To get on the track to Everest, I flew from Kathmandu to the most dangerous airport in the world-Lukla, located in Khumbu mountain, Nepal, at an altitude of 2860 above sea level
We were waiting for twenty local Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
This plane of shortened take-off was designed specifically for expeditions to be used in difficult natural conditions.
... Lukla Airport is named after Tenzing Norgey and Edmund Hillary - the first climbing to the top of Everest. However, the evil irony of fate in 1975, the wife and daughter of Hillary himself died in a plane crash here...
The Lukla runway length is only 527 meters, and this is almost eight times less than the standard runway!
The airport located under a 12 % slope is also dangerous due to the harsh landscape that surrounds it:
On the one hand of the runway, a cliff is about seven hundred meters, on the other side of the runway.
A narrow gorge, which planes and permanent fog, are quite difficult conditions for maneuvers. If the plane entering the boarding house does not catch a boarding window with good visibility, it is simply doomed...
And, although local pilots are very highly qualified, the accident here is, unfortunately, a common thing.
