No matter whether the plane is landing or taking off, there is only one chance, because if the distance of more than 500 meters can not be stopped on the ground, the end will only hit the cliff.
Dangerous terrain, turbulent air currents, short runways… These deficiencies in the airport will all pose a threat to the aircraft’s take-off and landing. Therefore, many airports in the world have their own dangers, and the most dangerous one is the Lukla Airport in Lukla, a town deep in the Himalayas in northeastern Nepal, which has been reported by almost all the media.
An airport with all the elements of adventure
Lukla Airport was built in 1964 and is known as the gateway to the Himalayas. The passengers that have visited so far are mainly tourists hiking in the Himalayas, and a small number of climbers and enthusiasts who go to climb Mount Everest.
This airport has all the elements of adventure.
First of all, the surrounding terrain is complicated and dangerous. The planes at Lukla Airport basically fly from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. The flight time is only half an hour. Although the distance is not far, the altitude suddenly rises from 1,400 meters to more than 2,800 meters. Moreover, the surrounding area of Lukla is full of mountains, and there are two high mountains nearly 7000 meters away.
Secondly, the airflow is turbulent and the weather is changeable. It is often the sun in Kathmandu and the continuous rain in Lukla, preventing the plane from taking off. Sometimes when the plane took off, the weather in Lukla was good, but during the flight, there was a sudden thunderstorm at the destination. In this case, even if it was about to land, I had no choice but to return. According to reports, as many as 50% of Lukla flights are cancelled due to weather during the monsoon season.
What’s more dangerous is that Lukla Airport cannot provide radar and navigation services to the aircraft, but can only provide pilots with airport weather notifications. The pilot must use experience and eyes to find a small airport on a certain hillside in a patch of green in the mountains of six or seven kilometers, and then adjust the attitude of the plane to land.
Compared with other airports, Lukla has frequent accidents. In the past 20 years, there have been 7 major flight accidents, which resulted in the death of 18 passengers and crew members at most once. Therefore, every time the plane lands safely in Lukla, all passengers will consciously applaud, which is a tribute to the pilot’s courage and superb skills, and is also fortunate for their good luck.
The most dangerous thing at Lukla Airport is the runway of the airport. There is only one runway with a length of only 527 meters. What’s more, at both ends of the runway, one side is a steep cliff, and the other is a cliff over 600 meters deep. No matter whether the plane is landing or taking off, there is only one chance, because if the distance of more than 500 meters can not be stopped on the ground, the end will only hit the cliff. After an acceleration of 500 meters during takeoff, the aircraft will “fall” once when it exits the runway, and then be pulled up. If it fails, it will only fall into the abyss.
In order to increase the safety factor, the runway of the airport has been specially repaired to a slope of 12 degrees. In this way, when the plane is landing, it is uphill, and the terrain can help slow down; on the contrary, when the plane takes off, it is downhill, which can help the plane to accelerate out of the runway.
Of course, all that Lukla Airport can take off and land are small turboprop aircraft. The cockpit of this small aircraft is not completely isolated from the passengers, and passengers can see the front of the aircraft. Some passengers described the feeling when the plane was about to land on this uphill runway as “the runway and everything around it hit you head-on.”
An old pilot left a message after watching the video of the plane landing at Lukla Airport: The person who saw this video and said that he was not afraid is definitely not a pilot.
Cars on Churchill Avenue: Please leave by plane
Some island airports in the world are also known for their dangers. The more famous is Princess Juliana International Airport on St. Martin in the Caribbean Sea. Although the airport’s runway is only 2,349 meters long, it can be used for large passenger planes to take off and land. Limited by the length of the runway, the airport did not build a fence on the beach, but built a barbed wire fence.
When a large passenger plane landed, because the runway was too close to the sea, the flying height was only ten or twenty meters. Judging from the speed and size of the passenger plane, tourists on the beach felt that the plane was almost passing over their heads.
This kind of experience is unique and has become a major tourism project that attracts tourists. Each hotel will provide tourists with airport flight schedules for tourists to watch.
As the plane flies in the distance, tourists have taken out their cameras, video cameras or mobile phones. Some tourists choose to lie on the beach to take pictures of the feeling that the plane’s belly is passing low in front of them. Tourists who like excitement will come to the beach when the plane takes off. The powerful air jet ejected by the aircraft engine can often blow people from the beach into the sea, giving people a feeling of taking off.
Barra Airport, located on the island of Barra in northwestern Scotland, allows planes to take off and land on real beaches. It is also called a maritime airport. Its biggest feature is that the timetable for planes to take off and land depends on the tide time. The runway of the airplane is the beach exposed at low tide. Therefore, at low tide, a red weather vane will be erected on the beach to remind visitors that it is strictly forbidden to step into the beach and an airplane is coming.
In addition to ensuring that no tourists enter the beach before and after the plane takes off and landing, the ground crew working at this airport also has a special preparation work, that is, to check the “runway” every day for kelp left by the ebb tide, and that pair of planes take off and land. It is a big safety hazard.
Beach airport, planes take off and land “controlled by tides”
Traffic crossings between railways and highways are very common to modern people. In many places, you can see roadblocks put down at railway crossings to stop cars and let trains pass. However, there is a Gibraltar airport in the Strait of Gibraltar at the junction of Europe and Africa. The most distinctive feature is that its runway intersects with a busy highway at right angles. Whenever a plane takes off or landed, the traffic police would set up roadblocks on the roads on both sides of the runway to stop the passing cars and let the plane go first.
The main runway of Gibraltar Airport is only 1829 meters, and can only take off and land with Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 series aircraft.
The road that intersects with the airport runway is called Winston Churchill Avenue. This road is also a busy traffic artery. Whenever there is a plane taking off and landing, the traffic police will put down the road crossing railings to close the road. The driver and passengers can only wait for the plane to pass first. This process may take ten minutes or two hours.
Coincidentally, at Gisborne Airport in New Zealand, a railway runs across the airport runway.
Gisborne Airport is located in the outskirts of Gisborne on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. This is a relatively small regional airport with only three lawn runways and can only take off and land small aircraft. The airport’s main runway happens to cross the railway line from Palmerston North to Gisborne, so the wonder here is that sometimes the train has to stop and wait for the plane to pass first, and sometimes the plane has to wait for the train to pass first. The main job of airport ground staff is to dispatch trains.
