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Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing

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ponticat
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
Check out the airport on Saba in the Caribbean. No big birds there -- looks scary enough in a Twin Otter.
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Ash78, cube farmer
06/26/09

@ponticat: Yep, I was also going to mention Saba as one of the scarier commercial airports out there. And also a marvel of civil engineering. Never been there, but looks like an amazing place.
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Charles_Barrett - Now with Variable-Valve Timing
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
That settles it... The next time I'm traveling to Honduras I'm going to take the train...!
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combat chuck
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
I actually landed at this airport in 1989 (my uncle lived in Tegucigalpa for a few years). It is most definitely a hair-raising experience, because the plane has to fly extremely low over the surrounding buildings of the city, and if there's even the slightest error, it can be tragic. A flight just months before I went there actually missed the runway and crashed into the mountainside, with numerous fatalities.
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Maymar
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
It's not quite as scary (because it's only surrounded by mountains on one side, it runs parallel to the ocean), but the airport in Manzanillo, Mexico has a single runway, a little over 7200ft long, and the two times I flew in, the pilots went with a very steep approach.
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vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing

definitely not for commercial airplanes
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Syrax
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
I think CGH Congonhas/São Paulo Airport is not that difficult to land, but a microscopic mistake can lead to a tragedy because it's in the heart of the city and there's three important highways around it, as with occurred in 2007 with Flight JJ3054.

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Vintage Racer - with V-12 goodness
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
I'm thinkin' I'm headin' down there just to take some pictures...
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Deartháir II
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
It's not for big birds, but around here, the worst airport is in Castlegar, BC. Pilots call it Cancel-gar. Similar to the Honduras, it requires pilots to fly in through a series of mountains, then circle around the town, come in directly over a mountain that creates a powerful updraft of wind, then dive hard at the runway and pull up in time to avoid a mid-air collision with a planet. The difference between Cancelgar and the Honduras airport is that Cancelgar has plenty of snow in the winters, is geographically situated so that fog tends to build up in the valley, and the airport could not be built in the centre of the valley. As such there is a mountain immediately before the approach end of the runway, immediately after the takeoff end, and immediately to the right-side when landing.

I've flown in and out of that airport dozens of times, and believe you me, it's not for the faint of heart. There was talk, a few years back, of expanding the runway so that the larger WestJet planes could land there. The pilots consulted just laughed at the prospect of trying to get a mid-size jet into an airport like that.
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Joshuman
06/26/09

@Deartháir - Now with more SingoFinger™!: The snowboarding at Red Mountain is great! We used to drive up from Pullman, WA and stay in Castlegar for long weekends in college. The border crossing at that time was a shared hut with Canadians and United Statesians in the same building.
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token_illiterate_commenter
06/26/09

@Joshman Gesamtstrecke: It's a good thing that those pilots didn't Coug* it.

*Synonym for choking due to WSU's ability to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Deartháir II
06/26/09

@Joshman Gesamtstrecke: Rossland is my hometown! My grandma's house is the first one across the highway when you ski down the back side of Red Mountain. I learned to ski on Red, and I tell you, after some of the red-triangle rated runs there, even the triple-black-diamond runs on other mountains seem pretty tame by comparison.

When I was in high school, we used to go up to Red Mountain on our lunchbreaks. If you took one of the trails down the back side of the mountain, there was a spot where you could jump the highway and ski right back to the front door of the school.

I miss that town. :(
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Deartháir II
06/26/09

@token_starless_commenter: Strangely, we used to make a sport of encouraging the Wazoo students who came up to drink in our pubs (and thus take advantage of our drinking age of 19) that it was a good idea to go home with one of the cougars prowling around, rather than one of our pretty young girls. In that sense, they too were snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

I sense so many potential puns there, but I'll just stop.
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Kid Twist
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
The old Hong Kong airport. And LaGuardia. Miss a takeoff or landing there and you end up on beautiful Riker's Island.
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Joshuman
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
Let me save everyone some time. Unless you want some mountain scenery set to a jet engine soundtrack, skip the first three minutes of the second video.

Saint Maarten:

Courchevel, France (the one from that James Bond movie):

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Thrashy, perpetual Minardi
06/26/09

@Joshman Gesamtstrecke: I'm not sure what's going on in that second one. Are you just supposed to taxi off the cliff and then fall until you're not stalling anymore, or what?
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Joshuman
06/26/09

@Thrashy:
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Braff
06/26/09

@Joshman Gesamtstrecke: The airport in St. Maarten is the nicest airport I have ever been to.
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Six Flags Over Tomsk
06/26/09

@Joshman Gesamtstrecke: I was going to say Kai Tek was the craziest, but Courchevel is off-the-charts bonkers.
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.357
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
Landing a plane there is more difficult than laughing at one of my comments.
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SirNotAppearing
06/26/09

@Ambiguously Unfunny Serial Killer:

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Steve Neill
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
You guys are so wrong. If it was still open, Kai Tak in Hong Kong would be the worst. My girlfriend is from Hong Kong, and she's taken a plane ride there countless times, and this is what it's like:

Not to mention, CAR WEBSITE PEOPLE. NOT PLANES, CARS. COME ON. FIRST TILT SHIFT, THEN SAN FRAN MAN, AND NOW THIS? WTF.
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pauljones
06/26/09

@Steve Neill: Planes have wheels too, you know!
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Ash78, cube farmer
06/26/09

@Steve Neill: Another vote for Kai Tak (from my dad, a 5,000+ hour private pilot with countless hours as an airline/bizjet passenger)

Plus, the crash pic from Honduras is TACA--The Almost Careful Airlines. So YMMV.

If you go beyond large commercial airports, there's a LOT of scary stuff out there.
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SirNotAppearing
06/26/09

@Steve Neill: We will all be driving flying cars soon, and when that day comes Jalopnik and Planelopnik can live together in harmony.
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Maymar
06/26/09

@Steve Neill: Yes, but planes are just slightly less awesome Ekranoplans, and if you don't like Ekranoplans, well that's just Communist.
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CaptMatt15 loves the Zoom-Zoom
06/26/09

@Ash78: The airport my dad used to fly his Saratoga out of (not a very big plane in the grand scheme of things) had his minimum landing length, and you had to drop it straight down as soon as you cleared the trees to catch the beginning of the runway to have enough space. Small Airport landings are so much more fun.
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The Auto Insider
06/26/09

@Steve Neill: Sir, we are all things vehicularly awesome. You should know that by now. And on the note about Hong Kong ~ I'll be looking into that.
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pauljones
06/26/09

@The Auto Insider: Also, as Blue387 points out above, check out LaGuardia in New York.

[jalopnik.com]
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Ash78, cube farmer
06/26/09

@CaptMatt15 is high on 9000 rpm: Cool...my dad worked at Piper for 25-30 years. We took Saratogas out on check rides more often than was probably needed.

At one point while living in New Zealand with my mom, he worked for an Ag-plane company and did some grass strip landings on sheep-strewn hillsides. He said there's not much to compare it to. You land uphill and roll only about 50 feet to a stop. Takeoff roll (downhill) is only 100'. And you had better make it!
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Alfisted
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
That runway looks tiny, particularly in that last photo. Is it really that small, or is this the result of some high-tech photgraphic trickery thay I am not familiar with and certainly have heard nothing about?
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beercheck
06/26/09

@Twitterin' Ted Kennedy: Heh.
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SirNotAppearing
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
I don't want to hear your excuses! This runway has to be at least...three times bigger than this!

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beercheck
06/26/09

In reply to Honduras: World's Trickiest Landing
Just had to ruin it with more of that tilt-shit, dintcha.
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The Auto Insider
06/26/09

@beercheck: I got a little carried away with the blur tool to accentuate it's lack of size. Ya got me.
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InfinitisEnd
06/26/09

@The Auto Insider: That's what she said.
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The Auto Insider
06/26/09

@InfinitisEnd: Ah, funny guy. Pete!
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