In the Caribbean Sea, east of the Virgin Islands, south of Anguilla, and northeast of St. Kitts and Nevis, there is a speck of land called Saba. The island consists mostly of a volcano called Mount Scenery. There is a medical school on the island: the Saba University School of Medicine.
On the northeast corner of Saba is the Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport. This airport has the shortest commercial runway in the world. The runway is 400 meters long with cliffs that drop into the sea at both ends. (Nimitz-class aircraft carriers have flight decks 333 meters long, but they also have steam catapults for launching planes and arrestor wires for landing planes.)
I've had jobs that required me to fly on a variety of airplanes. One of those airplanes was the "de Havilland Twin Otter." It is a high-wing, twin-engine, propeller plane. The Twin Otters I flew on had 18 seats, 9 on each side of the plane with a center aisle. Wikipedia says they have 19 seats now. Maybe I am mis-remembering. It has been a long time since I flew on a Twin Otter.
The predecessor of the Twin Otter was the de Havilland Otter. It was a high-wing, single-engine, propeller plane.
Here is what Wikipedia says about the Twin Otter:
The Twin Otter has been popular with commercial skydiving operations. It can carry up to 22 skydivers to over 17,000 ft (a large load compared to most other aircraft in the industry); presently, the Twin Otter is used in skydiving operations in many countries. The United States Air Force operates three Twin Otters for the United States Air Force Academy's skydiving team.
On 26 April 2001, the first ever air rescue during polar winter from the South Pole occurred with a ski-equipped Twin Otter operated by Kenn Borek Air.
I liked the Twin Otter. It flew much lower than the big jets. If I'm just "guesstimating" (peering down from the airplane's window) I would say the airplane flies at around 1000 feet when flying a short hop from a large airport to a small airport (or vice versa).
Now, back to Saba with its 400-meter runway with cliffs at each end. What kind of passenger plane do you think would attempt to operate on such a short runway? That would be a Twin Otter, of course.
Here is a de Havilland Twin Otter landing on and taking off from Saba’s runway.
Here is the view from inside the plane:
1 comment:
Very interesting information about this island and airplanes. I have flown to several places and also in small airplanes but never in one like this one. I think is scary. I never have heard about this island either, there are very impressive places in the world that we don't know or heard about them. Thank you for sharing this information with us. I found it very instructive. Thank you
TA
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