The airports where a pilot needs a special licence just to land

There is a short list of airports where an airline is not allowed to send just any captain. In the United States the rule is written into federal law: a pilot may not command a flight into an airport the FAA has designated as "special" unless they have landed there in the past twelve months or trained for it with approved pictures and video. Outside America the list is unofficial but everyone in aviation knows it. Bhutan's only international airport lets in a handful of its own airline's pilots, in daylight, by eye, with no radar. Nepal's Lukla has a runway shorter than some aircraft carriers, tilted at 12 per cent, with a mountain at the end.

The rule that makes an airport "special"

The US regulation is plain about why the list exists. The FAA "may determine that certain airports (due to items such as surrounding terrain, obstructions, or complex approach or departure procedures) are special airports requiring special airport qualifications". No airline may use a pilot as captain into one of them unless, in the last twelve calendar months, that pilot or the first officer has flown in and out of it, or the captain has qualified "by using pictorial means acceptable to the Administrator". In practice that means a briefing package of photographs, charts and video, studied before the flight, and it is why some regional airlines keep a small group of captains for one mountain town.

The American ones

Two of the best-known are in ski country and one is in Alaska. Telluride, Colorado, sits at 9,078 feet on a mesa with a thousand-foot drop to the San Miguel River at the end of the runway, and terrain above 14,000 feet around it; it is the highest US airfield with scheduled passenger flights. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at 6,451 feet, is the only commercial airport in the country inside a national park, Grand Teton, with a single 6,300-foot runway that keeps anything bigger than a 757 away. Juneau, Alaska, is on the same list for the same reason: mountains on the approach, weather that closes in fast, and one way in.

Paro, where the runway appears at the last moment

Bhutan's Paro sits in a valley at 7,364 feet with mountains up to 18,000 feet on both sides. There is no radar and no instrument landing system, so every arrival is flown by hand in daylight and good visibility, following a series of landmarks down the valley. The runway is only in view for the final seconds. Drukair, the national carrier, has around 35 pilots, and only a handful are certified to land there; the Bhutan Civil Aviation Authority's policy is that only properly trained and experienced captains may. Radio New Zealand has reported the number of qualified pilots worldwide at around fifty. The airline itself objects to the "world's most dangerous airport" label, and with reason: it has never had an accident there.

Lukla, the airport that starts the Everest trek

Tenzing-Hillary Airport at Lukla is the one on this list most of our own travellers fly into. It sits at 9,334 feet, higher than Paro, with a runway of 527 metres that climbs at 12 per cent toward a hillside. Aircraft land uphill and take off downhill, and a go-around on final approach is, in the words of one aviation analysis, "physically impossible but may be done under dire need". Everything operates under visual flight rules, which is why a cloudy morning cancels the day and why the schedule in peak season runs from Ramechhap rather than Kathmandu. Our Lukla flights guide explains that shift and what to do about it.

Courchevel and Saba, the two Europeans and Americans argue about

Courchevel Altiport in the French Alps has a 537-metre runway with an 18.6 per cent gradient, steeper than Lukla, and no go-around procedure because of the terrain. Saba, in the Dutch Caribbean, has the shortest commercial runway in the world at 400 metres, with cliffs at both ends; only small propeller aircraft such as the Twin Otter use it, under waivers from the civil aviation authority, and it is closed to jets. Neither is on the FAA's list, because the FAA's list only governs US airlines. Both are on every pilot's.

For a trekker, the point is not fear. It is respect for a system that has flown climbers into the Everest region for more than half a century by keeping the rules strict. If you want to see what a 12 per cent runway looks like from the seat of a Twin Otter, the Everest Base Camp trek begins with exactly that landing.

Sources: 14 CFR 121.445, Pilot in command airport qualification: special areas and airports (eCFR); Simple Flying on Paro operations and Drukair; Airways Magazine on Paro and Lukla approaches; Wikipedia entries for Telluride Regional Airport, Jackson Hole Airport, Courchevel Altiport and Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (Saba).

Cover photo: Calistemon via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Section photos: Harsh Suthar via Pexels (Pexels licence); Malcolm Garret via Pexels (Pexels licence); Sarah O'Shea via Pexels (Pexels licence); Anil Sharma via Pexels (Pexels licence); Asad Photo Maldives via Pexels (Pexels licence).