Talk about a wing and a prayer.
East of Everest and the Himalayas lies one of the world's most notorious runways, so dangerous that passengers typically erupt in applause as the plane sprints down the road.
Bhutan's Paro International Airport, located between a mountain peak and nearby residential areas at an altitude of 18,000 feet, is so challenging for pilots that it is believed there are only 50 jet pilots in the world who are capable of making the last-minute maneuvers needed to land the plane.
The 7,431-foot runway, reserved for small aircraft, requires special training and proven knowledge of how to land without the aid of radar — even the slightest miscalculation could send a plane landing on a nearby house.
Category C qualified pilots can strut around the spots like Maverick from “Top Gun.”
“It raises questions about the pilot's skills, but it's not dangerous,” said Captain Chimi Dorji of local airline Druk Air. He told CNN.
“In Paro you really need local skills and local knowledge, area capability. We call it area capability training, area training or route training wherever you fly into Paro.”
In a country where 97 percent of the land is mountainous and Paro is at an elevation of 7,382 feet, the thin air means aircraft can travel faster, Dorji said.
“The actual airspeed is the same, but the airspeed relative to the ground is much faster.”
Even if they could successfully navigate the narrow gap and land properly, the remote Asian kingdom faced another challenging factor: the weather.
The next variable to consider is the weather.
“We try to avoid operating after noon because after midday we get a lot of heat waves. [winds]”The temperature is rising but the rains are not coming yet,” Dorji said. “So the land is dry and we are seeing more precipitation in the valleys in the afternoon and anabatic/katabatic winds. Mornings are much calmer.”
Still, monsoon season, when golf-ball-sized hail can be a whole different story, requires special consideration.
“Northwest and northeasterly winds are blowing in from all over China, and there are periods of rain that last for days,” the pilot said.
Also, because radar is not very useful in this area, night flights are not permitted under any circumstances.
Oh, and of course there's the risk of crashing into the surrounding mountains, which Dorji explicitly calls “obstacles.”
