TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin St. Barts landing on World News

Anyone see the guy at the top of the hill taking pictures of a plane coming in for landing?
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I've landed and taken off a dozen times there. It really is "interesting" and have taken many pictures from the beach (and planes). I've flown into SXM over 15 times, so 2 of the most famous landing places in the world have been fun.

For those who don't know, pilots have to be trained to land at SBH. The engines are cut off at the top of the mountain and the planes glide in.

Your link didn't work for me… is this the incident you were referring to?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel...ng-footage.html
Talk about a close call!! The man is really lucky he didn't get hit in the head.

Im doing it in a week, hope to get a video going in!!

Someone got hit by a plane's landing gear last year, he wasn't seriously hurt - just got face planted in the gravel. He was lucky!

i think the flights to/from Saba are actually more "interesting" than the flights to SXM or SBH <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Shocked.gif" alt="" />

A few years ago someone was killed on the beach at the other end of the runway. He was hit in the head by a landing gear tire on a plane taking-off.

I'm inclined to agree. We've flown to St. Bart's a few times and also to Saba and while the dive-bomb aspect of the StB landing is different and seeing the water/beach come closer and closer as the runway starts to run out is exciting, there's just something about both landing and departing Saba that takes my breath away every time. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Yes that is it. Thanks I haven't had to much success posting on here

No problem… thanks for alerting us to another unique aspect of the Caribbean islands.

I had two thoughts when I saw the video of the plane landing in St. Barths. The first was concern for the pilot. It must have been very unnerving for him to see an idiot standing on/by the runway exactly where he was about to land and now, should he abort or continue and hope he doesn't hit the guy and hope that in doing so it doesn't cause his plane to crash.
My second thought is that,given the number of people known to be doing this at that strip..shouldn't the airport beef up security and, if they catch some idiot on the airport property trying to get " the" shot...punish him/her to the full extent of the law.

But he wasn't on airport property. He was on the side of the road just outside a traffic circle that is in the glide path for the runway. The runway is about 250 feet away from the road. Here is a picture that shows where he would have been standing with the runway in the background.

Being on the side of the road doesn't mean standing there to take a photo is a smart thing to do.

I too have stopped at that traffic circle to watch planes coming in. My comments were in reaction to the news boradcast which said the photog. was on the runway. Years ago a lady who owned a restaurant in SXM was at that same vantage point and took a video of a twin engine plane coming end..and going right off the other end of the runway right into the beach sand. Never heard if that pilot is still employed...

Take a look at this video from 2009....

http://www.zerosixright.com/piper-aztek-runway-overrun-st-barts/

Here's my YouTube Saba video from 10 years ago. Think 8mm tape, not video, so please forgive.

Video here .

gary

More like twenty years ago if you take a close look at Pelican Key.