Couldn’t Wait to Get to the Beach?

Countless sailors have visited St. Barth, our favorite island. Every last one has been entertained by the follies of airplanes trying to land at the tiny airport. The deal is that pilots have to clear a ridge along which runs the island’s main road, then slam their plane down before they run out of runway and risk plowing into all the topless women on the shores of Baie St. Jean. The problem is compounded by the fact they have to land against strong and gusty tradewinds. The only thing that’s worse is when there are no tradewinds, because then pilots have to do a ‘do or die’ landing from the opposite direction, which means there is a big hill at the end of the runway.

People always say it’s a miracle there aren’t plane crashes. Well, there are plane crashes. More than people like to talk about. A commercial flight a few years back with 19 passengers — including a woman from the Bay Area — crashed short of the ridge killing everyone. That, however, wasn’t a runway issue, as one engine stalled on the twin engine plane. For some reason the pilot wasn’t able to counter the torque and lost control.

Most problems at the St. Barth airport are planes overshooting the end of the runway. This happens a number of times a year. Ju-Ju, who splits his time between Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and Le Select in St. Barth, just sent us the accompany YouTube video of a plane overshooting the runway. It’s funny because nobody was hurt. It’s educational because it demonstrates why you want to obey the signs that warn you not to linger on the beach at the end of the runway. Not that anybody pays any attention to them.