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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Most Difficult Airports to Land At. #1 Mangalore

Note that theabove is the correct airport, with the ravines. I hadn't noticed my reader's comment until 2 years later.



It is perhaps not in the best of taste to inaugerate this feature only a couple of days after the tragedy in which an Air India flight with 160 people aboard overshot a runway at Mangalore and fell into a gorge, with all but 7 people killed, but...

Apart from the human aspect, it was interesting to read about the Mangalore airport:

Mangaloreans knew that flying into and out of their city was always scary as the airport is on a hilltop with deep ravines only metres away from the runway.

Above are the two runways (taken in 2008) ...I can't distingush the ravines...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, You have the wrong airport. This photo is of Mangalore Australia not Mangalore India.

Unknown said...

No this is definitely Mangalore India. I am a Mangalorean and a frequent flyer. Both airports in Mangalore India (IXE) and Mangalore Australia (YMNG) have two runways. But the difference is that Mangalore Australia airport's both runways are asphalt whereas in Mangalore India, one runway is asphalt and the other is Concrete!
In this picture you will see there are two runways. A whitish runway is clearly visible. This is the recently constructed Concrete runway. (Note that concrete runways are whitish where as asphalt runways are blackish grey in color). You can see the second runway if you inspect the image closely. The second runway is a blackish grey asphalt runway and is a little shorter than the concrete one. Since this image is taken at an angle the asphalt runway is hard to spot. But if you look close enough you can see it intersecting the concrete runway in the upper half of the image. Both runways together form somewhat of An 'acute angle'. If you still couldn't spot it, than note that the concrete runway starts at the upper half of the image and comes towards the bottom right of the image; the asphalt runway starts at the same place but goes towards the left side of the image. Another reason why this is definitively Mangalore is because you can clearly see the valley (Depression in land) all around the runway, since Mangalore India is a tabletop runway. Mangalore Australia runway is on a plain land and has fields all around it.

Unknown said...

No this is definitely Mangalore India. I am a Mangalorean and a frequent flyer. Both airports in Mangalore India (IXE) and Mangalore Australia (YMNG) have two runways. But the difference is that Mangalore Australia airport's both runways are asphalt whereas in Mangalore India, one runway is asphalt and the other is Concrete!
In this picture you will see there are two runways. A whitish runway is clearly visible. This is the recently constructed Concrete runway. (Note that concrete runways are whitish where as asphalt runways are blackish grey in color). You can see the second runway if you inspect the image closely. The second runway is a blackish grey asphalt runway and is a little shorter than the concrete one. Since this image is taken at an angle the asphalt runway is hard to spot. But if you look close enough you can see it intersecting the concrete runway in the upper half of the image. Both runways together form somewhat of An 'acute angle'. If you still couldn't spot it, than note that the concrete runway starts at the upper half of the image and comes towards the bottom right of the image; the asphalt runway starts at the same place but goes towards the left side of the image. Another reason why this is definitively Mangalore is because you can clearly see the valley (Depression in land) all around the runway, since Mangalore India is a tabletop runway. Mangalore Australia runway is on a plain land and has fields all around it.

Unknown said...

No this is definitely Mangalore India. I am a Mangalorean and a frequent flyer. Both airports in Mangalore India (IXE) and Mangalore Australia (YMNG) have two runways. But the difference is that Mangalore Australia airport's both runways are asphalt whereas in Mangalore India, one runway is asphalt and the other is Concrete!
In this picture you will see there are two runways. A whitish runway is clearly visible. This is the recently constructed Concrete runway. (Note that concrete runways are whitish where as asphalt runways are blackish grey in color). You can see the second runway if you inspect the image closely. The second runway is a blackish grey asphalt runway and is a little shorter than the concrete one. Since this image is taken at an angle the asphalt runway is hard to spot. But if you look close enough you can see it intersecting the concrete runway in the upper half of the image. Both runways together form somewhat of An 'acute angle'. If you still couldn't spot it, than note that the concrete runway starts at the upper half of the image and comes towards the bottom right of the image; the asphalt runway starts at the same place but goes towards the left side of the image. Another reason why this is definitively Mangalore is because you can clearly see the valley (Depression in land) all around the runway, since Mangalore India is a tabletop runway. Mangalore Australia runway is on a plain land and has fields all around it.