Dangerous airports: St. Barthelemy

21 Jul 2012 19:05:00

This airport is located on the French Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy. The island has a land area of only 21Km2 and a population of less than 10.000 people. The airport here is also known as Gustav III Airport (SBH), named after the King Gustav III of Sweden which owned the small island in the 19th century. The airport is only used by small airplanes like the Cessna and Twin Otter carrying less than 20 people. Larger aircraft can not land here since the runway is only 650 meters long. This short runway makes this airport quite dangerous. But there is more. The runway ends on one side at a beach; aircraft who overrun the runway end up in the water (see the youtube movie below). On the other end of the runway is a hill so that approaching aircraft have to fly low over the hill and make a steep descent to be able to land. On this hill is also a road so when you pass on your motorbike while a plane is flying over, you literally have to duck...