Another TACA landing at Teguc!
Posted on 08/10/2010 9:55:21 AM PDT by smokingfrog
“Kai Tak in Hong Kong was amazing - just as this guy describes. Another is Medellin, Colombia between the mountains”
“I think I have been through Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport a hundred or more times - I never will forget looking in people’s apartments and seeing a family watching television on the approach to the runway. A few of those little bottles of vodka always helped me get through the experience.”
I was 22 years old on my first trip to Hong Kong for work. Our flight was delayed ~6hrs so we hit the bar at Tom Bradley Terminal in LAX to wait. We were young and famously drunk when we boarded in LAX. We continued to drink the first 4-5 hrs on the flight. This was when you could still smoke in flight.
I passed out and slept the rest of the flight.
I DID however wake up in the middle of the 90 deg turn.
I VERY clearly remember waking up, face against the window, opening my eyes, and looking out and DOWN a little old lady hanging laundry on the rooftop. She was looking at me too. This being my first trip to HK I had no idea of the approach and how low it was. I assumed that since the plane was on its side and we were so close to the buildings that we were crashing. I screamed like a little girl.
I never lived that down.
I hate Miami airport with a passion, I don’t care if it costs more, I always fly into Fort Lauderdale.
I did the “Kai Tak Heart Attack” twice.The first time I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was in for.For a minute or so I actually thought we were going down.The sharp turns...the likes of which I had never experienced before...plus looking out the window and being able to *see into* the windows of apartments made me truly believe we were gonna crash.The second time I knew what to expect but it was still darn scary.
“The northern approach to Reagan National, in D.C., is usually a little exciting.”
I’ve heard that former carrier pilots enjoy flying that approach!
Same here...except for the screaming.I was literally too scared (and too stunned) to scream out loud.But I *did* scream inside!
Someone told me once about an airport with a runway on the edge of a cliff above the sea. To land, the planes fly straight at the cliff and the constant updraft is such that it pushes up the plane at the last few seconds and positions it for a perfect landing. If you don’t do this, the updraft will make you come in too high and not have enough runway. I’ve forgotten the name but it seems it was somewhere near Africa.
I've ridden in as a passenger many times. It is interesting.
/johnny
Another TACA landing at Teguc!
The runway at Banner Elk, NC scares the crap out of a lot of pilots...
Flying into Bali was interesting if for no other reason than to view the tail of a Garuda flight that didn't make it sticking out of the water near the shore.
ML/NJ
I flew from Lagos International in Nigeria to Warri Airport in Warri, Nigeria.
The law in Nigeria, after Babangida nationalized the oil rigs, was that 80 percent of all operations in Nigeria had to be STAFFED by Nigerians. That included aircraft. We were on final approach in a commuter turboprop into Warri. The pilot actually doing the flying was a Nigerian.
As we came in for a landing, you could clearly hear the British pilot screaming at the Nigerian pilot to pull up.
We hit the runway harder than I’ve ever experienced. My back and ass hurt for days after that.
We were going too fast and ran off the runway, but swerved in time to avoid crashing through the fence at the end (which was cinderblock). They let us out of the plane, and we all walked, with our luggage, back to the terminal as if that were a normal day at the airport.
Another place I hate flying into is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. You fly this little CASA’s out of the air station in Miami, which is only 90 miles from Cuba. Nobody told us that to get to Gitmo, you couldn’t just fly over Cuba. It took nearly four hours to fly all the way around Cuba and into the naval base there.
My worst airport is Atlanta. Best? Tampa airport.
I’ve flown into St. Maarten. Wasn’t scary at all.
We flew to Orlando. Had the cutest steward, we still try to talk in his accent. He was a doll.
I spoke almost ZERO Portuguese, but a man in the seat next to me explained what was going on. When we got to Sao Paolo, I found someone who worked there, who spoke some English, and the airport ticket booths were nearly empty, I got taxi voucher for hotel, and free hotel for the night, because next flight out was the next day.
I thought the people in the Sao Paolo airport who took care of my needs were GREAT. It was kinda scary being a woman alone in a city of 23K people. My friends were on a different flight from Salvador to Sao Paolo and by the time they arrived at S P I had my taxi voucher and hotel reservation in hand. It was an experience! But it ended well.
I've only flown into Kai Tak twice, the first time was surreal, just as you have described it. The second time I knew what to expect and thought it was kinda cool to look up, out of the planes window, and realize that we were flying lower than the surrounding buildings, and that the buildings below us got progressively shorter as we got closer to the runway.
I've been into Teguch twice as well. There is a bar at the approach end of the airport with tables on the roof. From there you can count the rivets on the planes as they come in to land.
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