(CNN) — Flying into Saba is not for the faint hearted. The vertiginous slopes and sea cliffs of this five-square-mile island within the Caribbean do not go away a lot area to land a airplane. However Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, clinging to Saba’s solely little bit of flat land, is proof that it may be performed.
With a strip of asphalt simply 1,300 toes lengthy (about 400 meters), solely 900 toes of that are “usable,” the runway is just not for much longer than an plane provider.
Sheer drops into the ocean at both finish add an additional layer of pleasure to the arrival on what’s acknowledged as being the shortest industrial runway on this planet.
The runway seems on one among Saba’s postage stamps, and the memento store within the village of Windwardside sells T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “I survived the Saba touchdown!”
You might take the ferry to get right here, however the flight typically seems in lists of the “world’s scariest landings,” and that appears purpose sufficient to provide it a strive.
However is it actually as hair-raising because it’s made out to be?
An elite class of pilot
The 15-minute flights from Sint Maarten are on 19-seater de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters, STOL (quick takeoff and touchdown) utility plane designed to serve difficult airports and cease rapidly, a bonus that turns into apparent as soon as the wheels contact down on Saba.
It takes an elite group of specifically skilled pilots to fly into the island, with Sint Maarten-based Winair the one airline working scheduled flights out and in.
Veteran aviator Captain Roger Hodge is Winair’s Twin Otter fleet teacher, and has skilled each one among them. “As soon as a man has been totally skilled and we’re happy, we radio into operations that one other High Gun is born. That is what we name them,” he says.
Earlier than boarding, I ask him what to anticipate on the 15-minute flight. “Could the Lord be with you,” he says solemnly, earlier than laughing and telling me that I will take pleasure in it, and to sit down on the suitable to see the wings brush the mountainside on last strategy. Already I really feel my coronary heart beating sooner.
“Flying into Saba will get sort of furry generally, however by figuring out what to do, we make it look easy and calm,” says Hodge.
These furry conditions contain the same old aviation emergency eventualities comparable to engine failure on strategy, however there are different issues because of the shortness of the runway and its downward slope. There are weight and wind pace limitations, too. The identical goes for rain. If the touchdown strip is moist, nobody is flying in. On a runway this quick, there isn’t any room for error.
“As a pilot I simply love going into Saba as a result of that is once you put your expertise to work,” he says. “There’s at all times adrenaline that kicks in since you’re being watched by passengers and folks on the bottom, however you have simply received to fly that machine.”
An aerial journey
Regardless of the upcoming pleasure, boarding at Sint Maarten’s Princess Juliana Worldwide Airport is a reasonably relaxed affair.
There is not any assigned seating so aviation followers in search of a pilot’s eye view ought to squeeze in first to nab the recent seat — 1B — proper on the entrance within the center. With no door separating the cockpit from the cabin, it is like sitting between the Captain and the First Officer.
Sint Maarten’s inexperienced mountains, golden seashores and turquoise waters make for a scenic departure, however there’s not a lot time to sit down again and benefit from the views. After takeoff, flight WM441 flies in a straight line in the direction of Saba, the island’s silhouette seen on the horizon simply 24 miles away. There’s fixed exercise within the cockpit, flicking of switches and twisting of knobs and dials, with each pilots working in good coordination.
Because the miles rapidly fall away, the island looms nearer and nearer. And nearer. It is extremely stunning but additionally lump-in-the-throat stuff, and there is a second when it feels as in the event you’re heading straight for the volcanic slopes.
However on the final minute, the airplane makes a pointy financial institution to the left within the path of the runway which, till this level, has been invisible. Passengers on the right-hand facet have close-up views of the ocean cliffs. Passengers on the left look straight down into the water.
Because the airplane ranges out for last strategy the wing virtually skims the hillside, however the plane is available in low and clean and touches down with a squeak of rubber, an enormous blast of reverse thrust, and a brief taxi to the very finish of the runway the place those that nonetheless have their eyes open can peer down into the water under.
Scary? Sure. Value it? Positively.
Bringing the island out of isolation
The primary pilot to land on Saba will need to have had an much more thrilling expertise.
Formidable aviator Rémy de Haenen from the neighboring island of St Barthélemy made the island’s first touchdown in 1959. Many close by islands already had airstrips constructed throughout World Battle II, however Saba’s steep sides and lack of flat floor have been thought-about unsuitable.
However de Haenen challenged the concept, surveying the topography and ultimately figuring out the aptly named Flat Level as essentially the most promising website for his try to pilot the primary flight into Saba.
Saban historian Will Johnson’s father used to farm Flat Level on floor owned by his grandfather. “My father gave permission to filter the land, and he will need to have figured that if the try did not succeed, at the very least all of the rocks could be gone,” he says.
A former island commissioner, senator and writer of the Saba Herald newspaper for 25 years, Johnson’s information of the island is encyclopaedic. He says that when the choice had been made to provide it a strive, inside a few weeks and with little gear apart from “one or two wheelbarrows,” the land had been cleared and flattened, prepared for the tried touchdown.
Loads of individuals on the island nonetheless keep in mind de Haenen touchdown his Dornier Do-27 on the newly cleared stretch of land on February 9, 1959. “Everyone got here out, crowds and crowds of individuals. It was wonderful,” says James Franklin Johnson, a mountain information for the Saba Conservation Basis who was eight years outdated on the time. “Saba got here out of isolation when the airplane landed on the island.”
However de Haenen’s touchdown did not ignite a right away flurry of aviation exercise. He was banned from repeating his touchdown because of questions of safety, and it wasn’t till 1963 that Saba had its personal totally functioning airport.
A last burst of adrenaline
Most of Saba’s aviation hype revolves across the touchdown, however the island reserves a last burst of adrenaline for these departing by air. The imaginatively named primary street, The Street, affords the proper vantage level for views of the airport, and the courageous might need to watch a flight taking off earlier than their very own departure. The airplane makes use of the complete size of the runway, on the final minute lifting off when there’s virtually no floor left.
Ranging from the very finish, the airplane speeds down the runway, coming nearer and nearer to the top, and for a second it appears to drop off in the direction of the water, earlier than a whoosh propels the airplane — and its very relieved passengers — skywards.
It could be a badge of honor to say you have survived the Saba touchdown, however the thrill of the take-off from Juancho E. Yrausquin airport deserves its personal place on this planet’s scariest rankings.
