Landing The Most Dangerous Runway In The World

Landing The Most Dangerous Runway In The World | World War Wings Videos

Bryce Plankow

Lukla Airport’s Runway Is Very Short, But There’s Something Else.

Welcome to Nepal’s Tenzing-Hillary Airport, known commonly as Lukla Airport. In 2010, the History Channel named this the most dangerous airport in the entire world. Now that’s saying something.

There are actually multiple factors contributing to the dangers of this airport, some of which we’ll mention here since they’re not included in this footage. For starters, the airport is located at an elevation of 9,334 ft and in a mountainous region, so frequent rain, fog and high winds drafting between valleys make landing and takeoff a nightmare.

This is the airport that Mount Everest climbers come in to in order to start their trek. As if climbing the world’s highest mountain wasn’t enough.

In addition to the above mentioned hazards, this runway is extremely short. 1,729 ft. long to be exact. Although all these factors are insane, the kicker here is that the runway ends with a 700 ft. drop.

If the departing plane doesn’t reach liftoff speed, there is nothing to stop it from going over. Reversely, on approach a plane has hit the hill because of cloud cover, so either way this is one tricky airstrip.

Throughout the years, there were a total of 10 incidents on the airstrip, a few of them fatal.

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