15 DANGEROUS Plane Landings - Great Pilots

skilled pilots perform some of the most difficult and dangerous plane landings imaginable here are 15 of the most difficult plane landings number 15 aircraft carrier landings aircraft carriers are the most powerful naval ship providing a platform from where both nautical and aerial missions can be launched their manoeuvrability comes at a cost however because their short runways and instability on the currents and waves of the ocean make them arguably the most difficult landings pilots can ever be required to make nowadays they have an angled design that allows for landings and takeoffs to be conducted simultaneously but still there's not quite enough room for approaching jets to decelerate fully they have to calculate their touchdown precisely to land at the right spot and caterers latch onto the jet to help bring it to a full stop even with all of this landings can be pretty hairy there's a reason why these pilots are seen as the best of the best number 14 Barrow Airport Aero Airport is the only international airport in Bhutan but in a country that's surrounded by the Himalayan mountains the approaches tricky to say the least located in a valley near the Paro true river the nearby Peaks reach an altitude of up to 18,000 feet and these along with the unpredictable weather they create means it's one of the most difficult landing spots in the world in fact pilots require a specific certification to fly here and there are less than two dozen folded even then flights are only allowed during daylight hours and when the weather conditions are clear enough to see the runway and the surrounding terrain but it certainly makes for a thrilling approach for everyone onboard number 13 gourville Airport Coralville Airport serves the ski resort in the French Alps and as you'd expect from a landing strip on a mountain things are far from normal first is that it's extremely short with a length of only 1760 two feet and to counteract this to help plane slow down it's been built with a gradient of 18 point six percent by landing on an incline they decelerate much quicker than normal but this poses extra complications pilots have to be precise when landing here with so many mountains surrounding it there's no opportunity for a fly around for a second attempt to make things even more difficult the runway has no lighting aids or instrument approach procedure which means the pilots have to calculate the best way to land in a different way each time number 12 Gibraltar International Airport Gibraltar is a piece of land at the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula and as part of the United Kingdom it's separate from the rest of the country of Spain that it's connected to with so little space it's a miracle that there was room to build an airport in the first place but this has come with its compromises it might not seem like there's anything too unusual on the approach but pilots have to contend with harsh wings that blow across the Mediterranean and have to time things perfectly unlike most airports when the runway is slowly used for takeoffs and landings the one here is bisected by a little busiest highways of the town land to earlier you might find yourself careening straight into a line of traffic and planes constantly have to be on the lookout just in case users of roads missed the warnings to stop when a flight is approaching number 11 quash a shock Airport pusher shark Airport is in southern Greenland and is one of only two in the country able to accommodate large aircraft it's a vital transport hub for the region surrounded by glaciers and mountains it's a challenging approach even for the most experienced of pilots and it's not uncommon for slight miscalculations that can lead to the planes skidding off the runway so difficult is it to see the peaks near this Airport but there have been two fatal accidents as a result of hitting ice caps on the final approach for landing this is probably clearly in the thoughts of every pilot flying here and this is the reason extra training is needed before they're allowed to attempt it nor ten bara Airport the investment needed to build a dedicated runway and airport facilities can be far too expensive for some places and on the small Scottish island of Barra they've done away with tarmac altogether this is the only place in the world where regularly scheduled flights land on a sandy beach and things have to be perfectly timed because during high tide the entire runway is submerged beneath the water flights are limited to daytime hours only but if there's an emergency at nighttime that requires an immediate evacuation from the island there is the option of illuminating the beach with vehicle lights with three layouts that provide a landing distance of between 2600 and 2,800 feet the only twin otters use the airport and because of the astonishing views while touching down it's no surprise that this is regularly voted as one of the top airport approaches in the world it does of course require a steady hand on the part of the pilot to keep the plane under control as one wrong move could result in ditching into a sand dune number nine but the kanae airstrip the suit do is a small mountain country that's entirely within South Africa and if you don't want to attempt one of the bumpy steep mountain roads that lead up to it your only choice is to go there by plane with such remote villages and very little flat land however one of the runways in the country is possibly the most extreme in the whole world known as the Matakana airstrip it's mainly used by charities and medical flights to provide assistance to the nearby communities it has a bumpy surface that's maintained by some of the locals but the most notable thing about it is that it ends at a cliff that leads to a two thousand foot drop after navigating the peaks on the approach pilots have to precisely touch down otherwise they risk clipping the cliff edge takeoffs here are even more scary because the runway isn't long enough to achieve full lift so the planes fall off into the precipice before gaining enough momentum to fly away [Music] before we move on be sure to subscribe to top 5s with notifications on number 8 congas airport gonca house airport is one of the busiest airports in south america serving the city of sao paulo and brazil but pilots have long warned that the approach particularly towards the 1.2 mile long runway 35 is so dangerous it's risking potential tragedy if you look out of the windows as the planes about to land you can't help but notice the high-rise buildings that surround you and it feels like you're just skimming the tops of them during the final approach add to this the rapidly changing weather conditions in the area and pilots have very little room for maneuver to touch down within the industry it's often referred to as the aircraft carrier and if they fail to get the wheels on the tarmac within the first thousand feet they're told to abort and try again things quite often go slightly wrong and planes run off the tarmac at the end which is why airport authorities have had to introduce strict limits to the number that can land there each hour so no one is feeling time pressured into decisions that could lead to even more accidents number 7 Gisborne Airport this Barron Airport covers a small 400 acre site near the city of Gisborne which is on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island at first the three grass runways and the 4,300 foot long main concrete runway look just like you'd expect from a single terminal Airport but this one is rather unusual because of the limited space for routes in and out of the city the main runway has a railroad track that passes straight across it it's one of the only places in the world where this happens and requires constant communication between air traffic control the railway company and any approaching planes to ensure the runway is clear when they're making their approach plans are however underway to reroute the railway because it's a complication that's simply not necessary especially with the intent of the city to begin to attract increasing tourist numbers in the next few years nor six German airport Tielman Airport is the only air field on a small Malaysian island of tema and it's notorious in the region for being one of the most difficult strips to safely land on the problem isn't anything to do with the thirty two hundred and fifty four foot long runway itself but the approach to the tarmac which you can only actually see just at the last moment before touching down pilots have to set themselves on a course that takes them directly towards a mountain range and it's such a counterintuitive thing to do that a checkerboard target has been installed to help them keep on track just before they reach it they have to make a sharp 90-degree turn to line themselves up with the runway and hope that they're able to land and stop in time overshooting it leads to a vertical drop off the cliff into the water and crews often put on life jackets before landing just in case things go wrong which they do far more often than you'd like to think number five Madera Airport when deciding on the best place to build an airport the main priorities are in a flat land to construct the runway and as few mountainous or hilly regions around as possible to give aircraft plenty of room for maneuvers but what if this simply is impossible that's what the planners on the small Portuguese island of Madeira face and the result was one of the most hair-raising landings in the world at first there was only room for a runway that was 50 250 feet long but after a nasty crash in 1977 war planes smashed through a bridge at the end and came to a halt on the sandy beach beyond it there was no choice but to extend it a problem though was that there wasn't enough land to do so so engineers built 180 columns that are 230 feet tall and support the extended tarmac over the beach the result is now an approach that involves flying in low across the ocean and aiming towards a mountain peak pilots have to quickly Bank right to line up on the heading towards the runway and even though it's now much longer they only have a limited time to safely land otherwise they'll roll off and end into the ocean the winds that blow across the ocean and our channel between the mountains adds an extra level of complexity to every landing and the airport is notorious for its bumpy and turbulent landings number four McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States research facility on the southern tip of Ross island in Antarctica and since it's so far away from the rest of civilization the only feasible means of delivering supplies and personnel is by plane the problem of course is that the surrounding terrain is completely covered by snow and ice so it's landing strip is unlike any other it's rebuilt every year for the summer season and by the time the sea ice begins to break up around December flights revert to a more stable airfield further away amazingly its strong enough to accommodate large aircraft like c-5 galaxies and Boeing 757s and when it's in operation pilots say that the ice almost feels like landing on concrete the weather conditions are of course something much more tricky to contend with and powerful winds can seem to appear out of nowhere whiteouts are of particular concern too because if the wind picks up snow and ice into the air it can virtually be impossible to determine where the sky ends and the land begins one major difference - is that when planes come to a final stop after landing the ice that it's on will sink several inches into the water below this means everything has to be closely monitored by laser sights to prevent losing aircraft into the water the only accident ever happened here took place in 1960 when a lockheed ec120 one warning star crashed on his approach all of the crew survived but because the plane was stuck in the snow no attempts were made to recover it and it was simply allowed to sink into the water when the ice melted in the spring number three tensioning Hillery Airport in 2019 tensioning Hillary Airport was named as the most dangerous in the world and the more you learn about this place the more you realized why it was a deserved title it's located in the town of Lula which is in eastern Nepal and is where many people who are planning to climb Mount Everest fly into at an altitude of over 9,000 feet it's surrounded with mountainous terrain with a steep drop at the end of the runway and a solid wall of the other flying at these Heights poses extra problems because of the thin air which reduces lift and air resistance meaning it's more difficult to generate enough power to fly and it takes longer to slow down this makes trying to land on one of the world's smallest runways extremely tricky and there's no room for second chances because there simply isn't the space to fly around and try again bad weather further compounds the issues and when the clouds are low it's almost impossible to see where the runway starts and this has been the cause of several accidents in recent years the one thing in pilots favors is that the runway is at an angle which helps them to slow down once they've stuck the landing only helicopters and small fixed-wing aircraft are allowed to travel to this Airport and pilots each have to have special training about the places unique quirks before they're even allowed to attempt it number two high wind landings when conditions are perfect aircraft are one of the safest and most comfortable ways to travel but things can quickly change when the wind picks up especially during the most dangerous part of any flight the takeoff or landing pilots aren't affected too much if there's a head or tail wind but the real difficulty comes when there's a crosswind and the stronger it is the more complicated performing a landing becomes this is when pilots earn their wages because there's no computer system in the world that can replace their instincts and quick reactions to safely bring the plane to a stop the main thing they try to do is keep the nose of a plane facing towards the wind which is a process called crabbing this ensures that they can keep flying in a straight track across the ground it results in a strange appearance that the plane is about to land at an angle to the direction of the runway of course flying like this is perfectly OK when you're in the air but the most critical moment is that transition between this dance and what happens when the wheels hit the tarmac different aircraft are designed to do this in various ways but for the largest passenger jets the technique is called the d crab during flare and if you watch closely you should be able to see it taking place this is when the pilot keeps the wings as level as possible while maintaining the crab into the wind and as it approaches the runway the pilot pulls back on the stick as they would normally something that's known as flaring this causes the rate of descent to decrease and raises the nose of the aircraft and just before the wheels touch down there's movement of the rudder to straighten it up in line with the runway if this isn't enough to be concentrating on there's one more thing they need to watch out for at the moment they straighten the aircraft lift is generated beneath the wing that the cross wind is blowing onto when the control wheel needs to be adjusted to compensate for this this means that landing under these conditions a pilot while traveling at 160 miles an hour is simultaneously pulling back on the control stick using it to turn into the wind and using their feet to control the rudder pedals number one Juancho e roschin airport the dutch island of sabah is one of the most beautiful in the caribbean but when the decision was made to build an airport there it was only one piece of land that was flat enough for a runway and it barely had enough space for a 1312 foot piece of tarmac which is only slightly longer than there is on an aircraft carrier unsurprisingly the airport isn't used by jets and the only plans that land there are small twin otters only captain's are allowed to control the plane as it approaches as they contend with unpredictable updrafts from the ocean the mountainous terrain of the island itself as you can see there's no room for overshooting the runway because on either side there's a sharp drop-off over the cliff to the ocean below which makes it surprising that after opening in the 1960s there hasn't ever been a single accident subscribe to top 5s for more and check out some of our other popular videos [Music]

Channel: Top Fives

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Keywords: Dangerous Landings Great Pilots, Some of the most difficult plane landings, The World's Most Dangerous Approach, most dangerous airports in the world 2019, Most Incredible Plane Landings

Id: DKP2NZG04wk

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020