Difficult Airports for landing

flahers

Read a great book many years ago about the worlds most dangerous airports for landing. Anyone remember it or know which airports are particularly bad ?

Mr Benevolent

Faro, Portugal (youtube it)
Kai Tak, Hong Kong (youtube it)
Martinique (very short)

ronnie3585

Bantry.

CaptainSkidmark

I imagine Kai Tak, St Maarten's were in it.

Flyer1

Bantry isn't dangerous ! It's got the best approaches of any airport in the country. It's short but nothing you couldn't manage in most light aircraft with good technique. Shortest strip i've done to date is 265m, with good technique i was able to operate in 5/8 of it comfortably.

Captain Chaos

TGU airport in Honduras is a toughy for medium size airliners, the biggest that can land there is a 757 as far I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM7GrMKsVcQ

Fratton Fred

Is skiathos still hairy? From what I recall, there is sea either end of a very short runway. You used to have to land at Thesaloniki because most aoreplanes couldn't get off the ground with enough fuel to make it home.

WIZE

st martins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzHLme6ISTQ&feature=fvw

yaeger

The fact that the runway is short wouldnt really make into dangerous airports list i would have thought.... Your aircraft and its weight at the time can either make it or not so just make sure you plant it.
Otherwise airports with difficult approaches would come into it I would think, Some of the greek islands and the likes of Salzburg, Innsbruck,Gibraltar,nice are difficult. Faro is not difficult, can get windy but not that often. Some times tricky approaches are made that much harder because of the short runway which just means you got work harder to be on profile.

Delta Kilo

I think Paro in Bhutan has to be the most dangerous approach in the world.

Check out the house at 0:53!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlKApjc9T2U

highlydebased

Confab wrote: »

Faro, Portugal (youtube it)
Kai Tak, Hong Kong (youtube it)
Martinique (very short)

Faro is far from difficult! Its runway is 300m longer than Corks....

Innsbruck is interesting, but generally easy. The circling visual approach is a challenge

Sion (switzerland) is difficult enough

Funchal/Madiera (LPMA) is a notable one- Island southwest of Portugal...special aircrew certification required

Mr Benevolent

Faro is far from difficult! Its runway is 300m longer than Corks....

Faro is notorious for high winds. Kai Tak's runway wasn't short either. Short doesn't nessecarily mean difficult. Google them both and you're see what I mean.

highlydebased

Confab wrote: »

Faro is notorious for being dangerously windy. Kai Tak's runway wasn't short either. Short doesn't nessecarily mean difficult.

It generally does, but the jetstream dicates it is straight down the runway most the time - right now its straight down 10.

by the same token, Cork suffers from Chronic fog and Shannon strong crosswinds in winter. Does that make them notably difficult either? Of course not.

Mr Benevolent

Neon-Circles wrote: »

It generally does, but the jetstream dicates it is straight down the runway most the time - right now its straight down 10.

by the same token, Cork suffers from Chronic fog and Shannon strong crosswinds in winter. Does that make them notably difficult either? Of course not.

Just have look at aircraft landing at the above airports on youtube. It's pointless talking about the theory of it.

Nforce

Lukla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQVLw_4brY

N2

Neon-Circles wrote: »

It generally does, but the jetstream dicates it is straight down the runway most the time - right now its straight down 10.

by the same token, Cork suffers from Chronic fog and Shannon strong crosswinds in winter. Does that make them notably difficult either? Of course not.

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John_Mc

Confab wrote: »

Just have look at aircraft landing at the above airports on youtube. It's pointless talking about the theory of it.

You've clearly no idea what you're talking about.

Faro is a straight in approach with plenty of runway and usually has very good weather conditions. There's absolutely nothing difficult about it!

View Profile

Did my night rating in Faro, as did most of my class mates. Its a very safe and ordinary airport to land/take off from. Definitely not dangerous!

Maybe Confab is thinking of Funchal?

View Profile

This is a bit tricky.

Saba Island!

LeotheLion

Day's Hotel Ballymun,
a Plane operated by a portugues pilot was diverted away from landing on top of this newly built hotel by air traffic control a couple of years ago as it was deemed too dangerous.

Mr Benevolent

View Profile wrote: »

Did my night rating in Faro, as did most of my class mates. Its a very safe and ordinary airport to land/take off from. Definitely not dangerous!

Maybe Confab is thinking of Funchal?

Yup that's what I meant

donkey balls

pokhara in nepal

fabbydabby

You have to do a bit of mountain dodging coming into Innsbruck, of so i am told.

niborm

I would think Quito in Ecuador is difficult.

JSK 252

LaGuardia and heraklion.

teresasaunt

Tegucigalpa, Honduras Toncontin airport landing

Run_to_da_hills

Not exactly airports but two of the most dodgy places that I have ever been dropped off or lifted from were the Skellig Rock and Kish Lighthouse helipads.

dogmatix

Speaking as a passenger, I would say Maderia is one of the most "interesting" airports I have flown in and out of. The whole thing appears to be mounted on concrete stilts on a steep hillside with a sharp drop into the sea on the other side.

Some of the small airports on the Azores can be "fun" also...

Skyknight

How about Gustaff III(or Saint Barthélemy Airport (TFFJ)).
Not really sure if this counts, since the largest aircraft you are going to get in there is an Twin Otter, but the approach on 10, always looks a bit tight to me, especially the clearing the road just short of the threshold. Might be just me of course.

Fratton Fred

What is Bournemouth like for a pilot? I drove past the airport once and had to wait at traffic lights whilst a plane took off, the thing looked like it had reversed into a hedge at the end of the runway and i am sure its tail was hanging over the road (ok, that may be a bit of an exageration:D)

drdeadlift

Margarita,its an island just off the coast of venezuela.The airport is surrounded buy mountains along with this there is no ils just an on field vor and an ndb.Got a cockpit seat there on an air atlanta 742 the pilots were extrs vigilant on approach,..

t

Flyer1

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What is Bournemouth like for a pilot? I drove past the airport once and had to wait at traffic lights whilst a plane took off, the thing looked like it had reversed into a hedge at the end of the runway and i am sure its tail was hanging over the road (ok, that may be a bit of an exageration:D)

Bournemouth - not a problem

A320-200

Just to go back to the LOWI post. Two charts just to show the proximity to high ground, and the challenging nature of the required instument procedures.

First it the LOC DME WEST. Which is followed by a circle-to-land for 26 or 08.




Next is the chart for the follow up visual procedure. And as you can see, after the AB (Absam) NDB, you have to keep the turn radius inside .9NM . Fun stuff.

Omcd

I remember flying into Faro when I was kid. The plane did a low level circle over the sea to line up with the runway and at one point the plane appeared to come a complete stop over the sea, it was like we were just hovering there. Two seconds later I was looking almost vertically down wing into the sea, the engines were roaring and the pilot appeared to be trying to stand the plane on its tail. I reckon the pilot almost stalled it and we came very close to ending up in the sea :eek: