Rarely a traveler or tourist has not heard of the world’s most photographed Princess Juliana Airport, located on St. Martin Island in the Caribbean Islands. The airport is named after Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who visited here in 1944 while she was still a princess.
In fact, this airport belongs to the autonomy of the Netherlands with the name St. Maarten, which occupies part of the island of St. Martin (St. Martin), which sometimes causes a little confusion. That is, it is sort of like a Dutch airport, but located in a very remote self-governing autonomy.
If you haven’t figured out which airport we’re talking about, it’s the same airport where planes land almost on top of the heads of tourists vacationing on Maho Beach. On landing the planes whizzing by 10-20 meters above the ground for the amusement of tourists and aviation enthusiasts. Perhaps there is no other place in the world where fans of watching and photographing airliners can get such an experience and take stunning pictures. This is why this beach is known around the world as “Spotter’s Paradise” – amateur photographers who take pictures of airplanes.
In addition to being a very photographed place, this is also one of the most dangerous airports in the world, ranking among the ten most dangerous. The runway here is only 2,300 meters long, which is not long enough to accommodate large passenger airliners. Despite this, however, large planes, including the huge Boeing 747s (known as “Jumbos”), arrive at the airport, reversing their engines to the limit upon landing, each time risking to roll out of the runway and plummet into the sea. So that the touchdown point is as close as possible to the beginning of the runway, the planes are lowered as much as possible for the amusement and delight of the tourists.
But it is not only the landing that is dangerous here, but also the takeoff. In order to accelerate as much as possible for takeoff, because the pilots and passengers won’t have a second chance, the planes start accelerating very close to the beach. Giving full thrust of the engines, they just blow away gawkers on the beach jet into the water, along with deck chairs, things, and even rip air flow clothes. And most importantly, everyone loves it.