Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Top 4 Scariest airports

For last few weeks I have been doing some serious research to find out that what are the worlds most scariest airports. Finally I think that I am done with that and I have a list of almost 4 such airports which can be considered as World’s scariest airports. Now its time to blogging them
1) Princess Juliana International Airport : (also known as Sint Maarten International Airport) serves the Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin. It is the third busiest airport in the Eastern Caribbean, The airport serves as a hub for Windward Islands Airways and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, St. Barthélemy and St. Eustatius. It is named after Juliana of the Netherlands, who ascrown princess landed here in 1944, the year after the airport opened. There is also an airport on the French side of the island near Marigot, Incoming airplanes approach the island on short final for
Runway 10 flying low over the famous Maho Beach. At any other airport aircraft fly at the same altitude at that point in the approach.

Scared….Ok let me show you one video on youtube. Just watch this video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo&NR=1
2) Second position goes to Juancho Yrausquin Airport (Sabiha) : It is the only airport on the Caribbean island of Saba, in the Netherlands Antilles. It is well known among experienced fliers for the way in which airplanes must approach or take off from the airport. The danger arises from the airport’s physical position. First of all, the runway at the airport is extremely short. It is flanked on one side by high hills, and on the other side and at both ends of the runway by cliffs dropping into the sea. This creates the possibility that an airplane could overshoot the runway during landing or takeoff and end up in the sea or on the cliffs.

3) Courchevel (France ) airport : Courchevel Airport is a French airport that serves Courchevel, a ski area. The airport has a very short runway of only 525 metres(1722ft) with gradient of 18.5 %. There is no go-around procedure in this airport. De Havilland Twin Otter and Dash 7 have served the airport, but now more Cessnas and helicopters serve the airport.
The airport is considered dangerous, having a difficult approach, an upslope runway and a hill. The airport’s elevation is at 6588ft. Interestingly this airstrip was used during the shooting of the first scene of the movie “Tomorrow Never Dies”

4) Lukla Airport (Nepal) : Also known as Tenzing-Hillary Airport. : The airport is popular since Lukla is the place where most people start their climb of Mount Everest. The single bitumen runway is 527 metres (1,729 ft) long, 20 metres (66 ft) wide, and has a 12% grade. The altitude of the airport is 2,860 metres (9,380 ft).Sirens inform folks for miles when an airplane is landing here, and as you would suspect, only helicopters and Twin Otter type planes can handle the 2,000 foot, uphill runway that is fenced off at the end, to protect you from the edge of a mountain cliff.As for take off? When you take off, you go downhill and then the runway just disappears into the valley down below. If you don’t get enough speed, you drop until you get lift and then hopefully get back up again.

Check out this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YhBWE-sBaw
There are several other airports also which can be fitted into this list, but to me these are the top 4 scariest airports of the world. Feel free to provide your thoughts on this.

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