Here are a few of the most dangerous airports in the world!
10 - Cristiano Ronaldo Airport, Portugal Madeira is an archipelago in the North Atlantic
ocean that’s one of two autonomous regions of Portugal.
The Madeiran capital is mainly known for the historic city of Funchal, a popular resort
destination and the birthplace of Cristiano Ronaldo.
But hold up!
It’s also known as the home to one of the most dangerous runways on Earth.
Pilots flying into the coastal airport must undergo additional training, studying the
approach in detail.
Airlines wishing to fly into Funchal require special approval from the Portuguese aviation
authority.
No instrument landing system approach exists at Funchal, so pilots must navigate the challenging
terrain manually.
The destination is particularly tough because of strong and highly variable Atlantic winds.
Basically there’s mountains on one side and the ocean on the other.
As if that weren’t enough, the runway has been extended on uhhhhhhh… stilts!!!
The extension has actually been constructed on 180 concrete pillars, each standing 230
feet above the rocky, windswept coastline.
It’s kind of insane when you look at it from the side.
9 - Tenzing-Hillary Airport, Nepal Tenzing-Hillary or, Lukla Airport, is a small
airport in the town of Lukla in eastern Nepal.
The airport is situated in the Himalayas at 9000 feet above sea level.
This high altitude often causes difficulty for the pilot to control the landing speed
of the plane.
The airport is popular because Lukla is the place where most people start the climb to
Mount Everest Base Camp.
There are daily flights between Lukla and Kathmandu during daylight hours.
Well, in good weather anyways.
Although the flying distance is short, high winds, cloud cover, and changing visibility
often mean flights can be delayed or the airport is just simply closed.
The runway is a short asphalt strip.
It’s only 1,500 feet long and 65 feet wide with a gradient of 12% from north to south.
Because of its size, it can only accommodate small airplane and helicopters.
The topography of the runway makes any go-around impossible.
At the south, the runway is the end of an angled drop of about 2000 feet!
This cliff is fenced off, thank goodness, as a precautionary measure.
At the northern end of the runway there’s a huge mountain terrain.
Pretty much, this airport doesn’t leave much room for error!
The landing plane comes from the north to the south of the runway, so the plane will
have go round the mountain and land on an uphill runway.
Hey, at least they planned out this one pretty well, because being uphill helps stop the
plane before it hits the fence and falls off the cliff!
8 - Barra Airport, Scotland Have you ever landed on a beach?
The airport on the tiny Outer Hebridean Island of Barra is actually a wide shallow bay which
scheduled planes land, making it a pretty cool curiosity in the world of aviation.
The tiny Scottish airport on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean has been voted the world's
most stunning landing spot in 2011.
The airport is unique, being the only one in the world where scheduled flights use an
actual beach as the runway!
Flight times are dictated by the tide and the 'runway' is washed away every night, because
at high tide these runways are under the sea.
The beach is set out with three runways in a triangle, marked by permanent wooden poles
at their ends.
The aerodrome isn’t licensed for night use, although emergency flights occasionally operate
at night from the airport, with vehicle lights used to illuminate the runway and reflective
strips laid onto the beach!
7 - Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho Matekane Air Strip is an airport in Lesotho
with a 1,300 foot runway that extends to the edge of a 2,000 ft. cliff.
Located high in the mountains, take-offs here are NOT for the faint of heart!
The runway is often used by charitable organizations and doctors to access remote villages in the
area, and is labeled as having one of the world's scariest runways.
Because of the small 1,300-foot-long runway, becoming airborne at the end of the tarmac
is virtually impossible.
Instead, you drop down the face of a 2,000-foot cliff until you uh….
start flying.
Or you hope you do anyways.
Apparently pilots have said that the rule in the mountains is that it’s better to
take off downwind and downhill.
Uhhh…..yeah, I’d have to say that’s a good rule to follow!
6 - Skiathos Airport, Greece Skiathos Airport is an airport on the island
of Skiathos, Greece.
Because of the uneven terrain on the island of Skiathos, Skiathos Airport was created
by reclaiming land from the sea between Skiathos island and the smaller island of Lazareta,
effectively joining the two islands into one larger island.The location makes for amazing
scenery for those people on the plane flying in, and a memorable experience for those who
are brave enough to stand directly under the plane's path.The runway is characterized as
'short and narrow', but I mean, it doesn’t seem that way – its runway is over 5300
feet long and it’s able to accommodate aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 757.
The airport's runway and its proximity to an adjacent public road have made it a popular
destination to just watch planes land.
Tourists gather at the edge of the island's airport every day to experience the thrill
of a passenger jet flying just above them!
Tourists don't go there just for landings, but they also watch planes take off.
However, it can be a painful lesson why it isn’t a good idea to stand in the way of
the powerful jet blast!
Apparently people could end up being hit with sand, rocks and other debris whipped up by
the rush of air from the engines!
Ayeeeeee!!!
5 - Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport is an airport
on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba.
The miniscule airport, named after the Aruban Minister Juancho Yrausquin, has a strange
claim to fame.
It’s the world’s shortest commercial landing strip—and some people say it’s one of
the most dangerous!
The landing strip at the Junacho E. Yrausquin airport stretches for just a little over 1,300
feet, before steep cliffs on either end threaten to take the plane into the water!
That’s also assuming the aircraft doesn’t run into the high hills flanking one side.
Large planes are of course unable to land at the airport, because of the length of the
runway.
The only airline that flies regularly scheduled trips is Winair; it’s a short 12-minute
flight from the island of St. Maarten.
It’s either that or a 90-minute boat ride!
4 - Ice Runway, Antarctica The Ice Runway is the principal runway for
the US Antarctic Program during the summer Antarctic field season because of its proximity
to McMurdo Station.
Black ice provides a tricky landing surface for planes and is formed when snow falls onto
the glacier, gets compacted, and then recrystallizes.
The runway for wheeled aircraft is constructed at the start of each season and is used until
early December when the sea ice begins to break up!
Subsequently flight operations are moved back to Williams Field, one of the other ice strips
on the Antarctic.
Talk about being on thin ice, haaaa!!!
Pilots landing planes on the sea ice runway have said that the surface is stable, pretty
much like landing on concrete.
However, that’s where the similarity stops, when the jet aircraft rolls to a stop.
The weight of the plane causes the plane to sink into the ice, although it’s only a
matter of inches.
If you do ever decide to fly to Antarctica, it’s a back-to-basics experience.
Then again, if you’re the type of person who's flying to Antarctica, you’re probably
used to that anyways!
The flight also has the possibility of not touching down at all.
If the weather is bad, the aircraft will have to turn around and head back and wait until
conditions clear before attempting to land again, on a patch of ice……..yeahhhhhhh.
3 - Gibraltar International Airport, Gibraltar Fitting an airport into an area that measures
just 2.3 square miles probably wasn’t an easy task, but Gibraltar had a novel way of
solving the issue.
The airport which serves the British overseas territory has made full use of the minimal
space and lack of flat land available by building its only runway through the its busiest road.
Great idea right?!
It means that cars travelling along Winston Churchill Avenue must stop for planes several
times a day.
Winston Churchill Avenue is the main road that heads towards the border with Spain.
The road intersects the airport runway, and consequently has to be closed every time a
plane lands or departs.
For about 10 minutes, traffic stays at a standstill to allow flights to depart and arrive from
UK cities including London, Birmingham, or Manchester.
A pair of barriers close for every landing and departure, which currently number around
30 a week, all flying to and from the United Kingdom.
The airport is just 1500 feet from the center of Gibraltar - the shortest commute of any
major airport in the world.
In 2015, the airport handled over 4,100 total flights.
2 - Courchevel Altiport, France Courchevel Altiport is an altiport serving
Courchevel, a ski resort in the French Alps.
What’s an altiport you ask?
An altiport is an aerodrome for small airplanes and helicopters, situated on mountainous terrain.
This particular altiport has a very short runway that’s a little over 1700 feet long.
There’s no go-around procedure for landings at Courchevel, because of the surrounding
mountainous terrain.
Oh yeah, what’s a go-around?
A go-around, which is sometimes called overshoot, is an aborted landing of an aircraft that’s
on final approach.
The airport is considered dangerous because it has a difficult approach and an upslope
runway.
Ice and unpredictable winds are always a concern for the pilots.
Pilots have to meet rigorous training requirements before being able to land at this altiport.The
runway has no instrument approach procedure or lighting aids, making landing in fog and
low clouds unsafe and practically impossible!
The French Aviation Authority actually doesn’t allow commercially chartered private flights
to land at Courchevel because of the short length of the runway, the uphill gradient
of the runway, the steep approach and the ‘no go around‘ procedure.
Seriously, who really wants to land here?!
1 - Gisborne Airport, New Zealand Gisborne Airport is a small regional airport
that’s located on the western outskirts of Gisborne, the East Coast of the North Island
of New Zealand.
This airport is one of the very few airports in the world that has a railway line intersecting
the runway.
Seriously, just why’d they plan it that way?!
The Gisborne airport has three grass runways and one main runway that’s intersected by
the Palmerston North - Gisborne Railway Line.
The rail route is still active and obviously the airport is as well.
The airport uses the runway everyday between 6:30 in the morning and 8:30 at night, and
after that, the runway is sealed off till morning.
The railway tracks splits the runway almost in the middle and very often trains or aircraft
are stopped until one of them moves on.
With this set up, it’s a very challenging task for airport authorities to manage arrivals
and departures at the runway.
The operational rail route has scheduled departures and arrivals itself.
The airport is the major link to the small region of Gisborne and has more than 60 domestic
flights, with more than 150,0000 passengers flying through this airport each year!
Here’s what’s next!