Jul
29
St Maarten is the place to be for ultimate aviation enthusiasts. The beach right next to the airport is the most famous spot to watch huge airliners land. A couple of months ago, I was on a little vacation and visited this exact spot to watch a couple airplanes land. It wasn’t our lucky day because we weren’t there when a 747 or similar aircraft landed.
This video is a KLM 747 landing right over the beach in St Maarten. I have watched quite a few videos of 747s land on this beach, but this is the lowest I have ever seen a plane land. If you were right under that plane when it landed, you probably could have touched the belly and wheels of the aircraft. One of the comments I read about this video was that the crew was interviewed due to how low they came in on the approach. Here is the actual comment someone wrote about this video:
This was a landing where the pilot and first officer were interviewed by the airlines. They even took telemetric info from the flight to determine how low they actually were and in fact they were way to low according to standards. The aircraft pilot was suspended (captain only) as he was in charge. He claimed the weather conditions were a factor in his rebuttal case. He WAS paid for the leave of absence however.
Does anyone know how true that statement is? Anyways, enjoy the video! Would you have liked to been standing right there?
Wow, that was a real low landing. Would be disaster on the beach if anything went wrong though. Don’t they put up barriers?
Nope no barriers….just a small little fence at the end of the runway. When a huge plane like that comes into land all the traffic stops on that road just so the cars don’t get jet blast and blown over!
Ha Ha! I love that video. I saw it a few days ago. These times are great! YouTube is full of great airplane videos. I truly can’t get anything done anymore because I find myself sitting there watching videos. This video is a good one, in fact, I am planning on publishing an article about this airport in the next day or so. As you can see, the weather was terrible in this video, I would guess the wind was pushing the plane down a little lower than it should have been. However, if you look in YouTube, there are many other videos of planes landing at the same airport during the day… and they are also pretty low as well.
Have you see any of the Toncontin International Airport Landings on YouTube yet. These are a trip to watch.
Anyway, its nice to meet you… I stumbled upon your site about two weeks ago after running into you on MyBlogLog, but never got a chance to drop you a comment.
I love the site and I have added it to my blog roll. Take care and look forward to talking more.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
Love the video its cool!
that’s one of my most favorite videos. i saw this one just a few days ago and thought of you. your post today is a good opportunity to share it. i think it comes from the same airport.
Garry! - Thanks for stopping by and sharing your review of that airport. I actually posted that video a few weeks ago on here of the American 757. It is unbelievable but sounds like an extremely dangerous field!
Stormin - Sweeet video! It is funny to watch the people try to stand behind the jet blast. A 747 blast will blow over vehicles! Thanks for sharing!
Oh my! That was really close! I really liked the other videos linked on the comments as well — now what are they talking about the Congonhas runway in São Paulo being short compared to those dangerouns landings?