![]() ![]() ![]() Jet blast and wingtip vortices at Maho routinely upends people and sends their belongings skittering into the ocean. There happens to be a beach at the foot of the runway, but that’s the beachgoer’s concern, not ours.Īnd I don’t say that lightly. The altitudes, speeds and angles that we fly all are normal. The runway at SXM is short, but there’s nothing different or unusual about the approach to it. The Guardian writes that pilots are “forced to approach at low altitude.” I found an online article describing SXM as “one of the world’s most dangerous airports.” Another cites the “risky approach” that pilots make to the runway. Planes are described as “swooping in low,” or “low-flying,” or coming in at unusual angles. The media will often speak of the Maho Beach experience from the perspective of the airplane - and wrongly so. Procedurally, though, it was little different from landing anyplace else. My landing at SXM wasn’t the smoothest one, if I can be perfectly frank, which I partly blame on the excitement of flying there for the first time. I also got to watch the same 757 that I’d brought in, piloted by the outbound crew, take off to the roar and applause of onlookers. At Maho, pretty much any airplane gets your adrenaline going. I saw only smaller jets - a 737 and a couple of A320s. I didn’t get to see any of those during the 90 or so minutes I spent there. Charters from Europe are common too, using A330s, 787s, and other heavies. The A330 is significantly smaller, but still breathtaking when it’s close enough to scrape the top of your beach umbrella. KLM was flying the 747 into SXM for years, but recently switched to the Airbus A330. People tend to cluster whenever a plane is due - especially when it’s one of the widebodies coming in from Amsterdam or Paris. I was staying at the Sonesta, and they had a placard in the lobby listing the day’s flights. Only a dozen or so jets land each day, and the nearby hotels and bars post the arrival and departure times. There are better places to swim, but none with a view like this one. The water is turbid, and there’s an ugly, two-lane road at the top of the sand. It’s small, hemmed in between a pair of unattractive restaurants. The beach itself isn’t particularly pretty. Our hotel was just around the corner, and as soon as I could I changed into a swimsuit and a t-shirt, and headed over. It was fun being at the controls, but at heart, I didn’t want to be flying the plane. I landed a Boeing 757 there, coming in over Maho at about 2 p.m. Is it the sense of danger, maybe? Or just the sheer novelty of it? Whatever it is, I felt it this past summer, during my first-ever flight into SXM. How and why, exactly, are hard to understand. For anybody, the sights, sounds, and sensations of a jetliner screaming overhead at 150 miles-per-hour, nearly at arm’s reach, are somewhere between exhilarating and terrifying. Not that you need to be an airplane buff to enjoy it. Thus, planespotting at Maho beach is an experience unlike any other in commercial aviation. Unlike so many other scary-seeming airplane pictures you’ll come across, they are not retouched. Or this one, or this one, or any of hundreds of YouTube videos. For an idea of how close this is, you can check out any of a zillion online pics. As arriving planes cross the beach, they are less than a hundred feet overhead. And when I say “just off,” I mean only a few hundred feet from the landing threshold. Princess Juliana (SXM) is in the Dutch section, and Maho sits just off end of runway 10. IF YOU’VE SPENT any time on the internet, you’ve seen Maho Beach, the thin strip of sand and surf abutting Princess Juliana International Airport on the Caribbean island of St. ![]()
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