TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin An incredable landing in SXM

Then in that case the crew should have be flying the VASI. In either case that approach was way to low.

They were not only risking their aircraft and the lives of their passengers, but also those on the ground. I can only hope that their actions have been noticed by their airline, and that appropriate actions have been taken...

Jeppesen does have a VOR/DME approach with a decision height of 600+ feet. Meaning if you don't see the runway at that height you have to go around. The VOR transmitter(PJM) (round antenna thing looking like a bowling pin) is right across from "Caravanserai" on beacon hill road.

But once you pop out of clouds and see the runway it is "ALL VISUAL".

If you can recall folks commenting during storms of airliners including KLM making multiple approaches to the runway.........they had to be using the VOR/DME (meaning homing into the VOR radio station and using distance measuring equipment (DME) to know how far away from end of runway (VOR location) they are.

Most aircraft have GPS's with GPS overlays of these old radio based approaches.........

Was pilot off, yes........people stupid for being there....yes..........I know I've done it and been sand blasted by a 757 taking off.

Hopefully it never happens but that area is ripe for an incident........................99% of airports don't let people and cars hang out in that spot.

I personally love SXM for letting me be stupid.