The 13 most Dangerous Airports in the World

Airports serve a major purpose: to get people and goods from one place to another. Unfortunately, there many are areas throughout the world that don't have the best conditions for an airport.

Engineers work countless hours to create landing strips in these places where airports were not thought possible. The marvels of modern engineering have allowed us to build airports where they really shouldn't be. The unique locations of these landing strips and airports cause problems when conditions are less than perfect.

These airports often present difficulties because of their geographic location or because of their design, because of these issues, maneuvering planes can be problematic for many of the pilots who fly to these locations. Because of the challenges of taking off and landing, these are considered to be the most dangerous airports in the world.

Princess Juliana International Airport, also called Sint Maarten International Airport, services the Dutch side of the island of Saint Martin (Sint Maarten in Dutch.) This airport is considered dangerous because of its touristy beach location in regards to the low-flying planes. Jet blasts from planes have been known to knock beach-goers into the water as the runway starts just off the beach.

The design of this airport makes Sint Maarten a popular locale for plane spotters as it is one of the few place left in the world where people can be in such close contact to a plane landing or taking off. However, due to the popularity of plane spotting here, additional fencing was added to the end of the runway to protect tourists who purposefully cling to the fences in order to be blown into the water by landing aircraft.

Congonhas Airport (sometimes referred to as Sao Paulo Airport) serves the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Because of the design of the runway, rainwater proves to be dangerous at this airport. The slippery runways at Congonhas Airport have been the cause of several accidents. In order to reduce the effects of rainwater, new runways have been put in. There are grooves in the new runways to collect excess water.

The safety concerns at this airport do not end there. Because the area surrounding the airport is highly populated, the airport reduced the number of incoming flights. Another safety precaution put in place was to reduce the maximum weight for aircraft. 

The Congonhas Airport is one of three airports that serves Sao Paulo (and is the 2nd busiest in all of Brazil.) With the new precautions in place, there is a demand for yet another airport to serve the city.

Barra Airport (sometimes called Barra Eoligarry Airport) is located at Traigh Mhòr, a beach on the Scottish island of Barra. This is the only airport in the world that uses a sandy beach as a runway.

There are three runways on this beach, each marked with wooden poles (very sophisticated technology.) While there are three runways, only one is used at any given time. The working runway is chosen based on which direction the wind is blowing. An interesting fact about this "airport" is that during high tide, all three runways are completely underwater (and unusable.)

While this airport typically isn't used at night, sometimes emergency flights come in and out during the evening. To allow safe passage for these planes, the lights of vehicles are used to mark out the runway.

The Gibraltar Airport, sometimes called North Front Airport, is considered the most dangerous airport in Europe. Located only 500 meters from the Gibraltar city center, the runway for this airport cuts right through the city. One of the scarier aspects of this airport is that a busy street, Winston Churchill Avenue, intersects the runway. Because of this, when a plane lands or takes off, the road has to be closed.

Gibraltar Airport originally served as an emergency airfield for the British Navy, but today is actually run by civilians. The airport is used today to haul cargo to the area and to bring in tourists.

Gustaf III Airport goes by several names: St. Jean Airport, St. Jean, Saint Barthélemy Airport, and even Aérodrome de St Jean. Located in the village of St. Jean on the island of Saint Barthélemy (St. Barts), this airport is considered to be the third most dangerous airport in the world.

The airstrip is at the foot of a slope and ends right on the beach. Planes taking off fly directly overhead beach-goers. Incoming flights coming from the opposite direction have a steep descent due to the hilltop. The danger presented at this airport is because of the tricky maneuvering pilots must perform when landing.

Tenzing-Hillary Airport was originally called Lukla Airport but was renamed to honor the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. This airport, located in Lukla, Nepal, serves those wishing to climb Mount Everest as well as those wishing to explore the Everest region.

Dangers at this airport include high winds (affecting maneuverability) and cloud cover (affecting visibility), but these aren't the scariest aspects of this airport. Like Gustaf III Airport, one end of the runway is preceded by high terrain, however, instead of a gorgeous sandy beach on the other end, there is a 2000 foot drop! The high winds, cloud cover, high terrain, and the huge drop make this the most dangerous airport in the world.

There have been several accidents at this airport, including the most recent which occurred on October 12, 2010. In this accident, a Dornier Do 228 aircraft operated by Sita Air lost control while landing and crashed into the wall-end of the runway. Remarkably, everyone survived!

Paro Airport in Bhutan is sandwiched between two 18,000+ foot Himalayan mountains. This airport is one of the most dangerous places to land as planes must be maneuvered between mountains (with, of course, very strong mountain winds) to land on a tiny runway.

Planes are only allowed to land during the day when visibility is at its best. Doesn't sound quite as bad as Lukla, right? Consider this: This airport is so dangerous that only 8 pilots in the entire world are qualified enough to land here. That's some scary stuff!

Pilots need to maneuver between mountains, fly within feet of houses, and land on a narrow, 6,500-foot runway. Planes are only allowed to take off and land during the day since any flying at night has been deemed far too dangerous.

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport serves the tiny island of Saba located in the Netherlands Antilles. This airport is unique as both ends of the extremely short runway end with a cliff. Because of the short runway ending with a cliff on either side, any mistakes in taking off or landing can have a disastrous outcome. As this airport is officially closed, those wishing to land at this airport must obtain a waiver in order to land.

Madeira Airport is located near the city of Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira. This airport was initially known for being dangerous because of its short runway (at only 1600 meters in length.)

Shortly after the TAP Portugal Flight 425 accident in 1977 (the deadliest airline accident in Portugal at the time), the runway was scheduled for lengthening. Because the airport was built on the side of a cliff there was no land on which to extend the runway. To account for this, pillars were used to support the extension.

The difficult task of designing and engineering the new runway was done a Brazilian company known as Andrade Gutierrez. The work done at the Madeira Airport won the company a number of awards including the Outstanding Structures Award given by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. However, even after the construction of the runway extension, this airport is known for being one of the most dangerous in the world.

Courchevel Airport, which serves the popular Courchevel ski resort in France, is known for having a number of conditions which make it a dangerous airport. This airport is tucked in the French Alps and has a high elevation at over 6500 feet above sea-level. With its difficult approach and an extremely short (only 1722 feet in length) runway that slopes upward, it's no wonder that this airport is ranked as the world's 7th most dangerous airport.

Ice Runway is the name of the runway/airport that services the McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The Ice Runway is just that: a runway that is constructed annually when the ocean's ice freezes near the McMurdo Station. Because of this, the runway is only usable in the coldest months of the year. Each plane that lands on the runway is measured with a laser in order to determine how deeply it is sinking into the ice. Once a plane sinks at least ten inches, it must be moved to a safer location on the ice.

Svalbard Airport, Longyear (Svalbard lufthavn, Longyear) serves the archipelago of Svalbard in Norway. The extremely northerly location of Svalbard made it very difficult to construct this airport. Structural work has been done using ice such as the hangar which is frozen into the ground by huge pillars of ice. Because the airport is built on permafrost, if the land thaws, the airport will be rendered useless. However, much engineering has been done to prevent this from happening. For example, the runway is insulated so that the runway stays cooler than the ground.

The runway is fairly safe, but there have been some accidents here including the worst plane accident in Norwegian history. In 1996, a flight bound for this airport crashed into a mountain just under 10 miles from the airport. All 141 passengers were killed in this accident.

Servicing Bangkok, Thailand, there is nothing particularly special about Don Mueang International Airport except that there is a golf course in between two of the airport's runways. 

Despite the fairly ordinary design of the airport, a large number of flights both landing here and originating here have crashed. While there are different reasons for each crash, the fact that many of these flights are tied to this airport is a scary one.

Does this make the airport suspect? Not necessarily. There has to be an airport that has a higher crash-to-successful landing ratio, this airport just happens to be it!