These airports flirt with disaster big time... After some digging around, i was able to get this exciting, fun but shocking airport views!!
10: Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport Saba Island
This beautiful airport is located on the Caribbean island and can be a bit distressing to land on.
The runway is just 1300 foot long and this is just slightly longer than most aircraft carrier runways.
DANGERS
The incredibly short runway is surrounded by tall cliffs, and it comes frighteningly close to a steep slope which leads directly to the ocean. This simply means that if a plan "overshoots" the runway, its plunging into the ocean. This airport is avoided (like a plague) by large planes for obvious reason....
9: Qamdo Bamda Airport Tibet
Towering above every other airport at 14,000ft above see level, the Qamdo Bamda Airport clocks in as the highest airport currently existing in the world. Even more impressive than the airport altitude is the 3.2-mile-long runway.
Airport altitude : 14,000 ft
Airport Runway length- 3.2 miles
This exceptionally long runway makes the landing a little bit safer since high attitude landing requires an awful length of runway.
Traveling at high altitude can in fact be pretty dangerous all round, and travelers should make themselves aware of conditions before they decide to fly in such places
8: Gustaf III Airport Saint Barthélemy
The small airport of Gustaf III, on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy, provides pilots and passengers alike with some fairly grave dangers. The corridor in which the runway has been built is incredibly narrow, and planes come frighteningly close to hitting the slopes of the adjacent upland area, or plummeting into the ocean, every time they land.
7: Ice RunwayAntarctica
The dangers of Ice Runway have more to do with the extreme weather conditions that the pilot has to deal with, rather than the design or position of the airport itself. The Ice Runway is one of three major airstrips used to haul supplies and researchers to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. As its name implies, there’s no tarmac in sight—just long stretches of meticulously groomed ice and snow.
There is no shortage of space on the Ice Runway, so super-sized aircraft can land with relative ease. The real challenge is making sure that the weight of the aircraft and cargo doesn’t bust the ice or get the plane stuck in soft snow. As the ice of the runway begins to break up, planes are redirected to Pegasus Field or Williams Field, the two other airstrips servicing the station.
6: Courchevel Airport France
The city of Courchevel in the French Alps is one of the most famous ski resorts in Europe, but it seems like the city owes much of its fame to its airport, which is located inside the mountains. Courchevel Airport is not only famous for its incredible height and bizarre location, but also for the fact that it has had a leading role in a James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, which depicted Mr. Bond landing a plane successfully in the extremely dangerous airport.
5: Barra International Airport Scotland
This is quite possibly the only airport in the world that also serves as a beach. Takeoffs and landings at Barra Airport occur on the same sand that people can stroll along during airport off-hours. And that’s just the beginning: during high tide in the evening, the illumination from the lights of all the cars passing by assist the pilot with his landing. For those who simply want to enjoy a romantic walk along the beach, there are warning signs informing them of all expected upcoming flight arrivals.
Believe it or not, Barra is still an officially recognized international airport by the Air Traffic Organization, and it seems like any kind of logical or critical suggestion would be deemed irrelevant by the authorities. We can only hope that they know better than us!
4: Toncontin International Airport Honduras
In Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, we can fly into one of the most dangerous and notorious airports in the world. It has been the subject of scrutiny following several accidents, including a 2008 crash that caused the deaths of five passengers. The airport opened back in 1934, an era when planes were less powerful and didn’t require such lengthy runways.
Toncontin’s runway is just over seven thousand feet long, and it’s situated in a valley surrounded by mountains. What’s even harder to believe—and by far the most hazardous aspect of this airport—is that there’s only one way in and one way out for the planes, which increases the risk dramatically. Despite all these high-risk factors, planes as large as Boeing 757’s land at the airport on a daily basis.
3: Tenzing-Hillary Airport Nepal
Lukla Airport, as it was called originally, was later renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport to honor the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Located in Lukla, Nepal, the airport serves thousands of climbers hoping to “conquer” Mount Everest, as well as trekkers wishing to explore the Everest region.
Dangers at this airport include high winds and extreme cloud cover—but these are by no means the scariest aspects. Like Gustaf III Airport, one end of the runway is preceded by high terrain; but instead of a beautiful sandy beach on the other end, there is a two-thousand-foot drop.
There have been several accidents at Lukla airport, most recently on October 12, 2010.
2: Gibraltar Airport Gibraltar
Gibraltar airport is not only one of the most dangerous airports in the world, but one of the busier ones as well (especially compared to the other risky airports included in this list). No matter how unbelievable this might sound, the corridor of this airport actually passes through the main street of the city.
Vehicles are made to stop every time an aircraft lands or takes off. It’s amazing that there has never been a major accident—and we can only hope it stays that way.
1-Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong
With a perilous runway that jut out into the sea, and a descent through skyscrapers and craggy mountains, Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong was seen as the ultimate test of a pilot’s skills.
The airport- which was shut down in 1998- was the site of botched landings that included planes crashing into the water and clipping buildings on their descent.
These spectacular images show the moment experienced pilots grappled with the notoriously dangerous landing, before the ariport was closed by the government in 1998 for its poor safety record.
Spectacular: The small airport became dangerously overcrowded in the 90s. Its beautiful surroundings belie the danger involved in landing a plane here
Washed up: A jumbo-jet crashes into the water when landing at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong. Planes would sometimes run over the landing and plunge into the sea
Calamity: This aircraft missed the mark on its low-descent by crashing into a TV aerial
Dramatic: A jumbo-jet from Kai Tak Airport takes the notoriously challenging ‘Hong Kong’ turn which is taken after the aircraft flies over a marker
The action shots were taken between 1992 and 1998 by English teacher Daryl Scott Chapman, 41, who has lived in Hong Kong since he was 16.
The dramatic images show planes land on the 11,000 foot-long runway against the dramatic backdrop of the densely-populated city.
The Kai Tak landing required special training as pilots had to take a challenging last-minute manual turn known as a ‘Hong Kong Turn’ after they saw a checkerboard reference point above Kowloon Tsai Park.
The alarmingly steep descent over the harbour and crowded high-rise tower blocks meant Kai Tak was hailed as the sixth most dangerous airport in the world.
Risky: 270 people were killed in 12 air accidents at Kai Tai. It served as Hong Kong’s main airport until it was shut down by the Government in 1998 for overcrowding and its poor safety records
U-turn: A Cathay Pacific from Kai Tak Airport aborts its landing in Hong Kong due to stormy weather. Pilots were aware of the difficulty of the landing and the conditions required to do it successfully
Tight squeeze: This remarkable image shows the moment a Cathay Pacific aircraft from Kai Tak Airport flies through the city’s buildings that are densely-populated
Scrapped: The airport is now the new Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, for cruise liners. It is 15 years since the dangerous site was used as an airport
Built-up: A Cathay 747 700 from Kai Tak Airport gets ready to fly from the infamously perilous runway that juts out into the sinking harbour
Kai Tak was Hong Kong’s main airport until 1998. It had suffered a shocking 12 air disasters with 270 people killed during this time – yet was handling nearly 30 million passengers per-year by 1996.
The deadliest incident was a US Marines Hercules flight which plunged into the harbour shortly after take-off in 1965, killing 59 passengers.
24 passengers were killed during a typhoon landing in 1967 and, in 1993, a Boeing 747 overran the runway during a typhoon.
The site of those dramatic flights has now been repurposed as the new Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, for crusie liners.
Unsafe: A low-flying jet dives over the heads of stunned onlookers
Document: The breathtaking images show the range of landings that took place on the treacherous runway.
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