747 Landing at St Maartens

[bellevueace]

Sod this for a game of soldiers.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

[John B]

There are a number of airports around the world where the final approach can be across water and a beach - the difference at SXM is that the beach is public and often full of people ! Inevitably numbers of them are armed with cameras.

I had a day in St. Maarten last year whilst on a cruise. I did see the airport, but only from the other end. Sadly I never made it to Maho beach ! Ah well, maybe next time. :D

[Aurora]

One of the major differences is as I've understood that the runway is "JUST" long (short) enough for a 747 to land there. There's not much excess runway to take from, and therefore the heavy ones have to go extremely low before landing, so their speed is low enough to stop. On a longer runway you can have a steeper glidepath and higher speed coming in - cause you have more runway to stop on :) Thereby not interfering with the beach to such an extreme degree as you do at St Maartens.

I'd wear earbuds, it's one hell of a noise.

[John B]

That runway is just over 7100 feet long. That is a tad on the short side for a 747-400, although still within bounds as long as the aircraft is not fully laden. Of course, I may be misreading the Boeing technical data !

[Karen in NYC]

Is that the plane the made a hard landing. If so, a pilot who was flying on that plane said he would have been fired for such a landing.

But the official spec for the runway is 7054 ft, and altitude of 13 feet. A pilot who flies a 747-400 said, on another board, the aircraft needs 6500-7000 feet to land. Cutting WAY TOO close to suit me. I'd rather fly to another island (bigger) and take a smaller plane to st. Maarten (now, as I recall, I did fly to St. Maarten once. I'm glad I didnt realize the runway is so short.

[Barb-SAN]

I've marveled at the photos taken there and posted on jetphotos.net.
Here's a link to Wikipedia for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport
Modernisation
Because of increased passenger traffic and the expected growth of passenger traffic in the near future, Princess Juliana International Airport is being heavily modernized following a three-phased masterplan, commissioned in 1997.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-1)
Phase I was a short-term program in order to upgrade existing facilities and improve the level of service at various points. This included widening, strengthening and renovating the runway, increasing the bearing capacity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_capacity) of the taxiways, construction of a new apron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_ramp) and an upgrade of the (old) terminal. Phase I was completed in 2001.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-2)

Phase II included the construction of a radar facility and a new air traffic control tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_tower), the construction of a new and more modern, 27,000 square metres (290,000 sq ft), terminal, capable of handling 2.5 million passengers per year, and the construction of a Runway End Safety Area (RESA) of 150 metres (490 ft), including a 60 metres (200 ft) overrun, on both ends of its runway, to comply with ICAO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Civil_Aviation_Organization) rules.

The new air traffic control tower and the radar station commenced operations on March 29, 2004, while the new terminal opened in late October 2006.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-3)

If traffic develops as forecast, Phase III of the masterplan will be executed, consisting of an extension of the new terminal building and the construction of a full parallel taxiway system.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-4)
However, the oil price increases since 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_price_increases_since_2003) began impacting discretionary air travel worldwide by early 2008,[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-air_travel_costs-5) and the prospect of further price increases[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-goldman_sachs_200_oil-6) threatens to reverse the recent expansion of tourist travel by jet which began with the 1980s oil glut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut).[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Juliana_International_Airport#cite_note-half_life_for_air_travel-7)

It looks like the greatest danger is to those beach-goers and photographers who want up-close photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SXMDanger.jpg