Five of the smallest airports in the world

[QF WP]

Five of the smallest airports in the world - Business Traveller

This story has descriptions on five of smallest airports (and their runways, which are generally just as small) in the world, including two with YouTube clips of landings (including the shortest runway!). Woah, I'd love to do either of them (that's heart in the mouth stuff :shock

Anybody want to add any other ones they flown in (or out) that are similarly small?

 

[markis10]

HTI always seemed small when Ansett ran 767s into it, it would also be a somewhat busy airport at present given its closure tonight.

 

[flychrisfly]

The clip seems to refer to airports with scheduled commercial passenger services...

However, Nazca airport in Peru is pretty small but it's not a big deal as it seems to only be used by 4 or 6 seat prop planes. Mind you, this was 15 years ago so....

 

[NM]

Reminds me of when Mick and Paddy were flying their aircraft from Dublin to Bristol. On approach into Bristol Mick turns to Paddy and notes the very short runway ahead of them. Mick says "When we land, you be hitting the brakes, I'll be engaging reverse thrust and we both be praying to the Mother Mary." Paddy agrees.

When they land, they do just as planned and with screeching or tyres, smoke from tyres and brakes, and the roar of reverse thrust they pull up just on the edge of the bitumen.

Then Paddy turns to Mick and says "Jeez that must be the shortest runway in the world." And Mick looks left and right and says "yeah, but by heavens its the widest."

 

[codash1099]

Reminds me of when Mick and Paddy were flying their aircraft from Dublin to Bristol. On approach into Bristol Mick turns to Paddy and notes the very short runway ahead of them. Mick says "When we land, you be hitting the brakes, I'll be engaging reverse thrust and we both be praying to the Mother Mary." Paddy agrees.

When they land, they do just as planned and with screeching or tyres, smoke from tyres and brakes, and the roar of reverse thrust they pull up just on the edge of the bitumen.

Then Paddy turns to Mick and says "Jeez that must be the shortest runway in the world." And Mick looks left and right and says "yeah, but by heavens its the widest."

Another contribution from the old joke specialist (the jokes, not NM)

 

[NM]

Another contribution from the old joke specialist (the jokes, not NM)

Who are you calling old? My kids refer to such stories as BDJ's (Bad Dad jokes)

 

[codash1099]

Who are you calling old? My kids refer to such stories as BDJ's (Bad Dad jokes)

Well I DID exclude you from the appellation "old" but if your reading ability is going downhill.......

 

[NM]

Well I DID exclude you from the appellation "old" but if your reading ability is going downhill.......

Ahh, I thought I was being excluded from being a specialist .

 

[Moody]

Gizo airport (GZO) is the smallest I've flown in and out of. It is actually on Nusa Tupe island which is about 1km long and 50m across - just enough space for a landing strip and a terminal (such as it is). From there you have to get on a boat to reach Gizo itself.

I went there on a dive trip and the single-engined plane was absolutely chockers with the 10 of us and our dive gear. The only other seats on the plane were for the pilot and co-pilot up front and the air hostess down the back. All she did was spend 5 minutes gingerly picking her way over our dive bags to get to the front of the plane to announce the flying time from Honiara to Gizo, and then another 5 minutes working her way back down to her seat. There was no actual service so we really could have done without her weight on the plane.

The landing was pretty scary - we kept descending over beautiful water to what we assumed to be our watery grave when at the last second land appeared under us and the pilot slammed on the brakes as soon as we touched down. We seemed to need most of the runway to pull up but that was nothing compared to the take-off a couple of days later. You could see the pilot's brows furrow as we loaded the dive gear into the plane but all he asked us was "Do your dive computers say it's OK to fly?" Good to know he was aware of the issues of cabin pressure after saturation dives, but we needn't have worried about gaining too much height. He revved up the plane at the far end of the runway whilst standing on the brakes and then let her rip. We all tried to breathe in as the plane slowly gained speed and when we went past the point of no return a few of us eyed off the position of our dive bags in case we needed the contents real soon.

In the end we didn't so much as lift off as simply maintain our height (4m) as the runway and island disappeared into the sea. The ascent was not rapid and we were never in any danger of getting the bends. We were very happy to leave that plane behind at Honiara and get back to the safer pursuit of wreck diving.