Rumble: The river Nile, a darned good place to land a plane

In The Road's Ebook short story "Italians, the Art of Flying and the Laws of Probability", I quoted an anecdote by a friend describing how a pilot once mistook the river Nile near Khartoum for the runway, and landed the plane onto, err.. INto the river.

Just by coincidence I came across pictures of this incident. According to airliners.net, it happened on Sept 10 1982. The plane was a Sudan Air 707 purchased from Air Lingus (ST-AIM - cn 19410/599). The pilot mistook the moonlit river for the nearby runway.


Soon after this accident, staff of Sudan Airways tried to remove the company's titles and logos but could not get any closer to the tail. While the plane rested on a sandbank on the river, locals stripped it bare within days after the accident.


More posts on the road about flying, aircraft and airports.

Data and pictures courtesy airliners.net, Chris Wells and Linze Folkeringa

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News: Czech car crash rivals the Dubai record

Thirty people were injured in a massive car chain collision accident on the D1 motorway between Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic yesterday. The crash involving 116 cars, left thousands blocked in the tailbacks along the motorway in a snowstorm.

It was was a record car jam for the Czech Republic, but it did not come close to the sad record the UAE set a couple of days ago, which involved 227 cars.

Update: The World Health Organisation says every year 1,2-million people die in road accidents, making it the seventh-biggest killer in the world, ahead of diabetes and malaria. (Full)

Picture courtesy Reuters

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News: Dubai the Biggest. Also in Road Accidents.

Three people were killed and 277 injured in the United Arab Emirates yesterday when a total of 227 cars and 12 buses collided. The police blamed reckless driving and a thick fog to cause what is now said to be the world's largest traffic pile-up. The accident happened during peak rush hour on the main Dubai-Abu Dhabi road. (full)

Recent figures released by the Ministry of Interior show that there were 6,813 accidents on UAE roads in 2007, resulting in 10,526 injuries (about one per hour) and 1,050 deaths (almost three a day). The 2007 casualties went up by 18% compared to 2006. (full)

The UAE is said to have the world's highest fatal accident rate. I lived in Dubai for five years. Two of my friends died in car accidents during that period. Due to reckless driving of someone else. I never had an accident, but dozens of near misses.

More posts on Dubai.

Update: The World Health Organisation says every year 1,2-million people die in road accidents, making it the seventh-biggest killer in the world, ahead of diabetes and malaria. (Full)

Pictures courtesy AP and Reuters

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Rumble: The World's 10 Most Dangerous Landing Strips

Landing at Rome's Fiumicino airport tonight, I wondered how on earth pilots succeed in landing a plane if their top technology does not even allow them to keep the lights from flickering on and off in the passenger area. I thought about my last weekend's post on the near-crash at Hamburg's airport (picture above). That post spurred quite some reactions from frequent travellers.

Well, if you are in fear of flying, don't visit Top 10 Most Dangerous Aircraft Landings in the World. This site describes and shows videos from the world's most dangerous air strips, listed as:
Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong
Funchal Airport, Madeira (*)
Gustaf III Airport, St. Barts (*)
Courchevel Airport, France
Princess Juliana International Airport, Saint Maarten (*)
Wellington International Airport, New Zealand
Paro Airport, Bhutan (*)
Narsarsuaq Airport, Greenland
Saba Island Airport, Netherlands Antilles (*)
Lugano Airport, Switzerland (*)

Those indicated with (*) I have seen or landed at.

I would definitively add Tegucigalpa airport to this list:


I landed there at least ten times in three weeks, during the Hurricane Mitch emergency. I remember each time we approached, it seemed like we barely missed the top of the trees right before the final drop to the strip. Except for one time where it was raining that hard, we could not see a thing.

Talking about scary: try Kathmandu airport in a thunderstorm. On a PIA flight!

Or, now that we are talking about Nepal: how about Lukla? I remember so many passengers got sick on that flight, the vomit was running under the seats from the front to the back. Check out this video, and you will see why. A pity you can not feel the turbulence!


It amazes me not more accidents happen. And at the same time, I have the more admiration for the pilots.

PS: Oh, almost forgot to mention Mwanza airport in Tanzania. During an approach in 1996, I saw a sign "Beware of potholes on the landing strip". It was only AFTER landing I noticed all the wrecks besides the strip. I did not see those while landing, as I had my eyes closed. :-)

More stories about flying as an aidworker in the world's most remote locations in the short story Italians, the art of flying and the laws of probability.

Update: Sometimes it looks like some of the things I write about become reality. Within months after writing this post, a plane crashed in Tegucigalpa, and one crashed at Lukla airport.

Picture courtesy hamburg-airport-friends-forum.de

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