World's top 10 scariest airports

[S V Choong 4]

World's top 10 scariest airports

 

Nervous fliers, stop reading! Travel + Leisure has come up with a list of the world's scariest runways that can make even the most relaxed travellers grip their armrest.

 

1. Paro Airport, Bhutan

 

Tucked into a tightly cropped valley and surrounded by 4900-metre-high Himalayan peaks, Bhutan's only airport is forbidding to fly into. It requires specially trained pilots to manoeuver and land through a channel of tree-covered hillsides.

2. Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten

The length of the runway is just 2180 metres which 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 Maho Beach and skim just over the perimeter fence.

 

3. Reagan National Airport, Washington, DC

Located smack in the center of two overlapping air-exclusion zones, Reagan National requires pilots flying the so-called River Visual into the airport to follow the Potomac while steering clear of sensitive sites such as the Pentagon and CIA headquarters. On taking off, pilots need to climb quickly and execute a steep left bank to avoid flying over the White House.

 

4. Gibraltar Airport, Gibraltar

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 1828 metres and requires pinpoint precision.

 

5. Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho

 

The 399-metre-long runway is perched at the edge of a couloir at 2300 metres. You drop down the face of a 609-metre cliff until you 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, Barra, Scotland

The airport on the tiny Outer Hebridean Island of Barra is actually a wide shallow bay onto which scheduled planes land with the roughness of landings determined by how the tide went out.

 

7. Toncontin Airport, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

 

Having negotiated the rough-hewn mountainous terrain, pilots must execute a dramatic 45-degree, last-minute bank to the left just minutes prior to touching down in a bowl-shaped valley on a runway just 1862 metres in length. The airport, at an altitude of 1000 metres, can accommodate aircraft no larger than Boeing 757's.

 

8. John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York

 

Pilots have to avoid interfering with flights into New York's two other close-by airports, LaGuardia and Newark. Set up in 1964 as a noise-abatement measure, this approach forces pilots to have a reported 457-metre ceiling and a eight-kilometre visibility before lining up with runway 13L and the waters of Jamaica Bay.

 

9. Madeira Airport, Funchal, Madeira

Wedged in by mountains and the Atlantic, Madeira Airport requires a clockwise approach for which pilots are specially trained. Despite a unique elevated extension that was completed back in 2000 and now expands the runway length to what should be a comfortable 2743 metres, the approach to Runway 05 remains hair-raising. Pilots must first point their aircraft at the mountains and, at the last minute, bank right to the runway.

 

10. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Netherlands Antilles

 

Perched on a precipitous gale-battered peninsula on the island's northeastern corner, the airport requires pilots to tackle blustery trade winds, occasional spindrift, and their own uneasy constitutions as they maneuver in for a perfect landing on a runway that's just 396 metres long.

 

Reuters

 

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-fea...90203-7wix.html

 

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

I think i've read that article last sunday.Glad to see that St.Maarten is on the list (and it's the 2nd most scariest airport in the world)

[Walter Sim 1]

Paro Airport

 

Damnn, two turns before approaching the runway! Not for the fainted heart man, the approach looks as menacing as KaiTak

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

Too bad Kai Tak didn't make it to the top 10.

[Waiping 12]

1st person to fly all these airports. Any takers?

[Naim 6]

1st person to fly all these airports. Any takers?

 

Hehehe ... have done JFK and Reagan, maybe I should try Gibraltar-Gatwick with easyJet next May.

[Hakan 2]

TNCM St.Maarten is not necessary in the list also JFK and Reagan too. Courchavel and Sion or Innsbruck can be replace those 3 airports.

 

StMaarten is not much scrariest like as Funchal/Maderia example.

[Walter Sim 1]

I went into Flight Sim and tried the Paro approach.

 

Not for the faint hearted!@!!

[Keno Omar 0]

I've flown to Gibraltar twice. I didn't find it particularly scary as a passenger, except that huge chuck of steep rock ("Rock of Gibraltar") seemed too close for comfort. The fun part was that passengers can walk from the tiny airport terminal to town. In fact, all ground traffic between the town and the Spanish border has to cross the runway.

 

[ link to Google Maps ]

[Seth K 3]

Been to JFK and Reagan. Every time landing at JFK, the flight will bank hard right and left nonstop. 5 times other aircraft still on runway during touch down......so congested in the air and on the ground.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Seth K

[Waiping 12]

I went into Flight Sim and tried the Paro approach.

 

Not for the faint hearted!@!!

 

Hehe...me too.

[Naim 6]

Been to JFK and Reagan. Every time landing at JFK, the flight will bank hard right and left nonstop. 5 times other aircraft still on runway during touch down......so congested in the air and on the ground.

 

If you are arriving from upstate NY, the plane will turn left and right, put on hold, more left and right, a u-turn some where, etc, before landing. The onboard DirecTV service always gets interrupted. As for taking off, you can read my story HERE. Yes, the airspace is so congested.

 

[Norhisham K 0]

if I may add, most airports in China can be scary with the pilots and air traffic controllers communicating among themselves over the radio in Mandarin. Try Mumbai during most summer nights in thunderstorms and fast speaking always easily over excited "indglish" accents controllers.

[E Faizal 0]

Paro Airport

 

Damnn, two turns before approaching the runway! Not for the fainted heart man, the approach looks as menacing as KaiTak

 

This 1 is from flight deck... pilot is cool