(CNN) — Flying into Saba isn’t for the faint hearted. The vertiginous slopes and sea cliffs of this 5-sq.-mile island in the Caribbean do not leave significantly room to land a plane. But Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, clinging to Saba’s only little bit of flat land, is evidence that it can be carried out.
With a strip of asphalt just 1,300 ft extensive (about 400 meters), only 900 toes of which are “usable,” the runway is not considerably more time than an aircraft provider.
Sheer drops into the sea at both end increase an more layer of exhilaration to the arrival on what is acknowledged as becoming the shortest business runway in the earth.
The runway appears on a single of Saba’s postage stamps, and the memento shop in the village of Windwardside sells T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “I survived the Saba landing!”
You could acquire the ferry to get listed here, but the flight normally appears in lists of the “world’s scariest landings,” and that looks explanation adequate to give it a check out.
But is it definitely as hair-raising as it is really manufactured 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 (brief takeoff and landing) utility aircraft made to provide demanding airports and quit swiftly, an advantage that gets to be noticeable as soon as the wheels contact down on Saba.
It usually takes an elite group of specifically qualified pilots to fly into the island, with Sint Maarten-based mostly Winair the only airline functioning scheduled flights in and out.
Veteran aviator Captain Roger Hodge is Winair’s Twin Otter fleet teacher, and has trained each just one of them. “After a dude has been thoroughly experienced and we are happy, we radio into operations that a different Prime Gun is born. That is what we contact them,” he suggests.
Just before boarding, I question him what to be expecting on the 15-moment flight. “Might the Lord be with you,” he says solemnly, in advance of laughing and telling me that I am heading to delight in it, and to sit on the suitable to see the wings brush the mountainside on closing approach. Currently I truly feel my coronary heart beating speedier.
“Flying into Saba will get sort of hairy occasionally, but by being aware of what to do, we make it glance basic and tranquil,” states Hodge.
All those hairy conditions involve the typical aviation unexpected emergency eventualities these types of as engine failure on technique, but there are other factors thanks to the shortness of the runway and its downward slope. There are bodyweight and wind pace restrictions, way too. The same goes for rain. If the landing strip is soaked, no a person is traveling in. On a runway this brief, you can find no space for mistake.
“As a pilot I just love heading into Saba due to the fact which is when you put your practical experience to perform,” he says. “You will find constantly adrenaline that kicks in since you are remaining viewed by passengers and individuals on the floor, but you have just obtained to fly that machine.”
An aerial experience
In spite of the impending excitement, boarding at Sint Maarten’s Princess Juliana Intercontinental Airport is a reasonably comfortable affair.
There is certainly no assigned seating so aviation fans seeking for a pilot’s eye watch should really squeeze in 1st to nab the scorching seat — 1B — proper at the entrance in the center. With no doorway separating the cockpit from the cabin, it is really like sitting in between the Captain and the To start with Officer.
Sint Maarten’s environmentally friendly mountains, golden shorelines and turquoise waters make for a scenic departure, but you can find not a lot time to sit again and take pleasure in the views. Just after takeoff, flight WM441 flies in a straight line toward Saba, the island’s silhouette obvious on the horizon just 24 miles away. There is consistent activity in the cockpit, flicking of switches and twisting of knobs and dials, with each pilots doing the job in ideal coordination.
As the miles immediately tumble absent, the island looms closer and nearer. And nearer. It’s unbelievably beautiful but also lump-in-the-throat stuff, and there is certainly a minute when it feels as if you might be heading straight for the volcanic slopes.
But at the incredibly final moment, the plane helps make a sharp lender to the remaining in the route of the runway which, right until this place, has been invisible. Passengers on the appropriate-hand side have shut-up views of the sea cliffs. Travellers on the left search straight down into the drinking water.
As the plane degrees out for last approach the wing basically skims the hillside, but the plane comes in reduced and clean and touches down with a squeak of rubber, a huge blast of reverse thrust, and a shorter taxi to the incredibly conclude of the runway exactly where all those who even now have their eyes open up can peer down into the water under.
Scary? Sure. Really worth it? Undoubtedly.
Bringing the island out of isolation
The to start with pilot to land on Saba ought to have experienced an even more thrilling encounter.
Bold aviator Rémy de Haenen from the neighboring island of St Barthélemy produced the island’s initially landing in 1959. Many close by islands previously had airstrips developed during World War II, but Saba’s steep sides and absence of flat floor were viewed as unsuitable.
But de Haenen challenged the concept, surveying the topography and at some point identifying the aptly named Flat Point as the most promising web page for his try to pilot the 1st flight into Saba.
Saban historian Will Johnson’s father utilized to farm Flat Position on floor owned by his grandfather. “My father gave authorization to crystal clear out the land, and he must have figured that if the attempt did not be successful, at the very least all the rocks would be absent,” he suggests.
A previous island commissioner, senator and publisher of the Saba Herald newspaper for 25 years, Johnson’s understanding of the island is encyclopaedic. He says that when the final decision had been manufactured to give it a check out, inside a few of months and with minor equipment other than “a person or two wheelbarrows,” the land experienced been cleared and flattened, all set for the tried landing.
Lots of people on the island continue to remember de Haenen landing his Dornier Do-27 on the newly cleared extend of land on February 9, 1959. “Everybody arrived out, crowds and crowds of persons. It was wonderful,” says James Franklin Johnson, a mountain guidebook for the Saba Conservation Basis who was 8 years previous at the time. “Saba arrived out of isolation when the plane landed on the island.”
But de Haenen’s landing failed to ignite an quick flurry of aviation action. He was banned from repeating his landing due to protection difficulties, and it was not until 1963 that Saba had its have totally performing airport.
A final burst of adrenaline
Most of Saba’s aviation buzz revolves about the landing, but the island reserves a closing burst of adrenaline for those people departing by air. The imaginatively named most important street, The Road, gives the great vantage point for sights of the airport, and the brave may possibly want to view a flight taking off just before their individual departure. The plane uses the complete size of the runway, at the really past moment lifting off when there’s practically no floor still left.
Setting up from the extremely stop, the airplane speeds down the runway, coming closer and nearer to the conclusion, and for a instant it seems to drop off to the drinking water, prior to a whoosh propels the plane — and its incredibly relieved travellers — skywards.
It may well be a badge of honor to say you’ve survived the Saba landing, but the thrill of the take-off from Juancho E. Yrausquin airport deserves its very own position in the world’s scariest rankings.