Readers Weigh in on World's Scariest Airports

smarter travel ^ | 9 Aug 2010 | Jaclyn Liechti

[Western Phil]

If you have the time, this is the story of an interesting landing. http://www.hmhfp.info/SG_09E.html

It is about 12 minutes. The field itself is probably not all that scary, but some things depend upon other conditions - say weather and equipment.

[Grut]

Sounds like: Andersen AFB, Guam.

The cliff's at the departure end of the runway (usually), though. Those four hundred feet of instant altitude saved more than a few B-52D crews back in the day.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Dunno. I flew in to Liberty Int’l in New Jersey one day at 3am. What a shite hole. It was pretty scary after spending a couple of hours at O’Hare.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Touché.

[Erasmus]

the airport's truncated runway stretches just 1828 metres and requires pinpoint precision

And it's bisected by the only highway between the colony and the mainland.

[JoeProBono]

[aruanan]

That’s sort of like what he was describing but it seems as though he was talking about a civilian airport. I’ll see if I can remember who it was and check, though I think it was a group of people talking on board a flight somewhere.

[smokingfrog]

I can see how flying into Baghdad Intl Airport might result in a significant “pucker factor.” Of course, there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well kick back and enjoy the adrenaline rush.

[smokingfrog]

Is that larger aircraft a Prowler?

[smokingfrog]

[Grut]

One other thing is that there wouldn't be an updraft from the cliff on approach since the wind would be blowing towards the aircraft, off the cliff top. So it's either a tall tale, or a garbled one, or for some reason (big mountain at the other end?) aircraft have to make downwind landings there.

[aruanan]

One other thing is that there wouldn't be an updraft from the cliff on approach since the wind would be blowing towards the aircraft, off the cliff top. So it's either a tall tale, or a garbled one, or for some reason (big mountain at the other end?) aircraft have to make downwind landings there.

No, in this particular place the geography is such that there is, at least during daytime hours, a continuous updraft along the cliff that made that kind of approach necessary and they had to land coming in off the sea. The guy said that he had been invited to watch the approach because of his background in aviation and knowing the pilot and it was really scary. This was at least 25 years ago that I heard this. It may have been my uncle who was a pilot who was telling us this at a family reunion. At one reunion when I was about 6, he and his family flew down to the reunion in his single engine plane and he took everyone up for a ride. That was the most exciting thing I had ever done by that age. I'll ask him if he's ever heard of that airport and let you know what he says.

[Gay State Conservative]

And the first combat (corkscrew) landing I experienced when I arrived for the first time.

I've landed at some pretty funky airports in my day (including Kai Tak) but not once did I fear that my aircraft would be shot out of the sky.You've got *me* trumped!