The World’s Most Dangerous Airport

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Ama Dablam, Khumbu region, Lukla, Nepal, world's most dangerous airport

Back to the archives … in 2012, I traveled to Nepal on my own to meet a small group of trekkers for several weeks of hiking in the Khumbu region.

I rose in Kathmandu today at 4:15 am in order to leave at 5 for our flight to Lukla’s Tenzing-Hillary Airport, a tiny landing strip at 9200 feet in the Nepal Himalaya. I had been filled with trepidation about this flight. It is by far the fastest way into the Khumbu region, where we would begin our trek to Ama Dablam base camp, but look up Lukla Airport and every header you’ll see says something like “world’s most dangerous/most extreme/scariest/pick-your-frightening-superlative-adjective airport.” And like a gawker at an accident scene, I had not been able to resist watching video after video to prepare (terrify?) myself before the flight.

Our group was quiet, although a few decided a little morbid humor might help stave off our nervousness. Our guide, Stéphane, demonstratively crossed himself, while fellow hiker Ellen took a photo as we were bussed to our plane, noting that at least someone would find the camera with the black box and see our group photo.

After a hectic free-for-all in the small, domestic Kathmandu airport, we drove onto the tarmac where two shiny Yeti Airlines planes were being washed and polished. Between them sat a decrepit Tara Airlines prop plane, with filthy windows, dented metal on the tail wing, and grime and cobwebs all over the struts and wings. No, no, say it ain’t so … but yes, this was where our duffel bags seemed to be heading. My heart sank as I looked longingly at the Yeti planes on either side.

We filed into the 15-seat plane and sat with our packs on our laps and our bodies touching our seatmates. The seats were threadbare, just metal supports covered in a thin, ratty fabric. I perked up when the lone flight attendant came around with a little basket, but it was, disappointingly, just filled with cotton balls for our ears and a hard candy to suck on when the pressure of takeoff and landing grew strong.

Takeoff was uneventful (except for a little spinning on a patch of ice – yikes) and the 35-minute ride was pretty and smooth. Near the end, we passed precariously close to the ground at a pass (75 feet of clearance, estimated by Rick, a doctor in the group who is also a pilot) and to mountains on both sides of us as we slipped into a ring of peaks.

Suddenly, the sun was gone and we felt ourselves descending. As we dropped, we saw our 1700-ft-long, 65-ft-wide runway appear; the runway starts at the edge of a cliff and ends at a mountain face – clearly no maneuverability for a go-around or an aborted landing!

Rick said later we needed to come in quickly at about a 45-degree angle in order to hit the front end of the runway. Right before we touched down, the stall alarm sounded as the pilot deliberately killed the engine. We slowed as we braked and coasted up the 12.5 % incline of the ramped runway, a necessity in order to stop the plane before it hits the fence and mountain face at the far end.

In minutes, we were off the plane, in an outdoor Arrivals area where we met our local guide. We also learned and saw later that most planes unload and reload in anywhere from 90 seconds to 4 minutes, then they are back in the air for the return flight.

This flight sounds scarier than it is, and the pilots are really pros. We gathered our wits and our belongings, walked a few minutes to our Lukla lodge, and had a hearty celebratory breakfast before the real adventure began.

(See A Sense of the World for more notes on this trek.)

 

Facing Fears

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Conquering fear, Lukla, travel dangers, world's most dangerous airport

I am not a total chicken, but I don’t consider myself the bravest person around either. (Some people in my family might, possibly, even argue I’m a bit of a worrier, maybe.) Travel has presented me with some good challenges, and there have definitely been times I was not at all sure I was up for them. The existence of this post means I have somehow survived all these real and perceived dangers, but the memory of a few of them can still make my hair stand on end years later.

When it comes to nerves on the road, it doesn’t have to be bungee jumping or whitewater rafting to produce a good adrenaline rush sometimes; believe me, I’ve frozen up before my share of foreign subway ticket machines while my train is leaving the station, and it can be daunting just trying to get directions or pump gas in a country where I can’t even read the alphabet!

But danger to life and limb is a different story. The first time I remember really feeling physically shaky was on a zip line in Costa Rica. The zipping itself was a blast, and standing on the platforms between zips was manageable, but there were three platforms from which we had to rappel instead of glide. The idea of that backward step D-O-W-N (that’s 140 feet down!) and the initial drop freaked me out; I was not at all sure using my hand as a brake was really going to slow me down and I pictured quite a splat at the bottom when it didn’t work. It did.

Tight spots and closed-in spaces are another great fear inducer for me. I once got talked into going down into some cenotes in the Yucatan peninsula and swimming down an underground river; to this day, the thought of being in that watery underground cavern makes me shiver. Likewise, crawling through stone tunnels – twice – in Peru made my blood pound as I tried to inch forward, feeling both my back and stomach scraping rock and knowing all too well that I could never turn around if I had to. Just the thought of being closed in gives me nightmares, and being in these claustrophobic situations in real life made me feel sick. I was sure I would be the first person to become paralyzed or trapped inside all those dark tunnels. I wasn’t.

Scary vehicle stories abound in my travels and many others’. From the bouncing, out-of-control rickshaw in Lhasa traffic, to the bus careening around mountain curves in the Balkans, to the Athenian driver who … well, ALL the Athenian drivers … , traveling under someone else’s control can be quite frightening. By far the greatest example of transportation trepidation was a flight from Kathmandu into Lukla, Nepal – the gateway to the hiking trail to Everest.

In the weeks before traveling, I watched way too many Youtube videos of this harrowing flight and by the time I boarded the aging, cramped prop plane, I was terrified out of my mind. For once, everyone on board shared my nervousness and a few morbid jokes took the edge off for the first few minutes. Both take-off and the flight into the Himalaya were smooth enough, but the landing was a big gulp. Trying to hit a 1700-foot long, 65-foot wide runway that starts at the edge of a cliff and slants uphill toward a mountain face at the other end, the pilot deliberately cuts the engine just before touchdown (stall alarm screaming) and slams on the brakes to mercifully end the flight. Before the trip, I had recurring visions of dying on this landing just as a planeload of passengers had a few weeks before. Luckily, I didn’t.

Heights and narrow ledges are another test of my mental strength. I know I am sure-footed and rarely worry that I will misstep, so my fear here is not always a physical one. No, I’m afraid that others will slip and either bump me or make me watch their own flailing deathfalls. On a narrow trail in New Zealand’s Dart River area, with a huge ravine on one side, I was petrified watching my son walk in (what I perceived to be) a careless way through the woods. I kept picturing him tripping and falling off but, of course, he didn’t. At Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, I did question my own footwork and had the additional fear that one of the heavy chains I was grasping to stay on the ledges might suddenly pull out of the rock. Somehow, it stayed intact this one more time!

If I had to pick my poison? Well, I think I’d take heights and rickety ledges and scary vehicles over anything cramped or subterranean. An avid spelunker or diver I will never be. I’d rather fall off a cliff than get stuck deep in the sea or an extended passageway underground. Just reading articles – heck, just typing these words – about cavers trapped in rain-filled tunnels or deep-sea divers whose ropes get tangled on coral makes me sweat and breathe faster.

Fording fast rivers in Chile. Exiting a chaotic airport in the middle of the night in Kathmandu. Eating a singed guinea pig in Peru. They’ve all required a gut check of some kind or another, but I’ve made it through all of them and learned a little about needless worrying, maybe. “Always do what you are afraid to do,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’m trying to take him up on that challenge as often as possible.