10 of the Most Dangerous Airports in the World
Where every passenger is a white-knuckle flyer.
Gibraltar International
Gibraltar is a crossroads of history, and that theme carries through to its airport, where more than 415,000 passengers flew in 2014. Planes using Gibraltar's sole 5500-foot runway (09/27) must cross the street—Winston Churchill Avenue, to be precise, the main road heading toward the land border with Spain. Winston Churchill intersects the runway and consequently has to be closed every time a plane lands or departs. The stop signal at the intersection of 09/27 and Winston Churchill Ave is one you definitely don't want to disregard.
Toncontin Airport, Honduras
Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba Island
Sitting on beautiful, remote Saba Island about 28 miles south of St. Maarten in the Caribbean, Juancho E. Yrausquin has the world's shortest commercial airport runway at 1300 feet in total length, about a quarter mile. The whole island is about 5 miles square, and is mostly vertical volcanic terrain except for a triangle of turf jutting out into the Caribbean where planes try to land. The runway is flanked by a mountain slope on one side and the water on the other. Past the runway are sheer cliffs that drop into the sea. Hey, at least the weather's nice.
McMurdo Air Station, Antarctica
McMur
Unless you're a dog-sledding devotee, you may not like flying into McMurdo Station on Antarctica. The good news is that the runways are long. The bad news is that they are made of ice, and that the weather is very variable.
Located on the shore of McMurdo Sound, the U.S. Antarctic Station enjoys 12 months of below-freezing average temperatures and is served by three runways. Pegasus Field is a 10,000-foot blue ice airstrip reassuringly named after Pegasus, a Lockheed C-121 Constellation transport that crashed here in bad weather in October 1970. You can still see it sitting in the snow. Fly into McMurdo at the right time of year and your pilots will land using night vision goggles because it will be dark all day.
Narsarsuaq Aiport, Greenland
The weather at Narsarsuaq Airport in southern Greenland isn't much warmer than Antarctica, and the approach to the airport's 6,000-foot runway is one of the most difficult in the world. It requires flying up Tunulliarfik Fjord with severe turbulence and wind shear even on the calmest days of the year. While the wind is a bother, southern Greenland's nearby Eyjafjallajökull Volcano can be even more of a headache. When it erupts, as it did in 2010, its volcanic ash cloud is infused with very small particles of glass (silica, from melting ice) that can destroy aircraft engines.
MCAS Futenma, Okinawa
Marine Corps Air Station Funtenma, Okinawa, Japan is called "the most dangerous air station in the world" by the Navy and Marine Corps. The Corps operates the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing with tactical aircraft including F/A-18 Hornets and V-22 Osprey from Futenma. Because of Okinawa's strategic importance, they fly in all kinds of weather, passing over 16 schools, hospitals, and city offices in the immediate area, plus 3,000 people living in what should be the "clear zone" around the base. MCAS Futenma is slated to close soon, but there's a fight over where to build its replacement on Okinawa.
Damascus International Airport
There are no major problems with terrain or weather around Damascus International, near the Syrian capital. There is, however, a vicious civil war under way. More than five million passengers used the airport in 2010, but since then it has been open intermittently. DIA is in territory contested by the Syrian Army, various rebel factions, and ISIS. It sits less than 20 miles from Darayya, the site of a massacre in August 2012. The Syrian army recently killed 24 foreign fighters there. Two daily flights—one to Moscow and one to Beirut, both on Syrian Airlines operated by the Assad government—must contend with potential surface-to-air missiles and mix it with Russian, Turkish and American fighter aircraft once they're in the sky.
Paro Airport, Bhutan
There are only 25 pilots qualified to land at Paro Airport in Bhutan. Nestled in the Himalayan Mountains, Paro sits 7,300 feet above sea level, surrounded by peaks as high as 18,000 feet, right on the banks of the river Paro Chu. The terrain is so unforgiving and the weather so severe that flights are allowed only under visual meteorological conditions and are restricted to daylight hours. Watch this video showing an Airbus A319 S-turning through a ravine right to the runway, then rolling out hard on the brakes and thrust reversers.
Madeira Airport
You may want a tall glass of Madeira wine before flying into Madeira Airport on this Portuguese archipelago. The airport's short runway, sandwiched between a rocky cliffside and a steep drop to the ocean, was known for its variable winds. In 2000 it was extended, almost doubling in size to 9,124 feet. That might make you feel better about traveling here... until you realize that much of the extension is built on a platform partly over the ocean, supported by 180 columns (each about 230 feet tall). Drift too far on a rainy, windy day and the airplane could go over the side.
Barra Airport, Scotland
If you love the beach, the strength of that love might be tested by landing on the world's only beach runway with scheduled airline service. Barra Airport sits on the wide shallow bay of Traigh Mhòr on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Its runway elevation is five feet above sea level – if the tide is out. Barra's three runways are underwater at high tide, so yeah, you can land here only at particular times of the day. Occasional night flights to and from Barra use vehicle lights to illuminate the runway and reflective strips laid on the beach. British Airways operates lightweight, fixed gear Britten Norman Islanders, which land and take off in soft sand on a beach that's open to the public.
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