The Worlds Scariest Airport: Kai Tak

A narrow city street, apartment buildings towering above. Hundreds of people walking along the street. Suddenly, the ground starts shaking. A loud whizzing can be heard, then a giant plane passes above, only feet from the skyscrapers.

This was a regular day at the Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. Kai Tak airport operated as Hong Kong’s main airport from 1926 to 1998. But, it is famous for its nerve racking approaches. You see, most airports have the pilots line up with the runway very early before landing. But in Kai Tak, a large mountain range sat not far from the runway, causing planes to come in for landings perpendicular to the seaside airport. So, planes would have their auto-landings systems direct the plane to a certain hill within the city covered in a checkerboard patten. Once the pilots saw this hill, they would make a sharp turn to line up with the runway, only a couple hundred feet above one of the largest cities in the world.

These landings are made even scarier knowing that Hong Kong can receive a lot of rain, and during this heavy storms, pilots cannot see much of anything. Also, the end of the runway led directly into the ocean. These two problems caused an incident with China Airlines flight 605, when the plane was unable to stop on a slick runway, and slid into the ocean. There were no fatalities.

Despite how scary this airport was, many people were very fond on it. It was an excellent airport for watching planes, and aviaton fans would be able to see their favorite planes come in for landings. The airport also added a lot of buisness to the area.