Why is Congonhas Airport dangerous?

(CNN) — When an airport was built on the mid-Atlantic island of St. Helena (above), it was initially dubbed the "world's most useless" airport. That's because wind shear on the cliffside runway initially made it dangerous to land.

Today the airport is up and running, but it's a category C, meaning that pilots have to be specially trained to land there. It's not the only one -- here are some of the most breathtaking (but also fear-inducing) airports around the world.

Madeira is notorious for bumpy landings -- which avgeeks love to watch.

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Those who go on vacation to Madeira know that the island is notorious for difficult landings -- and sometimes even no landings at all. The airport's proximity to high terrain means turbulence and wind shear -- sometimes severe -- on final approach. The runway finishes at the cliff edge on either side -- but thankfully it's a low one, with a road below it. Avgeeks are so fond of Madeira that the airport has built a platform beside the runway to watch pilots give it their best shot.

Flights to Leh are only scheduled for the mornings.

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The 23rd highest airport in the world doesn't sound too high... until you realize Leh airport sits at 10,682 feet above sea level. Surrounded by mountains, with a short runway, it's beset by strong winds in the afternoon, meaning flights are restricted to mornings only. Widebody and heavy planes are not allowed, and all pilots landing here receive special training.

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Beachgoers get a fantastic view of planes landing at Sint Maarten.

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You don't have to be an avgeek to have watched videos of planes landing at Sint Maarten -- social media is full of footage of jets landing at the Caribbean airport. That's because the runway backs straight onto a beach, meaning that planes come in to land right overhead. Although it seems fun, it's dangerous stuff -- in 2017, a woman was killed by a jet engine blast as she was hanging onto the airport fence with other swimsuit-clad tourists. For those on board, taking off is slightly more scary than landing -- since you head straight for the mountain rearing up behind the airport.

Planes can only land during the day at Paro.

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Cantilevered 7,364 feet above sea level, Paro is Bhutan's only international airport -- yet few pilots are cleared to land there, so tricky is the approach. Landings are only allowed in good visibility conditions (for starters, daylight) because there's no radar, so planes must make a manual approach. They must also weave between hills and over houses before curving onto the runway.

Planes dip around Canary Wharf before landing sharply at London City.

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Flying right over a capital city to land is an unusual feeling these days, but descending into London City you'll swoop around the City of London's skyscrapers, bank around Canary Wharf, and land at such a steep angle there's the feeling of being in a helicopter. Taking off is equally invigorating.

Planes skim over the DC skyline when landing at Ronald Reagan airport.

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In June 2021, when a Frontier Airlines plane skidded off the runway at DC's Ronald Reagan airport, one passenger described it as a "little bit scary." But you don't have to be involved in an incident to get the creeps here -- the sharp turn planes make near the Potomac River to line up with the runway, and the dodging of no-fly zones across the city, make this a tricky one for pilots.

Landing at Innsbruck is tougher than it seems to passengers.

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Hugged by mountains, the capital of Tyrol is a top skiing destination -- and a magnificent flight in. Or rather, the views are. The challenge for pilots is magnificent in a different way. Planes must dip over a nearly 8,000-foot peak, deal with wind shear gusting off the mountains, and, depending on the direction of the wind, may even need to bank sharply to maneuver into position to land in the valley.

Congonhas sits right in the middle of São Paulo.

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São Paulo's domestic airport used to have a problem with drainage -- one so serious that it caused a fatal accident in 2007. Following that, the runway was resurfaced to correct the problem, but landing here can still feel quite hairy. Just a few miles from downtown -- which in São Paulo means it's still in the middle of the city -- the single runway, which debuted in the 1930s, is surrounded by urban sprawl, meaning you'll be flying over apartment blocks and rooftops right till the last moment.

With its short runway and a perilous drop at the end, Lukla is notorious.

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Mountains, wind shear and a short runway -- Lukla has it all. Often called the world's most dangerous airport, the gateway to Everest, in the mountains of Nepal, has its runway laid out on a cliffside between mountains -- just 1,729 feet of it -- dropping straight into an abyss at the end. To help planes slow down, it's even slanted upwards. There's no scope for goarounds, either -- if a plane is on final descent, it needs to land. Still, the mountain views are incredible on the way down.

St. Helena airport made headlines when it was discovered that wind shear in its clifftop location made it difficult for planes to land.

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You'll likely be in for a bumpy ride landing at St. Helena. Wind shear paired with a cliffside airport mean the planes are given a good buffeting as they come in to land. Fix your eyes on the views of the Longwood plain, where Napoleon was exiled, and of tiny capital Jamestown, built into a canyon crack with a single harbor. Originally only planned for small aircraft, the runway was extended to accommodate a 757.

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World news

James Sturcke and agencies

Wed 18 Jul 2007 15.58 BST

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Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport is notorious among pilots for its short runway and tricky approach.

South America's busiest airport, which mostly caters for domestic flights, is located in a heavily built up part of the sprawling city.

Passengers looking out the windows of aircraft preparing to land at Congonhas get the sensation of being barely above the high-rise flats that line the final approach.

"It was a tragedy foretold, an accident in waiting," Sandra Assali, the president of the Brazilian association of friends and relatives of air crash victims, told Reuters.

Last night's crash occurred when an Airbus A320 arriving from Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, tried to land in dark, wet conditions. Early suspicions are that the plane skidded on the runway before careering through the perimeter fence, crossing a busy road and bursting into flames by a petrol station and cargo warehouse where people were working.

The 1.2 mile-long Runway 35 has been repeatedly criticised for its short length. Two planes slipped off it in rainy weather on Monday, though no one was injured in either incident.

The airstrip was recently resurfaced but not grooved, which would provide better braking in wet conditions. There were plans to groove the surface by the end of this month.

Because of its short length, Congonhas is known among pilots as the "aircraft carrier". They are instructed to abort their landing if they fail to touch down in the first 305 metres of runway.

A federal court in February briefly banned takeoffs and landings of three types of large jet at the airport because of safety concerns. But an appeals court overruled the ban, saying safety concerns were overstated and the restrictions had severe economic ramifications.

However, the rain and the length of the runway should not be immediately blamed for the crash, said the president of the Flight Safety Foundation in the US, William Voss.

He said the A320 model was were not covered under the judge's ban, and that the Tam jet was a relatively new model.

"So there are no red flags coming up, it sounds like a straightforward runway overrun," he said.

The single-aisle, twin-engine plane, delivered in 1998, had logged about 20,000 flight hours on some 9,300 flights, Airbus said. More than 3,000 planes from the A320 family had been produced and delivered over the years, the company said.

In 1996, a Tam airlines Fokker 100 crashed shortly after taking off from Congonhas airport. The crash killed all 96 people on board and three on the ground.

Last September, a Gol airlines Boeing 737 and an executive jet collided over the Amazon rainforest, killing 154 people in what was then the country's deadliest air disaster.

A congressional inquiry is investigating aviation security and accusations that directors at the national airports authority took bribes.

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