Most of us would happily acknowledge that being a pilot is no easy task. Besides a massive responsibility, they have to be vigilant and accurate while guiding a massive metal bird into a populated airspace. And, unfortunately, not all airports are created equal.
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Paro in Bhutan can accept twin engine jets, but only seven pilots in the world are certified to make the complex approach between the mountains.
Not a pilot, but as a passenger, Lukla in Nepal was, as my dad says in the video, “seriously interesting”. The runway has a 12% gradient (which is a lot more than it sounds!) with a sheer drop at the bottom and a rock face at the top. I was sitting next to my dad in the front row of the Twin Otter. Luckily I hadn’t researched this airport’s legendary reputation before the trip.
While it’s not the first one to pop up here, Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu, Nepal, is widely considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Its location, in the literal Himalayan mountains, means that approaches are difficult, weather is unpredictable and the runway doesn’t have a lot of space.Even worse, unlike a water-based approach, where even a crash isn’t the end of the world, overshooting the runway at Kathmandu might mean going right into the face of a cliff. It perhaps doesn’t appear that much in this list, as only pilots who have passed courses on a simulator are even allowed to land.
While it’s not the first one to pop up here, Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu, Nepal, is widely considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Its location, in the literal Himalayan mountains, means that approaches are difficult, weather is unpredictable and the runway doesn’t have a lot of space.
Even worse, unlike a water-based approach, where even a crash isn’t the end of the world, overshooting the runway at Kathmandu might mean going right into the face of a cliff. It perhaps doesn’t appear that much in this list, as only pilots who have passed courses on a simulator are even allowed to land.
USS Lexington - not only is it an aircraft carrier that move, pitches, rolls, heaves, has winds coming around the island causing a cross wind, and wind falling off the back end (burble) causing a suck down just before landing - it is SMALL even in aircraft carrier standards. And with hydraulic cats that kick your butt, literally.
Here’s a situation I don’t want to repeat. I was flying into Zaragoza Air Base on a military plane, a C-21. I’d been sitting in the jump seat chatting on intercom with the pilot the whole flight. He was a neighbor back at our base.Notice there are parallel runways. We always landed on the Northern one, the military Air Base side. The Southern one was a civilian commercial airport.We’re set up for the landing with the co-pilot doing the landing. We’re coming from screen left so we see the wrong runway first. I’m looking out the windshield and notice we’re lined up for the wrong one.I ask, “Which runway are we landing?”Co-pilot responds, “12”.I ask, “12 Right or 12 Left?”At that moment we all see a large commercial plane on take-off roll heading our way on the runway we’re set to land on.Pilot says “My Plane”, flips some switches, Yells to the guys in the back, “Hold on back there!”, and puts the C-21 into max power / max climb. I didn’t even know that plane could climb that fast. We complete a missed approach /go around and the pilot lands us on the correct runway with a co-pilot still white as a ghost.Needless to say, I didn’t buy a beer for that whole mission; they were all on the co-pilot’s tab.
THE most difficult airport to fly in and out of is the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Lukla, Nepal. On one end is a cliff; on the other is a mountain wall. On the way, you are flying between mountains, and there are often clouds.
It doesn’t help that the runwaydoes not havean instrument landing system, which makes landing, already one of the more difficult parts of any pilot’s job, just that little bit harder. Winters in Nepal tend to have a lot of fog, so sometimes the pilot will have neither visibility nor all the instruments they might need to actually do their job.
Gibraltar. To stay out of Spanish airspace, you have to fly very tight around the rock. If the wind is blowing, it is incredibly turbulent… Scary.
Practically almost any airport near LAX. The problem is not landing, but leaving. John Wayne is the worst. You have to climb out steeply then pull your power back and almost level off, all the while staying in a very narrow departure corridor. Frankly, if you buy a house near an airport you should expect to hear airplanes. They didn’t doze down a bunch of homes to put the airport in. It was there first.
Aspen (ASE) airport. Everything about it is frustrating. The approach requires going out of your way, and if you miss the approach it takes a bit of time to re-position for another try. Once on the ground, dealing with parking and the ground staff is frustrating, too. But, maybe that part has changed… I haven’t been to ASE in a few years. There is no such thing as landing at an unsafe airport… unless you’re a pilot with exceedingly poor judgement. If it’s truly unsafe, then you don’t land there. However, iffy procedures and trying to cram an airplane that doesn’t fit into the airport can certainly make it dangerous.
I’m always alert when we operate at DCA, National Airport in Washington DC. The river visual approach isn’t particularly dangerous but any deviation gets you into restricted airspace and the consequences are embarrassing and newsworthy. I always pay a lot of attention there.
Well, the Lake Tahoe Airport is pretty bad. I would never land there because there is a much safer Airport not far away which is called Douglas County Airport. Flying into Lake Tahoe is like flying into a toilet bowl. Flying out of Lake Tahoe it’s like flying out of a toilet bowl. However, there may be some Pilots who like the challenge of difficult airports.
As an old (85 now) private pilot, I found both landing and taking off at the Catalina airport on Catalina Island both challenging and fun.The runway is atop a plateau, so your approach is over the water. While you are very high over the water you are much lower relative to the airport runway. Then when you take off, the runway is humped in the middle. Sitting at the end of the runway, it looks like it ends a few hundred feet in front of you due to the bow, but as you accelerate more and more runway appears as you get neat the top of the hump. You have to trust your chart for the runway length as it’s not visible from the end of the runway.
Juneau, Alaska is pretty scary. There’s this big honkin’ mountain at the end of the runway. You land going one way and fly out going the other.
The other, perhaps less common, category of airport on this list is one over very restricted airspace. Some list Washington DC as a great example of that, but at least one can assume the US might not be too trigger-happy. Others have stated that landing in Berlin during the Cold War was its own “special” nightmare, as it meant flying over East German airspace and hoping you don’t nudge the controls the wrong way.
Alton Bay in January/February. It’s the only FAA authorized ice-runway in the lower 48 states. You’re landing on a frozen lake and trying to steer and slow to a stop in an airplane, which is already difficult to maneuver on the ground, let alone adding in the complexities of doing it on ice.
Skiathos in Greece. It’s a short runway with nothing but the Aegean at both ends and hills on both sides. And it’s inclined, although slightly.
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JFK.Being delayed is normal. Being number 29 for takeoff is normal. Having slot times is normal.In short, the New Yorks are a hassle.
Years ago I remember a “60-Minutes” news program about the San Diego Airport. Something about a tall building in the way. I just checked, and it’s still there.
Los Angeles International. It’s not a bad airport to land in, but you have so many restrictions and airspace overlaps that it is just stressful to land there. I’m just glad we have to be on a flight plan with instructions from ATC when we do have to land there.
Telluride comes to mind. It’s a box canyon tilted 3 degrees with a huge sagging area in the middle of the runway.
Akureyri, Iceland. It’s located at sea level down in a fjord that curves, meaning in the days before GPS approaches, you had a choice of either a) flying an approach that stopped above the rim of the fjord, or b) receiving radar instructions throughout your descent to the airport.Under actual instrument conditions, flying down through clouds trusting purely on controller guidance was always unnerving. Iceland has a sterling domestic safety record, so there never was any worry on that score. However, if you’d ever been there before in good weather and seen just how narrow portions of the approach path actually were, a few palpitations were forgivable.
Hanada, Japan is a procedural headache, at least compared to Narita.Kaului, Maui can be a pain. The runway is on the shorter side at 7000 ft and it’s not unusual for the winds to be reported something like “280 variable 030 degrees ,15 gusting 25 kts” , lots of fun.Pendleton, Oregon has a runway with a significant dip which can play heck with a smooth landing if you land long on the upslopeJust some of the ones that come to mind.
Several pilots I know have told me that in the US, Yeager Airport, Charleston, West Virginia, is one of the hardest. It is a very short runway tucked away on a flattened mountain top. Having flown in as a passenger a number of times, this is the one where the pilots attempt to decelerate the fastest (faster than Midway is how it felt to me). The weather can also be a bit tricky here I would think as well.
Recently it’s Burbank because we land there at close to max landing weight sometimes and we have to go below the GS, hit the 1,000-foot mark, and lock up the brakes… It’s got mountains around it, lots of traffic, and many times they don’t clear us to land until a couple miles out, and I have to figure out what the tailwind is really quick.
LaGuardia aka LaGarbage. It’s awful. The nickname says it all.Newark, also not the most pleasant airport to fly in to. I spent 4 hours taxiing there. Well, we left the gate, came back to the gate for more fuel after 90 minutes, after fuel and additional supplies, we taxied back out, only to have the airport turn around. It was miserable. The captain I was flying with said that is fairly common.Chicago O’Hare is one of my least favorites. It’s laid out terribly.I personally hate flying in the Aspen, Colorado. The approach is complicated, and often times you have to fly a holding pattern because traffic is one way in, one way out.While I wasn’t flying for an airline, the Moscow, Russia airports are not fun.Those are the only ones that stick out for me.
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