World’s scariest airport runways

Ranging from short landing strips to interesting structures, the next time you’re at any one of these airports, keep an eye out...you’ll be surprised by what you see. How different can a long stretch of tarmac be? We’ll show you.

1. Princess Juliana International Airport, Saint Martin - Eastern Caribbean

Famous for its short landing strip of only 2,180m with planes approaching the island flying extremely low, right over Maho Beach giving beach goers a very up close and personal view.

2. Barra International Airport, Barra Island, Scotland

An airport where planes touch down on the beach.

3. Courchevel Airport, France

A ski area in the French Alps, this is the largest linked ski area in the world and is infamous for having a short runway of around half a kilometre and a gradient of 18.5%.

4. Gibraltar Airport, Gibraltar.

Winston Churchill Avenue, Gibraltar's busiest road cuts directly across the runway with railroad-style crossing gates holding back cars every time a plane lands or departs.

5. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Netherlands Antilles

Known as one of the shortest commercial airport runway in the world, this landing strip is lined on one side by high hills, and on the runway's both ends, cliffs descent into the sea.

6. Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan

Built on an artificial island with a length of 2.5 miles and 1.6 miles wide.

7. Lukla Airport, Nepal

With a lofty mountain on one end and a steep angled drop thousands of feet deep on the other, any error on the pilot’s end can cause grave complications during landing or take-off.

8. Madeira International Airport, Santa Cruz, Portugal

Said to be difficult even for seasoned pilots to manoeuvre, this airport was once known for its short runway that measured only 1,400m in length - it was later extended by another 400 metres.