous that there are only eight pilots in the
world who are qualified to land there what will happen in a very complex airport is the airlines
will have specific training they do for pilots to go in there we have the same thing in the u.s
there are some airports that require special simulator training in order to be qualified to
go in there and qualified in case there is an engine failure procedure and instead of having
let's say you have 200 pilots and training all those 200 pilots to be able to do that specific
airport which requires specific simulator training instead of training all 200 pilots
most airlines pick a small group of people who are going to fly that all the time that's the
only thing that they fly that's probably why they only have eight people that are doing
it and not a large group of people in the u.s the ones that come to mind i think it's aspen
i think that's the airport i knew an airline that was flying in aspen all the time they had a small
group of pilots that were trained specifically to fly that aspen run or maybe it was veil i don't
remember but it was something in the mountains there it was specific training that you had to do
for that specific airport there was simulator training and other training that you had to do
so instead of them training their 3 000 pilots if all had to fly in there and keeping everybody
available and trained in case that needs to happen they had a small group of people who that's all
that they did i'm guessing that's the exact same thing for this airport here next they're talking
about these large mountains and how they're gonna have to make a quick descent to get onto the
runway i don't know it's always this quick descent with this guy you're not going to believe it but
my airline surprisingly has this arrival chart for that particular airport i didn't think it
was going to be here but here it is so this symbol right here shows you the highest peak on the chart
15 538 feet and hey that's very high although it would be also good to note that the airport itself
is at an altitude of 7 364 feet so it's really only a difference of a little over 8 000 feet
now i'm not saying this isn't a high risk airport i agree that there's special qualifications and
challenges that there would be to be going into this particular airport but it's not as
dramatic as this guy's making it sound an airport a lot of you are familiar with is los angeles lax
take a look at this one here's an arrival chart to lax i've flown this arrival before see this
same symbol here that's showing the highest point on this chart eight thousand eight hundred and
thirteen feet so that's actually a few hundred feet higher when you compare it to the airport
than pero airport by using these large peaks that they're using in this video here they're trying to
make it sound like it's this very scary massive difference when in reality here's lax an airport
that some of you probably flown into everybody has seen it it's a massive airport now i'm not saying
flying into pero and flying into lax are the same and equal difficulty no i'm sure flying in here
is more difficult and there's definitely some more things to be concerned about because you're flying
through a mountain valley i'm not saying that they're equal in risk but i'm just saying the
point that they're using is this huge difference and the reality is is on this arrival coming into
lax you have kind of the same thing as far as altitude differences now on this chart here at
pero it looks like from this point here you'd have to follow this valley straight into the airport
this is the airport right here and you'd have to descend all 9000 feet before you got to the
airport here which is not a lot that's a totally reasonable amount of time to descend from that
point until the airport that's not really that big of a deal and the length of the runway
is long enough that you could land a 747 in there it would be a very tight landing but you could
still make it fit so if i can land at 747 in that landing distance then you should be able to land
any small airbus state 320 or 319 or whatever or a boeing 737 you should be able to land either
of those two in there with no problems at all gibraltar international this airport is not
dangerous because of a short runway or a location inside of the mountains it is dangerous because
the runway actually intersects a main street winston churchill avenue when a plane needs
to land the road is closed there are not people blocking off the street there's just one stoplight
to warn drivers to stop for an airplane because there isn't much to stop drivers there have been
plenty of close calls over the years it feels like they're grasping at straws trying to come up
for airports that could be dangerous which don't make any sense kind of like the hollywood movies
you could have just asked a pilot a pilot probably could have come up with 10 airports that could be
dangerous was something that was logical and made sense is it possible that you could get a bunch of
drunk people in a car and that they go around the red light or whatever that's blocking the airport
there and drive onto the middle of the runway yeah it's possible but if that were happening all the
times and planes were getting destroyed during landings airplanes probably wouldn't be flying
in there because planes are expensive so they're not going to be having crashes all the time
so is this happening a lot no is it something you should be scared of also no the reality is that if
you're in a plane and you were to hit one of these small cars european cars tend to be a lot smaller
than american cars if you were to hit one of these small european cars and you're in a large aircraft
those people in the car are going to be in a lot of trouble it's going to
be uncomfortable for you and the plane you will probably have to evacuate the aircraft
but you're probably not going to be in any life-threatening danger for the most part could be
but probably not and again if that were happening all the time the airlines wouldn't be flying there
the real danger if you go to gibraltar is actually getting into a car and then getting some driver
who drives onto the runway during landing that's the biggest risk mcmurdo air station people don't
visit antarctica often therefore the mcmurdo air station doesn't have the best of safety conditions
the runway is a pretty good length however since it is freezing there all year long the runway is
usually covered with slick ice since it is dark there for most months of the year the pilots who
land need to wear night vision goggles so that they can see where they're going it's dark for
most parts of the month now don't tell this to a flat earth person but it's six months of light and
six months of dark so that's how it works down there in antarctica so as long as six months
is most then yes the other thing that i found funny is talking about landing on the runway
and the ice being slick i mean is that opposed to the normal grippy ice that you otherwise land on
the runway is usually covered with slick ice here's the thing i've landed a plane on ice
and snow in a snowstorm and i've done a bunch of different bad weather now if you gave me the
option of a clear blue dry day without wind yeah i'd rather take that but the momentum of your
aircraft when you land on something that's snow or ice is going down the middle of the runway which
means if you've lined up your aircraft properly as you come in to land that momentum is going to
be going that same direction you're not going to be like a car going around a bend or anything like
that you're going straight and that's a lot of momentum so if as long as you set it in correctly
you're gonna be fine and if your aircraft does start to skid it's not like there's a bunch of
things around you that you're going to hit into it looks like a very wide runway and a very long
runway so even if you skid and started going down the runway skidding it's not going to be a big
deal you're not going to slam on your brakes it looks like you have plenty of distance and luckily
luckily they haven't put the runway next to the end of the earth flat earthers and since i brought
that up the flat earth thing i get asked about the update for that i haven't seen or heard of them
or organized anything i actually did get carbon copied an email from somebody requesting a charter
and asking if i would be involved in flying it but it was going to an airline so i'm not going to
organize for all the flat earthers out there i'm not going to organize the flight for you and get
all the pricing i'm not selling this as a package transport deal if you all want to organize it you
guys can get the pricing if you want to request me to fly it and if i'm available i'll fly it that's
how it's going to work i'm not going to do all the leg work for you i'm not going to waste my time
back to antarctica the alternative to get there if you ever do want to go there is by boat now i know
a girl who went there and she went on a boat she said it was like three days of really rough seas
people were throwing up all over the place so if i'm going to compare a plane landing on ice
or a boat and rough seas for several days i'll choose a plane every single day daytime or night
time depending on the time of year it doesn't matter now all of you know i don't really like
cold weather but i would like to go to antarctica because i'd like to say i've been to all seven
continents that would be really cool so if you're some hot female scientist down there who has a
nice warm room with a huge supply of hot cocoa i can come down and edit videos for a few days
invite me down madeira airport this is one of the only airports in the world whose runway was
built by engineers the landing strip has steep cliffs on one side and the ocean on the other
in order to expand the runway they had to build the extension on over 180 columns these
columns must be able to withstand the heavy shock that airplanes produce during landing
if an airplane comes in too hard the runway could collapse so far it hasn't happened
however over time the columns will weaken without proper upkeep an accident is definitely possible
getting a bit faster loose with the word cliff aren't we this is not a cliff this is a cliff
you're not going to believe this but i actually have a chart for this airport as well some of the
charts that we have are airports i think i will never ever fly to but it's cool that it's in here
let's take a look at this this is the runway here and you can see this gradual climb up in
the hillside which they're calling a cliff so if your pilot was so bad that they missed the runway
and ended up all the way over here on this hill well it doesn't really matter because if they
missed the runway by that much you could be out in the middle of the desert and it would still be
an equally terrible problem i have joked about being off center line when you're landing on a
runway i've joked about that i had a problem with it when i went through flight school for
some reason i always land on the left or the right and i don't remember which one it was but i joked
about that but i've never ever seen a professional pilot go to land and completely miss the runway so
much that they're all the way off outside of the airport which is what it would take in this case
to miss the runway and land on the hill that they're calling a cliff you'd have to
get all the way off the airport field not likely and then i found this part really funny
if an airplane comes in too hard the runway could collapse is it possible for a plane to land so
hard that it collapses the columns yeah i guess it's possible but if a plane were to land so hard
that it were to collapse the columns there you'd probably also collapse the landing gear pancake
the entire plan and do a bunch of other things now you've seen in some of my viral debriefs
how hard of a landing these planes can take and they just bounce right back up or whatever
they do and so if that's the case you have other problems to worry about i wouldn't really worry
about these columns collapsing and then there's this thing that they said without proper upkeep
an accident is definitely possible i mean what does definitely possible even mean i mean is
it definitely possible that a bunch of victoria's secret models got lost on their bus ride to their
show and they ended up at one of my pool parties i mean that's definitely possible narsarswak airport
this is one of the most dangerous airports in the world for a few reasons the environment is what
makes this airport so dangerous the runway is always covered with ice if an airplane comes in
fast on the ice it's not uncommon for the plane to go off into the snow banks because there is
almost always a storm it can be very difficult for the pilot to see where they're landing
diminished visibility makes landing at this airport very dangerous to make matters worse
nearby is an active volcano which erupts often the ash can stall and even destroy a plane's engines
this can result in a deadly crash this airport is so dangerous that many pilots refused to fly in or
out of this airport the airport is always covered in ice the runway is always covered with ice this
doesn't look like ice or this or this one and then he said if the plane comes in really fast it could
slide off the end of the runway well that could be true on even no ice and that's why we don't come
in way over the speed that we're scheduled to come in and land at for that exact reason so that makes
no sense at all but he did get something right when he said this the ash can stall and even
destroy a plane's engines the volcanic ash if it were to get into the engines of your aircraft is
very dangerous there's a really famous story about a british airways aircraft a 747 that flew through
a volcanic ash i want to say in the 80s and they lost all four engines for a short time and if you
hear the captain's transmissions or whoever the pilot was that made those transmissions
the dude is so so cool now i'll be honest if i lost all four engines and didn't know why i would
be very very nervous but that was the 80s before they have all the technology that they have now
i've flown around volcanic ash before as recently as the last 12 months what happens is if a volcano
were to erupt we get sent a message imagine like a text message to our aircraft it can come from air
traffic control it can come from our airline there are people at the airlines that are watching your
flight and if there were something to impede that flight or make it dangerous or whatever
those people those flight watchers will send a message text message to the crew
and let them know hey listen there's volcanic ash that's on your route of flight and it's going to
be in this area here at this altitude so we'll get that message we'll take that message we'll
map out where we're flying and then we'll see if we're going to be impacted by that in any way
and you can ask that person that's sent that message is this on a route of flight what do
you suggest and get their information because they'll have more live information than obviously
you'll have in flight there so is that something that would be a risk flying through volcanic ash
yes is that a risk in today's aviation no because the technology allows for us to make
phone calls or phone calls to us or messages or any of those things so if there were to
be something that were to happen and we would be five minutes away from it we could get a message
right away they could say call us we could call them they could tell us go to this altitude or
go to this direction and they'll come up with a plan to keep you away from it so while it
is a risk it's not a risk in today's aviation as for the whole refuse to fly to that airport part
this airport is so dangerous that many pilots refused to fly in or out of this airport i have
seen situations where pilots can refuse to go to a high risk environment for example
my airline flies to afghanistan that's currently a war zone so pilots can say i don't want to fly
into a war zone i have seen that but otherwise if your airline flies to that airport all the time
you can't just say like i don't want to do that airport and this airport and that airport i don't
like those they don't feel good to me i don't want to go there that's not how it works your airline
flies that place and then you're going to fly to that place that's how it works cliff landing
this is not a traditional airport it is a place where an airplane was forced to make an emergency
landing luckily the plane stopped before it went off the cliff it takes a very skilled pilot to
perform such a feat i was very confused when i saw this so i googled it and then this is the first
image that comes up this is a plane i think it's a turkey they skidded off the end of the runway
and then slid over to the side here and then their plane stopped here before going into the water so
if you're the narrator of this video or whoever wrote this script and this to you makes someone
a very skilled pilot to skid off of a runway and then have gravity and friction stop a plane from
going into the water then what does that make me if you want to see part one of this video
check it out right here and if you want to see some pilots making some actual dumb decisions
check out this video up here i look forward to hearing from you until then keep the blue side up