Gibraltar Airport is one of the most dangerous in Europe and around the world. The runway is short, being less than a mile long, both ends are surrounded by the sea and an international highway spans the middle of the runway.
It's always so amazing to scale the Rock of Gibraltar and be able to look down on the airport and see the magnificence of these pilots doing a superb job by landing at this short runway. The pilots have to have extra training in order to land at this top 10 most dangerous airport in the world.
On this day, the clouds were particularly heavy. When the wind blows from the east, it creates a blanket of clouds over the Rock of Gibraltar. This is called the "Levanter" or in Spanish el Levante, which loosely means to rise. The sun comes up from the east, so when the wind blows from that direction its termed Levante. See https://twitter.com/MeteoGib for more information about weather at Gibraltar. Check out these awesome videos of the cloud formations at Gibraltar: https://bit.ly/CloudsoverGibraltarwithMusic
Being up about 800 feet above sea level is quite mesmerizing especially looking out over the mountainous coast of Southern Spain. This is what The Rock of Gibraltar looked like on this particular day I went out for plane spotting at Gibraltar Airport.
It's amazing to watch easyJet and British Airways landing at Gibraltar Airport. These planes are only here for an hour before they depart Gibraltar Airport. As you can see in the video at the top of the page, I was up in this cloud watching this plane landing at Gibraltar Airport.
You can see the clouds and moisture droplets passing by me as I'm filming this A320 flown by easyJet landing at Gibraltar Airport. It's amazing to watch the road crossing the airport full of people and cars, only minutes later to be closed to allow this plane to land at Gibraltar Airport. This is a major reason why this is a dangerous airport.
In the video easyJet flight 8901 comes in for landing at Gibraltar Airport, as it flies over the Bay of Algeciras or the Bay of Gibraltar (people use both names for it, depends who you ask). The plane has a limited area to touchdown, and if it misses this point, it must abort the landing and attempt to do a go around.
After landing at Gibraltar Airport, this easyJet flight from London Gatwick to Gibraltar taxis to the terminal where the passengers unload, and quickly reload to depart Gibraltar Airport within an hour. There is not much margin for time error or safety at the airport. On a very very rare occasion will a flight have to stay overnight at Gibraltar.
This was a particularly fun day being up in the clouds at Gibraltar watching planes landing and departing from one of the worlds most dangerous airports. I think it is safe to say there are very few airports that compare to Gibraltar International airport. I mean where else in the world can you be eye level with a plane landing at 800 feet above sea level.
That's why for me, Gibraltar Airport is so cool and so unique as Europes most dangerous airport and one of the world's top 10 most dangerous airports.
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