Spectacular Approaches

Scott Durga writes: "The picture on the left was taken by Ludovic Aubert, Imapress/Globe Photo. It was published in Life magazine. The location where the picture was taken is Simpson Bay, St. Martin a Dutch and French island. The island is so tiny that its Juliana International Airport abuts one of the famed Caribbean beaches." The hotel in the background at St. Martin is the Maho Beach Hotel. I have stayed there for some extended layovers. The first Air France approach that you show may well have been one of two separate approaches by the same pilot in which the rear main trucks took out a four foot high chainlink fence (there is no blast fence) at the approach end. This is a fence that locals and tourists like to hang on to when jumbos rev-up for takeoff (I imagine that it gets a little warm). Fortunately nobody was standing there or at least managed to getout of the way for the two Air France approaches. The runway is somewhat small for the jumbos. Rumor has it that the Air France captain was fired after the second fence killing. The last time that I was there the (1992?) you could easily see the new section of chainlink fence that was replaced