Dangerous St. Maarten Airport

[almostfamous]

Fri Mar 27, 2009 4:59 pm

St. Maarten's Princess Juliana International airport is known as the wildest place to watch airliners and one of the most dangerous airports.

Quote:

“This runway is only 2,000 metres long which makes it only suitable for mid-size planes. Yet, big aircraft like Boeing 747’s and Airbus A340’s land at Princess Juliana airport. The larger aircraft have to fly incredibly low over the beach to land in time. Despite the difficult approach route, there have been no important incidents.”

St. Maarten is a tropical island in the northeast Carribean.

Here is a video of a plane landing at the airport.



If video does not load click here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:11 pm

Must not have been any tourists around, I would have hauled ass as soon as I seen that thing comming in that low.

That's insane. I'd think someone would extend the runway fences to the beach and tunnel the road/boardwalk under it or something.

[almostfamous]

Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:27 pm

Yeah I guess there are signs warning of the low flying aircraft, but that part of the beach is not closed off and people like to get pictures of the planes. I guess another cool thing to watch is the 747's take off, and some people are daring enough to hold onto the fence behind the plane. Check this out.



If video doesn't load click here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d21sIjCg-M

Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:52 pm

Yeah, you're not going to see me standing behind a 747 after seeing this video the Mythbusters did.

[almostfamous]

Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:58 pm

Whoa! That is crazy, is that real. Those people are crazy for standing behind that 747, I read that sometimes it will blow them all the way to the beach, seems so dangerous. I'm surprised they don't close off that part of the beach considering the danger. I went to St. Lucia and something similar happened. I was at the airport out near the runway boarding the plane when a smaller jet went to take off and blew so much air and fuel at us it was awful. I couldn't even breathe. I know something like that would never be allowed in the U.S.

Fri Mar 27, 2009 9:04 pm

Yeah it's real. I can't seem to find the entire episode, but after the cab they ran a school bus (empty of course) behind the jet and that flipped too.

//Edit -- Wait, here we go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-6FeO2i-I

[almostfamous]

Fri Mar 27, 2009 9:28 pm

Ha Ha! That is craziness. Well if you think about makes sense that there would need to be that much power to lift that huge plane off the ground, but I actually thought that video was fake when I first saw it.