Here’s a video that any avgeek will appreciate.
In this post:
Wizz Air A321neo lands at Skiathos Airport
There are some airports that are famous with avgeeks, which regularly get plane spotters. Probably the most well known is Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten (SXM), where people love to stand on Maho Beach and have planes fly right over their heads.
Well, Skiathos Airport in Greece (JSI) is another airport famous for great plane spotting and low landings, and the latest video from the airport is going viral.
This video was filmed on Friday, August 5, 2022, and involves Wizz Air flight W68447 from Naples, Italy. The flight was operated by a brand new Airbus A321neo with the registration code HA-LZT. After a flight time of 1hr17min, you can see the plane’s very low landing below from several angles.
Why was the plane on such a low approach?
I’m posting about this because I’m an avgeek, and I love watching videos like this — I’ve watched this video over and over. I’m not trying to judge whether the pilots did the right or wrong thing, because I’m not qualified to do that.
For some background, though, Skiathos Airport is known for very low landings. The reason? The runway is “only” 5,341 feet long, so it’s definitely on the short side, especially given the generally challenging conditions in many parts of Greece, like consistently strong winds.
For pilots, the priority is to land as close to the “touchdown zone” (near the front of the runway) as safely possible, with minimal floating. After all, if you don’t touch down soon enough, a go around will be required.
This means that planes tend to have a lower approach path here than at other airports. Then you add in the fact that that there’s an area immediately underneath the approach course where people can plane spot, and that makes for some dramatic footage.
This is far from the first viral video from the airport. For example, check out the below video of an Air Italy Boeing 737-800 landing at Skiathos Airport around eight years ago.
The below 2019 British Airways Embraer E190 landing has a similar profile.
Bottom line
Skiathos Airport is essentially the European version of Sint Maarten Airport in terms of low landings and plane spotting. A video is going viral of a Wizz Air A321neo landing at the airport last week, seemingly just buzzing a few feet over the heads of those who were plane spotting.
Perhaps my biggest takeaway is that I’m surprised the area immediately underneath the runway hasn’t been closed to spectators, since at some point someone is going to get hurt (not from being hit by a plane, but rather from blast from the engines).
What do you make of this Wizz Air A321neo landing at Skiathos Airport?
They need to put up lights and barricades that come down during airplane approaches, controlled by the tower, just like train crossings, except larger with more space.
Saw this other day, wheels would have hit the top of a truck trailer,
Imagine rookie pilot on that approach?
Here's the Answer: Close the beach, 200' by 200' with rocks into water,
Extend the runway 200' onto former beach area. Is not that much $$
Build a tunnel under the roadway for auto, truck traffic,,,, lot of $$
This is how Ross Geller died but he was hit by a blimp. Taken from us too soon
It kills over 1 Americans every year
This makes Maho look JV. Yikes.
How is that not extremely dangerous? Could the turbines not suck people in that close?
I think the angle the aircraft approach probably is a factor in preventing you from becoming a minced meat.
That being said considering it is such a regular occurrence, to the tune of daily. I think it is more then vetted for safety by regulators
I think during landing there's no big risk because the engines are running at pretty low power. Would be interesting though what would happen in case of a last minute go around where they have to apply full power.
During landings the engines are actually at fairly high power due to the significantly increased drag from the flaps and slats being deployed to full or close to full. (The increased drag from flaps/slats is why one of the very early steps in a go-around is to retract them from full (or almost full) to a middle position.)