On which island do planes land over the beach? Low-flying planes on Maho Beach, photos and videos. Unusual airport on the island

There are places on the planet where planes land very close to people, and where they can be captured on photo or video camera. This activity is popularly called spotting, although spotting is a whole hobby and photographing flying cars is only part of it. So, the beach with airplanes in Phuket is great for spotting, where I once went. I’m not a spotter myself, but I liked it - I felt like a multi-ton colossus was flying over your head, a very unusual experience. Still, I don’t like classic sights, but something like that.

If you're in Phuket, be sure to go. It’s a very short walk along the beach, and it will be interesting if you’ve never seen anything like this before.

On the map you could see that there are national park Sirinath. Usually in national parks there is something interesting or at least beautiful: jungle, trails, views, mountains, waterfalls, etc. But there is nothing in Sirinata, he is nothing. And what’s strange is that there is a lot of garbage on its territory, what kind of national park is this then... Visually it just resembles a small forest through which Thais scurry about on bikes and cars about their business. Yes, there are a couple of picnic areas there, but they don't look so good. For me, it’s better to go to that part of Nai Yang beach (), where there is no national park and no traffic.

So it’s not worth going to the national park itself. However, if you want to get to the beach with planes, you will have to cross it.

Visiting information

Phuket beach, where planes land, can be accessed from two sides: from Nai Yang and from Mai Khao. I walked from the Nai Yang side (and for some reason many people walk this way), but visually it seems that from Mai Kao it will be much faster.

In short, if you go from the Nai Yang side, you will need to cross the Sirinath National Park. The fastest way to do this is in its northern part, where it is closest to the airport. The entrance and parking space will be approximately near this hotel (you can see the name and location using the link). Then you only have to walk 1 km along the sand.

Entrance to the park is 100 baht. But, as far as I understand, they only charge for transport, not for people on foot.

Maho Beach is located on the Dutch side of the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean. If you are an airplane lover and beach holiday- this is exactly the place where you should go. The thing is that Princess Juliana International Airport is located right next to Maho Beach. Due to the small size of the island, the runway here is very limited and planes have to land almost on the border with the sea, flying over the beach at a minimum altitude, delighting vacationers

Imagine an amazing picture where you can see the belly of a huge Boeing 747 close proximity right lying on the beach. LifeGlobe has already written about this place in the article The Noisiest Beach in the World, but here I will focus specifically on the airport and airplanes. The opportunity to watch the landing of huge airliners, feel their power and gusts of wind that raise columns of sand and knock you off your feet - all this made Maho Beach favorite place for aviation fans

It is the airport and planes that attract the majority of tourists here, which is what the local recreation industry is built on. Local bars offer online broadcasts from the cockpits; special monitors here show flight arrival times, especially about arrivals. large planes a special speaker announces over the loudspeaker












Continuing the topic of airports, I also advise you to go here -

In the Caribbean Sint Maarten (the southern Dutch part of the island of St. Maarten), you can sunbathe under the wing of an airplane: liners flying over Maho Bay are the main attraction of the coast. The snow-white strip of the beach abuts the runway of Princess Juliana Airport, giving all vacationers at the resort the opportunity to enjoy the amazing landscapes. It seems you can reach the planes flying directly overhead. Huge liners, descending, literally knock tourists off their feet: the gusts of wind are so strong that warning signs have been installed on the coast. Smaller copies of signs reading “Low-flying aircraft can cause injury” are the island's most popular souvenir.

The schedule for the nearest landings can always be found in cafes, bars, hotel lobbies and beach restaurants, so keeping track of the approaching aircraft is an easy task. The largest number of planes land here in the morning and afternoon.

When choosing Maho Bay as a holiday destination in Sint Maarten, be careful: planes fly here really often, and the daily noise of the engines - after photographing a couple of dozen planes - can interfere with a pleasant holiday. Be sure to hold your children's hands: the gusts of wind when the liners approach are quite strong. To protect the health of children, it is better to use earplugs. When landing giants of the air, you should not hold on to the airport fence: debris and gravel rising into the air can seriously injure you.

You can also watch planes take off and land from the windows of hotels surrounding Maho Bay.

Sint Maarten lies on the south-eastern periphery of the "Caribbean hurricane belt" and can be subject to typhoons, most likely between July-August and October, so travel during this period is best avoided.

How to get there

The island of Sint Maarten is located in the Windward Islands group Caribbean Sea. Most planes land at Princess Juliana Airport, one of the most popular in the region. The most convenient way to get to the island is with transfers in the cities of New York, Philadelphia and Miami. During the high season - from November to May - you can also fly direct from Toronto.

The airline operating in Sint Maarten is Windward Islands Airways International N.V., also known as . She flies internationally from Princess Juliana Airport to neighboring islands Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Barthelemy, Nevis, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda.

Location

Maho Bay with the beach of the same name is located on the southwestern coast of the island, located in the northern part of the group of Windward Antilles (Leeward Islands, Islas de Barlovento).

People go here for an indescribable thrill, because literally 10-20 meters above the beach and tourists roar giant airliners coming in to land. A dangerous but fascinating sight!

Maho Beach is very close to International airport named after Princess Juliana.

Due to the short length of the runway (2,180 meters), planes are forced to land as close to the beginning as possible, flying directly over the heads of vacationers at an altitude of 10-20 meters from the ground.

This beach is extremely popular among thrill-seekers and photographers who want to capture the low-flying jumbo jet.

All bars on Maho Beach have the following signs with the schedule of arriving flights:

There are also warning signs that jets of air from aircraft jet engines can be thrown into the sea, injure or even kill. But this stops few people:

On average, only every 4th plane landing here can create a strong gust of wind with its jet engines. Then vacationers have a hard time:

Despite the difficult conditions for landing, not a single crash has been recorded so far.

Extreme sports enthusiasts strive to be right above the landing airliner. And this lands one of the biggest passenger aircraft in the world - Boeing 747:

It's hard to believe that this is not a photo montage, but real photographs:

There is an unusual airport, considered one of the most dangerous in the world..

Princess Juliana International Airport is located in the Dutch part of the island, and is unique in that its runway starts almost right next to Maho Beach, and since its length is not very long (only 2300 meters), all planes land very low altitude right above the beach.

Staring and taking breathtaking pictures of low-flying aircraft is perhaps one of the most popular activities among the many tourists who flock to Maho Beach upon arrival aircraft. In many local bars and cafes you can see their arrival times.

But, despite such a harmless event from the outside as the landing of an airliner, it can represent real danger for the people standing underneath it on the beach.

And the point is not even that the airliner can fall on people; by the way, in the entire history of the airport (it has been operating since 1942) there have never been such incidents here. The problem is the jet streams from landing and taking off airliners, which can blow you into the water. The authorities constantly warn about this - in addition to the barbed wire on the fence, adopted for those who want to sit on it, many corresponding shields are placed along the beaches.

In the entire history of the airport, there have been only 3 incidents here, two of them in the vicinity of the early 80s of the last century, and one at the airport itself quite recently - on January 14, 2014.

In 1970, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger plane flying to Sint Maarten from the United States after several unsuccessful attempts to land at the airport in bad weather made an emergency landing directly into the Caribbean Sea. 22 of the 57 passengers and one crew member were killed. It turned out that the airliner ran out of fuel due to several attempts to land the plane, and most of the people died due to the fact that they were not informed by the crew about the upcoming hard landing on water, because of which they did not prepare and did not fasten their seat belts.

The second crash occurred on December 21, 1972 with a small twenty-seater De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft. It crashed at night in the ocean near Saint Martin on its way from Guadeloupe, killing all 11 passengers on board along with the two pilots.

And the third incident occurred a couple of days ago, when a Boenig-747 of the Dutch airline KLM, en route to a parking lot after landing on time, made a left turn instead of a right - because of it, at least 17 cars parked nearby were damaged by its jet stream. They had broken windows and damaged paintwork, but no injuries were reported.