It’s an old joke that Philadelphia fans are so bad they go out to their airport to boo bad landings. In the video you are about to see, the landings may look bad but it’s the skill of the pilots that saves them from being a disaster.
Airports are being built on cliffs and one is built exclusively for people climbing Mt Everest, where if you overshoot the runway, you have a 2,000 foot drop. Some airports like one in Greenland that is so hazardous that nighttime flights are prohibited.
Caribbean’s Juancho e Yrausquin Airport, Saba, has a runway only 1,300 feet long. It’s like trying to land on a postage stamp.
Among the most nail-biting approaches is the flight into Narsarsuaq Airport, Greenland, which is said to be as beautiful as it is challenging. Pilots must fly up a fjord, make a U-turn and then face an onslaught of turbulence. The route is so terrifying that night-time take-offs and landings are banned.
Pilots also need nerves of steel to land at Tenzing-Hillary Airport, Nepal, which is used mostly by Everest climbers, as the runway ends with a 2,000ft drop into a valley.
Jet-setters flying into Courchevel ski resort may find the tricky flight over the slopes a sobering start to their holiday, while the Caribbean’s Juancho e Yrausquin Airport, Saba, will test the mettle of even the most experienced pilots, as the runway is one of the world’s shortest at just 1,300ft long.
