If that’s the normal approach, it looks pretty dicey.
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looks normal if you have a tall mountain at the end of your runway.
Looked bloody perfect to me!
I also didn’t see anything wrong. I think there was a crosswind, which is why he landed a bit crabbed.
He didn’t break the plane and he presumably walked away, so it’s a great landing in my book.
No worse than the old IGS Kai Tak HK landings. Now thats an approach! (I have a picture somewhere of a 747 KAL cargo plane on IGS approach with full elevator control deployed in a steeply banked turn, the only way so much control surface is ever shown on a 747 like this is a gross manipulation of the controls at low speed, the effect looks very special).
Youtube for some of those IGS landings.
I’ve heard that landing in Juneau, Alaska, is no piece of cake, either. Too many mountains.
Pretty short runway also. Takeoffs probably aren’t much better.
Juneau is a bitch also, I spent time up there during the Valdez cleanup with the USMC…
Thanks Hop… I was was jonsin’ pretty hard for a video fix…
I’ll put St. Thomas VI on the list as an ass scruncher.
Looks like a serious crosswind at the end there too! They need to put that runway on a giant, liftable turntable.
OFTLO – I guess I’m an enabler.
Outstanding piloting skill, obviously an ex navy pilot with lots of carrier landings.
If I was a commercial pilot, I don’t think I’d want my employer to know that I’ve had carrier landing experience!
Yeah that crosswind is nuts at the end. That’s not a landing I’d like to have as a frequent stop.
Hi From HONDURAS John, that’s a normal landing in toncontin airport every day. As a matter of fact that’s the daily AA flight to and from Miami.
I imagine that, back in the old days, when an airline needed to punish an uppity pilot they would make him fly the direct 747 flight between Honduras and Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport.
The landing gear sure takes a hit, I hope they check it close, often.
other than the potential for flash-mobs armed with ground-to-air missiles where those tourists are standing, i dont see anything “insane” about it…
I’ve landed at this airport as a passenger and if I recall correctly at the end of the runway is a drop off and a highway. Also, at landing everyone on the plane gave the pilot a huge applause. It is definalty a crazy place to fly into. Kai Tak was easy compaired to this. And the new airport in HK is just great.
Fly in to Aspen sometime. Flew in a King Air 300 and every alarm in teh cockpit was screaming. PULL UP, PULL UP
I have to agree about this landing…..a pretty good one considering the cross winds and the mountain range and that damn short runway.
The scariest landing I ever had was in Hong Kong. Made me wish I had formed a personal bond with God. 🙂
#20. I was on one of the last flights at old Kai Tak Airport in HK, and have to agree with you on that one. But for sheer terror, try landing in Wellington, NZ, in a strong sou’westerly. The planes have to touch the runway at a 30 degree yaw then toss the nose wheel sideways to line it up with the strip, else end up in the Tasman Sea.
That’s nothing, I flew into the Machu Piccu International once. Have you seen pictures of that place recently, the snack bar is gone!
Check this Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crosswind landing in Hong Kong. It’s a hair raiser! Much respect to the pilot.
http://tinyurl.com/23mak9
[pls use tinyurl.com – ed.]
When I was a teen in the 70s, we had a prop plane layover stop in Belize before heading to Honduras. The runway there begins at the base of a mountain. I’m not kidding when I tell you the plane had to do a hard bank and a 60 sec freefall to make the runway. Not much different then that one.
Also interesting was after the relief of landing you could watch the military soldiers and armored vehicles (including tanks) lining the runway while you taxi. Rebels at the time were always attacking the airport.
As others have said, that looks like a pretty average landing, nothing special about it at all. Hong Kong used to have an airport that required some special maneuvering to get in, but that landing didn’t look that hard. The crabbing at the end was because of crosswind, and it looks like he lined it up rather well.
That’s the Toncontin airport at the Capital Tegucigalpa and that footage shows a very unusually clear weather; usually the place is ladden with a thick layer of smog.
That looks like a normal landing for me in Flight simulator, though I hit the ground a little bit harder.
Looks like a textbook carrier approach. I bet they only put ex-Navy and Marine pilots on that route.
8. St. Thomas is edgy but for me St. Barths in the French West Indies and Virgin Gorda in the BVI where the chickens rule the airstrip.
That’s one hairy approach. Kudos to the pilots, and I’ll bet extra tough in a crosswind. More fun than a tornado bumping Addison airport when you’re over the outer marker on final — with ILS signals, runway lights and all ATC comm lost. Do you follow the published missed approach procedure into a lightning-lit night sky?