Scary? Only for REAL Pilots

By Robert Mark on October 24th, 2010

That title is what we call a grabber, intended only to make you read the rest of this short post. Without this disclaimer, some might believe that I think landing at any of these airports is a piece of cake … and I surely do not.

mountain My thanks to Sophie Middleton and the folks at Britain’s CarHire.org for assembling this list of The 25 Scariest Airports on the Planet.

Having flown in to a flew of them – plus a few more – I’d have added Eagle Colorado myself, but then of course, I’m not the one who took the time to generate all this content in the first place so I’ll just keep my mouth shut and go back and sit down to watch all these videos again. Honestly, a few of these clips will scare the bejeezus out of many pilots as they did me.

Of the ones here, I’d call Congonhas Airport – Sao Paulo, Brazil as the one that made my guts tighten up the most, although the Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho would make me break out in a sweat for sure. BTW, where IS Lesotho anyway.

Check out the ice runway landings. Love those braking action nil approaches! And what kind of a Russian airplane is that landing on the ice? David Vanderhoof, The Airplane Geeks historian and military genius … where are you when I need you? Check out the life jackets on the two pilots landing at Tioman Island. A real confidence booster. And finally, don’t miss the guy landing the Aztec at St. Barts. I sure saw that one coming, didn’t you?

So grab a cold one and sit back and enjoy what’s left of this Sunday afternoon. And in case you were wondering, he first time I made that approach in a jet and had to aim myself at the granite until the last minute certainly made me pay attention.

Rob Mark

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2 Responses to “Scary? Only for REAL Pilots”

  1. Paul Filmer Says:

    “And what kind of a Russian airplane is that landing on the ice?”

    It’s the mighty Ilyushin Il-76

  2. Rafael from iloveplanes Says:

    It’s an Il-76 landing on the ice. Lesotho is in southern africa. That guy in the Aztec definitely should’ve gone around.

    Rafael

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